Trying to Reach High School or College Students? Don’t Email them

There are various studies out there that highlight the fact that high schoolers and college age students do not respond to marketing mail, and get most of their updates via social networking sites or texting.

Here’s one of those studies I though I’d share:

Today’s high-school and college students started using email at an average age of 13. Most have had an email address for 8 years and have about 2.4 email addresses each, yet 61% say they ‘never’ or ‘hardly ever’ read marketing emails, says a survey from eROI, MarketingCharts reports.

The research, which was designed to uncover how students communicate digitally and relate to email marketing messages, found that the majority of students do not feel companies are effectively speaking to them personally through email, and only 16% of students say they ‘frequently’ read the marketing emails they receive.

In addition to the majority of students not reading marketing emails, 66% of students similarly report rarely or never taking action after reading them.

One of the basic tenents of marketing is to outreach to your audience in the way in which they will most easily receive the message. If you sell prescription discount products, perhaps direct mail is still viable for you. But if you’re a youth nonprofit like 4-H, Youth Service America, or YMCA, you should make sure your marketing mix involves more social media outreach and text friendly marketing campaigns than a heavy mass email campaign.