Today’s youth are the next generation of loyal customers. Those with jobs tend to have fewer financial responsibilities and more disposable income than older generations. To sell to them, it’s important to speak their language.

This year’s scholarship contest ^[1] included a survey asking teens about the social networks and technology they use to communicate daily. How do they consume media and connect with their friends? The more you know about the next generation of consumers, the more effectively you can reach them with your online campaigns.

^[2]

You can share this image and post with others at http://www.aweber.com/blog/email-marketing/teens-communicate-infographic. You can copy and paste the HTML below to embed the image on your blog or website.

<p><a title="How American Teens Communicate" href="http://www.aweber.com/blog/email-marketing/teens-communicate-infographic"><img src="http://www.aweber.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Teens_infographic1.jpg" /></a></p><p><em>Data and infographic by AWeber <a title="Email Marketing" href="http://www.aweber.com">Email Marketing</a></em></p>

Please note: as the survey was part of a web-based scholarship application, the teens responding were be college-bound and Internet-savvy enough to come across the scholarship.

So What Does This Mean For My Marketing?

There are a few big takeaways from our survey:

Younger Generations are hyper-connected to social media.

That’s certainly not surprising! Connect with them on multiple networks to get the most mileage from your online marketing.

Timing doesn’t matter as much as you think.

Whatever time of the day ^[3] you send your message, teens are likely to see it in their inbox by then end of the day – the most popular time for checking email. When they’re out with their friends, teens are more likely to use social networks than any other tool. Reach them in real-time by taking a multi-channel marketing approach.

Facebook and email are neck-and-neck in popularity.

Facebook is popular, but it only beats email by a thin margin. So social networks aren’t killing email as dramatically as you might think.

But it’s still important to engage younger generations in more than one channel. If you’re interacting with them strictly through email, you’re missing opportunities to connect with them throughout the rest of the day.

Finally, today’s younger generations expect innovation.

Nearly half of our essay submissions mentioned replacing a missing social network or technology with another existing one, or just waiting for someone else to create something better.

This generation lives in a world of evolving technology and expects that evolution to continue. To captivate them with your marketing message, keep your ideas fresh and creative. This is the perfect demographic to take risks with your marketing tactics.

Do these findings influence your future marketing plans? How do you plan to reach the future generation of customers?