Thanks to technology and the accessibility of the internet, today's teenagers are more knowledgeable and connected than previous generations. When selling a product or service to this lucrative demographic, try not to think of them as "little adults," but instead develop strategies aimed directly at how teens think, act, and feel. Read on for our tips to help shape your next teen marketing campaign.
Tips on how to market to teens
Perform market research
The first step of any good campaign strategy is to conduct target market research to determine whether your product or service is a viable business idea. This means identifying who your ideal customer is, down to even the most minute details. It's not enough to just market to teens—you need to narrow your customer to gender, location, age, and interests. Does this young person have a job or disposable income? Do they want to be liked by their peers? Do they want to stand out? Do they want to fit in?
It's imperative to get inside the heads of those you've created this product or service for so you can effectively market to them. For example, if you're targeting a male teen with a high income in a suburban area, you may want to create an image that focuses on luxury and success. On the other hand, if you're targeting a male teen in an urban area who has little income, you may want to focus on value and instilling trust.
Once you have this knowledge, create an ideal client avatar that lays out precisely whom you are targeting. Then brainstorm marketing strategies that show how your teen customer will benefit from using your product or service. Once you've formulated your strategy, you can determine whether your product/service is truly a viable business idea.
You will also want to research whether there are similar products or services out there. Find out what problems they solve and where there is room for improvement. A competitive analysis can help you tweak your idea to fill in gaps where competitors fall short.
Understand teen pain points
When marketing your small business specifically to teenagers, it’s critical to know any pain points that make your product or service a must-have for teens. Carefully study teen influencers who have audiences similar to your target clients. Through them you should be able to develop a better understanding of the pain points your target audience has.
For example, let’s say you're an online clothing retailer. Visit social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter to see how teen influencers express their opinions about style and self-expression. See which common themes come up and how they relate to (and can be solved or soothed by) your product or service.
It's important, however, to go beyond just finding out what the pain points are. Go deeper to understand why certain issues matter, and what emotions, desires, fears, or insecurities may be underneath the surface. Even if a pain point doesn't directly relate to your product, speaking to these struggles publicly can help you connect with your teenage audience on an emotional level.
Test your way to a successful marketing campaign
A/B testing is an essential part of creating a successful marketing campaign as it ensures that the components of your campaign appeal to your target demographic. Once you identify what areas of your campaign resonate best with your target audience, tweak those portions of the campaign to make them even more effective. The more you test and make improvements, the better your chances are of seeing a positive return on your marketing investment.
A/B testing may take time, but it will ultimately help your campaign succeed. Don’t expect every campaign to work without modifications.
Be prepared to toss unsuccessful campaigns
Let’s say you’ve completed your A/B testing, made changes to your campaign, and it's still not succeeding. Should you continue the campaign? Probably not.
Don’t be afraid to scrap campaigns that aren’t giving you results. A campaign that hasn't been working doesn’t magically start working after a period of time. If a marketing campaign is not generating the results you want from your target audience, it may simply be time to move on.
Focus on analytics
Rather than relying on what you, as an adult, expect would work for this target demographic, turn to analytics to help you best target teens. Analytics will let you know which platforms teenagers use most frequently and which days they are more active, among other helpful insights.
It may be beneficial to have teens complete user surveys as well. Surveys allow you to gauge overall user experience and help you understand what's working—and not working—in terms of your marketing. It also will give you an insight into the minds of teens, which can be used when making future decisions on how to best market to them.
To create a survey that's optimized for teenagers, make sure it is mobile-friendly, short, and has multiple-choice questions. Also, consider reaching out teens via social media as you’ll likely have better success in procuring responses.
Create multiple campaigns for various ages and groups
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Though teens share a general age range, it's important to understand they are not necessarily a homogenous group and there are sectors within the demographic. Consider the vast difference between 13-year-olds and 18-year-olds—their interests, responsibilities, budgets, etc. If you can develop campaigns that are specific to age groups within the teen demographic, you’ll likely see a better response.
In addition, even if your product or service is directed toward teenagers, think about whether you should be targeting their parents as well. Will teens have the means to purchase your product/service without their parents' help or will they need their parents' permission?
Adjust your messaging based on the demographic
You can’t expect the same messaging to work for every teen in every city. Each region of the country has its own culture, language, verbiage, and trends. Be cognizant of these differences when launching campaigns in different parts of the country and be open to localizing your campaign in terms of messaging as well as visual components. Geotargeted social media posts, for example, are actually six times more successful than globally shared posts.
Target several social platforms
Don’t become too dependent on one ad provider or a single social media platform for your marketing. Use several networks simultaneously that can be easily switched out, depending on current trends, algorithms, or new platform features.
This is especially important as teens use many different platforms (Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) and use them in different ways, so using only one may not capture the entire teen audience you are looking for.
Reaching teens through smart marketing
In the end, be sure your product or service actually solves a problem. If it doesn’t have a clear purpose, even world-class marketing won’t help it succeed. Your business idea should speak to the pain points of teenagers and fill a void. If it doesn't, your message will lack authenticity, and your product or service won’t sell.
Focusing your marketing efforts and creating a business targeted to teenagers can be a challenge. It requires performing thorough market research, conducting analytics, and being willing to modify campaigns as trends constantly evolve. But your efforts will be well worth it when your brand receives the recognition it deserves.
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