Selling to Generation Y Online by Paul Ritchie - The Advertising Legend


by Paul Ritchie - Date: 2007-01-04 - Word Count: 567 Share This!

If you are involved in affiliate marketing or for a website that sells anything online, your world is changing at a rapid pace.

Only a few short years ago, marketing products online seemed to be the domain of scam artists and con men who all lived in Florida because of the lenient bankruptcy laws. My apologies to all of the successful entrepreneurs with integrity, who do live in Florida. My point is this, some time in the last few years the online world changed and this is now the domain of the organised professional who understands the demographic they are aiming to sell their products to. And, who also aims to sell a product of quality with back up service.

Generation Y consists of those born between 1980 - 1995 and are therefore aged between 13 - 27.

Let me explain who you are dealing with. Generation Y are a group that expect to start their financial lives much in the manner in which their parents finished theirs. In short, they are a little unrealistic.

Generation Y automatically expect a complete money back guarantee on anything they buy, so always offer at least a 30 day money back guarantee when dealing with these consumers.

Research undertaken by advertising agency Clemengers in 2005 shows a marked increase in spirituality in Generation Y. In 1978 just 26% of twenty-somethings surveyed said that religion was important to them but in 1995, the study showed that 40% were believers or at least interested in exploring religion.

So an online offer just pushing greed motives, without an ethical or personal growth message, will miss this target group and ensure that your site is never looked at again. Generation Y are also known as Generation "Why". They need straight forward facts and figures, so where you can hype Generation Xers with the promise of big bucks, you will have more success with Generation Y by simply sharing facts in black and white.

Make your site cool. If you are not, get website designers who are or Generation Y will shut you down without even reading about your products. To illustrate the power of cool, did you know that Apple were the sixth brand in the market place to introduce the MP3 player? Although it was breakthrough technology, it was originally very poorly marketed to Generation Y, then Apple launched the Ipod.

So funk up your website with a retro look, MP3 download, video streaming or a podcast link. Look for synergy, like Apple did with Ipod and their Itunes site.

If you can get Generation Y traffic to your site and they like what they find, they will not only buy from you, they will come back again and again, so link a blog to your site and then hook up your visitors to some interesting sites with links, not just about things with commercial value to you. Like www.bbcworld.com which is the best news service online.

Finally, remember to really engage and attract Generation Y. Use experimental tactics, be creative, read about and use Guerrilla and viral marketing, as these methods have proven very popular to engage and sell to Generation Y.

Visit my blog to read more about selling to Generation Y.

P.S Don't design it for them and market it at them - design it with them and market it through them. Blogs and forums to get feedback and using affiliates to shift product are perfect examples of this philosophy. In the affiliate marketing World.


Related Tags: money, affiliates, traffic, mp3, podcast, gecko, jfk, paul ritchie

Paul Ritchie specialises in Online Marketing and his knowledge will make you money Online. You can read more about how to sell to generation Y at http://www.TheGenerationGaps.blogspot.com Or how to advertise to them at http://www.adminder.blogspot.com

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