Marketing to Teens with Promotional Products

With their disposable incomes and ability to influence the latest trends, teens have a lot of buying power in today’s market. In fact, federal statistics state that teens in the United States spend billions of dollars each year, mostly on consumer goods including food, games and apparel. With such an incredible amount of money at stake, companies do not want to miss out on the opportunity to engage youth buyers. Studies show that the best way to market to teens is to encourage them to interact with the brand in question, whether that be through social media, online games and/or promotional products giveaways. By reading this article, you will learn how to effectively customize promotional products for teens and incorporate them into your next marketing campaign. 

According to statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services National Center for Health Statistics, there are currently 80 million people ages 10-28. These people, known as Generation Y, surpass Baby Boomers and members of Generation X. Despite their large numbers, this market segmentation is often hard to target. Traditional advertising is no longer effective, as the members of Gen Y have a vast array of media outlets from which to choose. In fact, studies show that almost 100 percent of teens today own personal computers and cell phones, many of which allow users to access the Internet. With so much information at their fingertips, there does not seem to be a brand or trend that goes unnoticed. And, young people often use more than one piece of equipment at the same time. This constant need to multi-task reveals the short attention span of teens and proves how important it is to implement interactive marketing campaigns, including the distribution of promotional products.

Apparel, toys and games, and electronics are the three categories of promotional products that work best for attracting interest from teens. Toys, games and electronics are fun, interactive means of entertainment, while custom apparel allows the recipient to display the latest trends. When teens judge t-shirts, hats or other wearable promotional products as cool or fashionable, they will wear it constantly; this effectively serves as a walking billboard for your brand. All three types of promotional products encourage teens to interact with your brand while subtly incorporating your company name and logo into the background.

Color and imprinting techniques are also important factors to consider when selecting promotional products for teens. As many famous logos demonstrate, bright colors attract the attention of young consumers. You may want to choose one signature color to represent your brand and to maintain clarity in the minds of consumers. In general, the four-color process, screen-printing and embroidery methods work best for creating brightly colored promotional products.

Color is a great way to initially grab teens’ attention, but as previously mentioned, teens have short attention spans. In order to hold their interests for as long as possible, you may want to utilize social media along with your promotional products. You can print a domain name onto the items that you distribute in order to drive traffic to your web site. Update the web site frequently with daily crossword puzzles and other interactive games and of course, product information and a place to buy products online.

Marketing to teens applies to almost all businesses, regardless of whether or not teens are the intended audience and end-user of your company. In today’s world, kids are increasingly vocal and exert power over family decisions starting almost as soon as they can verbalize their opinions. In fact, studies by Research International shows that the youth market influences almost 70 percent of all purchases made by adults. By targeting teens, you are essentially gaining authority with their parents. If teens think your brand is cool, they will beg their parents to buy your product or use your service. And, using promotional products to engage youth with your company gives you a competitive advantage over other businesses that market directly to adults.

In essence, distributing promotional products to teens is an effective means of advertising your brand in any industry and for all promotional purposes.