Email Marketing to Teens

Updated January 13, 2023

Email marketing to teens may not top your list for expanding your business. The stereotype is that teens and students are only texting or on Facebook, but in actuality email can be a great way to reach the youth market because 9 out of 10 teens have email and check it regularly.

2011 has proven to be a successful year for email marketers across all industries. Merkle, a Customer Relationship Marketing agency, surveyed 3,500+consumers. According to Rick Fleck, Digital Studies Group VP, email marketing is still the bedrock of consumer commercial relationships. For every dollar spent in email advertising, $40.56 was brought in. Not only is it a solid investment, but customers actually prefer it. Email is the preferred method of commercial communication by 74% of all online adults. So, email marketing should be in your toolkit to create new client relationships.

The simple fact is that teens have to check their emails. Between receiving emails from their schools or work, your ad or company update will definitely be seen, and most likely be read. Email is a much more direct way of reaching students than website advertising.

The most important part of email marketing is to target specific and relevant content. In order to turn the email recipient into a customer, your email needs to be within a field of their interests. As a student, if I get a discount for pet food or something unrelated to my interests, it will either be deleted at a glance or I will unsubscribe; thus severing any future communication between the business and myself.  In other words, make sure your email is timely and interesting.  To do this, you will have to narrow your company’s focus.

Email Marketing Tips for Teens

Here are some additional tips when email marketing to teens:

• Avoid the appearance of spam: make your email look organized, clean, and easy-to-read.
• Avoid money signs ($) in your email: focus on the benefits of your product to draw attention away from the costs of it.
• Don’t forget about the preview pane! Move the boring stuff to the bottom and put the interesting information towards the top.
• Emphasize with design, not exclamation points or symbols
• Out of respect for your viewers, create simple “unsubscribe” options that are effective immediately. To avoid unsubscriptions, do not send emails too frequently!

When sending emails to teens, what has worked for your business?