Bennett Gold LLP Earns Mention In Toronto Life Magazine, April 2005.

Marketing on the Web for Kids: Targeting the Teenage Market

These articles are dedicated to examining how proven business principles and techniques are modified to grow and enhance commerce on the Internet. This time we look at target marketing by focusing on a segment that is often neglected in the world of e-commerce: the teenager.

Before establishing your e-commerce business capability, chances are you've spent considerable time, effort and expense in making sure that your Web site fits with your overall strategic and marketing goals.

You've also probably made sure that your Web site includes eye-catching and inventive ways to offer a full range of products while best using Web technologies.

Some of your attention has also been focused on addressing issues such as establishing a safe and secure business site (See the article, "Eeek! Commerce"), responding to the swaying tides of Web legislation and ensuring Web site profitability.

Finally, with all this groundwork completed, you launch your Web site. And, to make it easy for your potential clients, you, like over 90% of Web-merchants, rely on purchases with credit cards. Unfortunately, once you've done this, you've instantly cut yourself out of a huge and untapped market: teenagers.

Is marketing on the Web for kids worthwhile for business?

While today's teenagers do not have credit cards, this does not mean that they have little influence in purchasing behaviour for the short or long-term. But, under-estimating teenagers' "buying power" has long been a hobby of the "know-it-all generation" and could spell disaster for many businesses just now making their foray onto the Web.

Across Internet studies the findings are consistent:

1) teens are getting on the Internet at a younger age every year; and

2) the more time teens spend on the Internet, the more likely they are to purchase on the Internet.

Also, teens are the largest and fastest growing demographic segment in North America and worldwide. The conclusion is clear: the combined purchasing power of teenagers will, in a few short years, completely change the e-commerce landscape. New names not yet in the mainstream will replace recognized brands and the way the Web is used will evolve dramatically.

The lesson: focus today on how to market for this crucial market segment. Build brand recognition now for this segment or risk being swept aside.

Is marketing on the Web for kids different than for other segments?

"I like to be able to scan the person so that I know who I am speaking with".

"I don't use the Internet for research, but more for keeping in touch with friends". "Sure, I'd buy stuff off the Web, if I could".

So says Victoria, a 13-year-old girl from a small community in Ontario when she describes how she and her friends use the Web. At the same time, she highlights something very critical: teenagers do not use the Web like adults.

Case-in-point: the priority message service called ICQ. Ask Victoria what this service provides, and she says that it allows her to "fly around the net and e-speak to lots of friends at the same time".

View this service for yourself and find that it provides members the ability to have their customized application window open at all times, ready for immediately exchanging email and chat. For Victoria and her friends, the key element is knowing that you can talk to a series of friends simultaneously while doing different Internet activities. From a business perspective, we might conclude that an application that is ubiquitous - always on the desktop - provides expanded opportunities for advertising.

This is only one example of how today's Internet applications are being driven by the unique demands of teenagers.

The lesson: while adults use the Internet for research or entertainment, teenagers use the Web as a place to socialize and meet with one another.

Don't assume that teenagers are just like everyone else. Further, it is important to realize that the group "teenagers" consists of many smaller segments, each with different usage patterns and different comfort with, and expectations of, Internet technologies.

Is marketing on the Web for kids' possible?

Bill Gates donates several millions of dollars each year to making sure that children and teenagers across the largest free market in the world have access to personal computers. This philanthropy is also good marketing. Today's curious teenagers are tomorrow's best customers and the shapers of demand and profitability. Microsoft knows that marketing for tomorrow begins right now. The lesson: market for teenagers immediately! This will mean considering new payment methods and conducting research into this highly disparate market.

This article asks the question "Is marketing on the Web for kids worthwhile, different, possible?" But given the opportunity and urgency, the question becomes "How are you currently serving/planning to serve this market that will likely define your business successes in the next three to seven years?"

Only by devoting time and resources to understanding this segment, can your business build the dexterity to respond to and anticipate changes in segments that are critical for your short and long-term success.

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