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Unless you are living on another planet, you can’t escape the recent onslaught of bad economic news, layoffs, stock market plunges, etc. It just starts to seep in — even if you haven’t been directly affected yet, you feel this ominous feeling in the pit of your stomach. I’ve noticed myself watching my pennies in ways I didn’t before. Looking more closely at receipts and giving that soy latte second thoughts. I was recently asked to offer some “youth marketing tips” for a trade magazine serving small businesses trying to reach teens. As I was coming up with them, it made me realize you don’t have to spend a fortune to reach this audience. I thought I would post them here, and ask my colleagues in this space to add some of your own “frugal” ideas on how to reach youth.

Tap into student media – while newspaper readership is on decline, teens and college students still read their school newspaper in print and online. By advertising there, you reach a captive audience and are supporting their efforts. You can also send HS newspaper editors stuff to review (even cheaper). Teens love getting freebies. Oh, and it’s “geotargeted,” too. I highly recommend ASNE’s high school journalism ad network for high school newspapers.

Campus rep programs – you may need an expert to help you get this set up, but a transparent WOM student rep program beats traditional advertising in my book. You again get to give youth freebies and/or employ some cash-strapped college students by giving them some extra spending money.

Opt-in text messaging – Teens love to text and they like getting notified about deals, sales and new stuff. As long as they sign up for it, this is a great way to keep in touch with young consumers. The more personalized the better. Do Something’s text to volunteer program is a great example of this.

Support causes or charities popular with youth – No brainer. Take an .org like Girls Inc. or 4H (both of whom have attended our conferences). They reach thousands of tweens and teens. Find a way to team up and support their efforts and raise awareness of your brand in the process. You can also support grassroots projects led by youth. Check out the pro-social projects vying for funding at Youth Venture and Best Buy’s @15 competition.

Try DIY Facebook and MySpace ads – I haven’t tried them, but at our last teen panel, one of the college students said he loves Facebook ads. Here’s the thing: Yes, you can launch a profile or a page and try to do something cool, amass friends and fans, etc. But you have to be ready for whatever organically happens there, i.e. negative feedback, comments, not enough fans, friends, etc. This is obviously the most frugal way to try to tap into social networking. But like Google AdWords, these newish programs on Facebook and MySpace may offer some targeted bang for very little buck.

Those are my frugal youth marketing ideas, what are yours?

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Categorized under: Youth Marketing

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