Students Use Email for More Than Just Social Networking
A number of recent studies have reported that the use of email to reach college students is a dying marketing channel because the students are primarily using email to sign up for email alerts from sites such as CollegeRecruiter.com and to sign up with social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.
Our targeted email product is our biggest product by revenue so this is an area that we know a lot about. We've long questioned the validity of these studies as we've seen no drop-off in the response rate to the employment-related emails that we deliver to candidates who opt-in to receive the emails. A new study by eROI supports our experience and refutes the theory that students only use email for alerts and to register with social networking sites.
The eROI study finds that:
- Only about 36 percent of students use email alerts to keep up to date on what's happening on their social networks;
- About one-quarter of students originally got an email address for social networking purposes;
- One-quarter got an email address for the ability to buy online;
- 81 percent got an email address for communicating with family; and
- 52 percent got an email address for communicating with friends.
So how do college students use their email addresses? Pretty much like Gen X and Baby Boomers: so they can register at web sites, buy stuff on-line, and communicate with others.
Tip of the Hat: Art Koff at RetiredBrains.com for bringing the eROI study to my attention.
Leave a comment