Even though college students may not like receiving advertisements on their mobile devices, there is no doubt that they are heavy mobile users. A huge chunk of the mobile social community is made up by those consumers in this very age group, with millions of social and gaming app downloads coming from college students. They are constantly hit with mobile advertising, but it is rare that they respond to these everyday display ads. However, there is one form of advertising that college students are responding to in heavy numbers, as it benefits them just as much as it benefits the advertisers, in a way. Of course, this advertising method comes in the form of deals and coupons, and being that college students generally do not have much money to begin with, when they see them they take advantage of them.
On Friday, eMarketer reported the results of a survey done in November of 2012 by Study Breaks and Campus2Careers, two websites committed to helping college students learn the news and get information on the career market. The survey asked 689 college students in the US about their mobile usage habits, and it stated that many college students search for deals on the mobile phones.
Of the respondents in this survey, a total of 90 percent of the respondents said that they do indeed look for deals, meaning that only 10 percent do not. Plus, of this 90 percent, a total of 51 percent turned out to be what eMarketer called “mobile deal aficionados.” This 51 percent is made up of 31 percent of college students that often check for deals, and another 20 percent that are constantly doing so at an addictive degree.
This brings to question how often college students are actually making purchases on their phones, considering the frequency with which they seek deals. According to the survey and eMarketer’s breakdown of the results, a total of 38 percent of college students said that they purchase on their phones at least monthly. Another 11 percent said they do so weekly and 3 percent said daily. With another 18 percent stating they purchase on mobile only once a year, that leaves 30 percent of college students that reported that they never shop on mobile.
Here is another interesting fact from the survey;
Additionally, college students are using mobile phones increasingly for classwork, a sign that the devices really have penetrated nearly every aspect of student life. Over half of respondents said they used their mobile phone for school-related tasks every day.
A lot of marketers are trying to reach college students, being that they land smack in the middle of most marketers’ target demographic as far as age goes. Therefore, from this survey it can be judged that the best place to reach college students is on their mobile devices, possibly through the use of mobile targeted deals. College students use phones for almost everything now, therefore marketers should not let that opportunity slip away from them.
