If for some reason you have not, search no further.  You’re carrying it on your person.  That’s right, it’s that mobile device you can’t live without and it contains every young consumer you’ve ever dreamed about receiving and responding to your marketing messages.  Like a lot of marketers today, you might be lamenting the gap between your aging customer population (Baby Boomers and before) and the more than 135 million consumers represented by Generations X, Y and Z. 

As Baby Boomers begin reaching retirement and their spendable assets start to decline, financial services providers and other advertisers are fast learning what it takes to attract and hold the attention (aka profitability) of the up and coming younger generations.  And as you might expect, technology plays an increasingly important role in that process.  You’ve seen the statistics but just consider again that Gen Yers (ages 17-34) have an online adoption rate 14% higher than the rate for all banking customers and 30% have tried opening a checking account online in comparison to just 14% for Gen Xers (ages 35-45) and 12% for Baby Boomers (ages 57-65).  Not surprisingly, Gen Yers also have the highest uptake of smartphones and are most likely to use their mobile device to access the Internet.

And, of course, digital is the norm for Gen Zers (age 16 and younger) – they don’t know a world without mobiles or the Internet.  More than 80% access the Internet outside of home and 66% use mobile Internet at least monthly.

So as you continue to integrate mobile communications into your multichannel strategies, keep in mind the fountain of youth at your fingertips and the estimated $119 billion of worldwide goods and services bought via mobile phones that it will represent by 2015 (ABI Research).  And think about how you can use traditional direct marketing to drive interactions through mobile devices and online channels through the use of QR Codes and PURLs on your direct mail pieces and at point of sale. And be sure to look to SourceLink to help you gain your unfair share of the burgeoning mobile commerce (m-commerce) market.