Call me Mr. Obvious here, but I had an interesting experience at my coffeehouse recently.
Cashing in a frequent buyer’s card for a free, highly-caffeinated beverage, my barista encouraged me to sign up for information on future promotions and events.
She told me to write down my cell phone or, if I was willing, my email.
This struck me as odd. Personally I’d hand over an email address before I’d give over my cell phone number. My barista noted that most customers don’t consider a quick text (a temporary message passing through their phone) to be as intrusive as an e-mail (a permanent, official message clogging up their inbox).
This makes sense. But it also shows the digital immigrant in me.
Media Post reinforces this, noting “52% of Millennials strongly appreciate communication via cell phone or text message and 55% said the same about social networking sites. This compares with the General Population at 38% and 39%, respectively.”
Bottom line is that yesterday’s approaches are working less effectively today and they aren’t going to work at all tomorrow.
they’re already into texting uploaded by Kendrya
In the UK and Europe text messaging has been big for a lot longer than it has in the USA, but there is still no way I would hand over my mobile number - I only have one. On the other hand I have multiple email addresses for different purposes, one of which is signing up to receive rubbish. I'm happy to do it and do actually check that account for bargains, vouchers, offers etc.
Posted by: Stuart Bruce | 08/27/2009 at 09:28 AM
I'm just outside Gen Y, too, as I'm also more comfortable giving out my e-mail address than my phone number. Dead-on post, Kevin!
Posted by: Bryan Person | 08/27/2009 at 10:38 AM
Stuart and Bryan - Good to know I'm not the only one immersed in this, but still feeling "old school." Cheers!
Posted by: Kevin Dugan | 08/27/2009 at 09:59 PM
Hi Kevin
Not at all doubting what you're saying, but it's not gelling with my real-world experience. I've talked to a people young and old about mobile phone marketing (solicited and unsolicited) and not even "natives" really like advertising on their phones. The common response is that it buzzes in your pocket and forces you to check it, then there's disappointment when it's not a personal message from a friend.
We're all very good now at flying through our email inboxes, sorting the good from the bad, the things we want to read from the stuff that can go straight to the trash. You don't get that luxury with the phone.
I'd say rather than "52% of Millennials strongly appreciate communication via cell phone or text message" it would be about 5% of the ones I've talked to, if the "communication" in the statistic is marketing. The figure seems way off. I wonder what the question they asked in their survey was.
=) Marc
Posted by: CreativeSpark | 08/28/2009 at 12:40 AM
I would be much less inclined to give out my cell phone number and traceable data. An email gives away very little personal information and is far less intrusive. You can immediately delete an email or ignore it, but a phone call or text you are going to see for sure.
Posted by: goldflop rakeback | 09/14/2009 at 12:40 PM
I would definitely be more willing to give out my email than my cell number in a heartbeat.
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Posted by: leigh kruger | 10/08/2009 at 09:31 AM
From my experience, SMS is way more intrusive - you are forced to look at it right away, while dealing with spam is something that you do only when checking the email, which is nearly not as often as using the phone.
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