A Moving Target

As we go through different life stages, our needs change. This is from Mediapost:

As They Age, So Do Their Motivations for Going Online

I'd met the requirements for my major, but I still needed two credits to get my undergraduate degree. While there weren't many two-credit classed offered in the summer, I found one: "Introduction to the Internet."

Yes, I believed it would be important to learn about the Internet, but I had another motivation for learning to create Web pages, use email and Instant Messenger. I lived in California, I had a girlfriend in Texas, and I was a poor college student. Every extra cent I had was going to buy stamps to send letters and pay for long-distance phone calls -- since a cell phone was out of my financial grasp as well.

My initial motivation for going online was simple. I did it for a girl. I welcomed the opportunity to communicate long-distance, in real-time, for free.

But my motivations for using the Internet have changed since then. Now, I use it for everything from work to shopping and paying bills to staying in touch with old friends.

Earlier this year, I wrote "The Fluid Nature of Gen Y's Media Habits," which looked at how media habits change as Gen Y consumers move through different life stages. I've since conducted new research (to be published next month) that looks at how the motivations fueling online activity change over time.

Shopping (22%) and looking for deals (20%)

While women are more likely than men to be motivated to go online to shop and find deals, there are dramatic changes that occur over time.

Shopping is a driver for 19% of female high school students, while searching out deals is a much lower priority (only 4% indicate this is a primary driver). Once women enter college, searching for deals in the form or coupons, discounts, and freebies increases in importance, becoming a primary motivator for 27% of female college students to go online. Finding deals is an even higher motivation for women who don't complete college (39%).

Men are less likely than women to be driven online to shop or search for deals in their high school and college years. However, this changes substantially as they enter the workforce. Armed with disposable income, finding deals online becomes a primary motivation for 50% of Gen Y male college graduates to go online.

• Application: Women are likely to start looking for deals when they enter college (e.g., maintaining a wardrobe on a budget), while men are more likely to start looking when they get out of college (e.g., they finally have money for techno-gadgets). Target deals to consumers as they enter these new life-stages.

Socializing with online friends (27%) and communicating with friends and family (55%)

Communicating with friends and family is the most common motivator for females to go online regardless of their life stage. Not so for the maintenance of "online friendships," which is a motivator for 42% of female high schoolers to go online compared to only 24% of female college students.

For men, socializing with online friends and communicating with friends and family becomes less prominent motivators as they age. For example, 59% of male high school students say communicating with friends and family is a primary reason for going online compared to only 28% of male college graduates who consider this a top motivation.

The importance of maintaining "online friendships" also decreases for men as the move from high school to college. However, after graduating college, the importance of maintaining online relationships surges as they shift their attention to building business contacts and keeping up with business trends.

• Application: As Gen Y ages, women narrow their sphere of online communication while men change their sphere of online communication. Social networks of friends and family are more likely to have an influence on women, while business networks are more likely to have an influence on men.

Hunting for information (20%)

Some consumers are much more interested in getting information online than in interacting with others online. On average, Gen Y men are more likely to fit into this group, but this is because high school age females (7%) and women who don't graduate from college (18%) are unlikely to fit in this group.

In contrast, 18% of high school males consider themselves information consumers, and this trend increases steadily regardless of whether they attend college or not. 36% of men graduating from college and moving only professional careers are motivated to go online in order to "consume information." Only professional women with college degrees are more likely to go online primarily to find information (41%).

• Application: Men's quest for data increases as they age. For women, this quest is more likely to depend on their level of education. If your audience is college-educated women, providing valuable information should be a key part of your communication strategy. If your female audience hasn't attended college, you are much better off focusing on offering deals.

Earlier today, a friend told me, "It's much less important to look at a person's finger than where the finger is pointing." In short, it's not about what, but why. We are just scratching the surface, and we will be looking at even more motivators in the days ahead. I'm convinced that understanding why people go online, and how that changes over time, will open up many new and exciting opportunities.

Morgan Stewart is Principal, Marketing Research & Education Group, at ExactTarget, a provider of on-demand email and one-to-one marketing solutions. Follow him at twitter.com/mostew. Reach him here.

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