Ask HN: How do you reach women 18-25?

#1

Post by anon87 » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 3:11 AM UTC

We're currently building apps that might be interesting for this demographic group. What (online) locations would you recommend us to go and promote to that age group?

Facebook? Ads or posting links in Groups? MySpace? How/Where? Boards? Which ones? Social News Sites? - Which ones? Blogs? Other Ideas?

Re: Ask HN: How do you reach women 18-25?

#2

Post by asnyder » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 3:29 AM UTC

If you're serious about targeting this demographic then Hacker News might not be the best place to get your answer. If you're spending significant amount of time and resources in this demographic you should already know this information about them. If you don't know where they go for information, or what sites would be good promoting partners, how can you be sure that your application is interesting to this demographic?

If however, your application has a different target demographic and you simply wish to test the waters with this group then sites such as TMZ (and other gossip related rags) is your best bet, IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reach women 18-25?

#3

Post by CoreyLoose » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 4:36 AM UTC

Just got the opinion of a real live 21 year old woman on this topic. She uses Facebook on a daily basis and is tech savvy enough to use Gmail filters intelligently and download torrents.

Here is the rundown of what she said: -Doesn't read online news/blogs -Clicked 5 or so Facebook adds lifetime -Watches a copious amount of online TV (Hulu etc.) -When looking for new services online she googles what she is looking for (budget manager, etc.)

If I was going to go about a marketing plan based just on this anecdotal evidence I'd say SEO is quite important, and perhaps getting some adds during online videos (how expensive is this?) would be good because she seemed very adverse to clicking on anything she didn't go looking for in the first place.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reach women 18-25?

#4

Post by Jem » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 9:58 AM UTC

Technically literate or not? If yes, I can give you some links to some areas where you could address these sorts of people directly and get some ideas from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reach women 18-25?

#5

Post by gstar » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 1:33 PM UTC

That's a very broad demographic - Can you slice finer? The responses you have already are spot on, but they apply to a lot of other demographics too.

If your app has a very broad market there's no point going after every 18-25/female because you can't afford to advertise to the whole demographic without some really really REALLY serious money. You'll need to "pierce the zeitgeist" with something that captures imaginations to get the word out.

Pierce the zeitgeist? I do sound like a wanker, but you would probably need to step up from typical "viral" marketing techniques. Don't go herding sheep with LEDs, step it up. How? No idea!

Re: Ask HN: How do you reach women 18-25?

#6

Post by srn » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 4:20 PM UTC

The general class of women 18-25 or tech savvy 18-25? And of what interest group? You give far too few details for anyone to be able to help you.