The Business of Aging

Bankers Use Elder Care Programs to Service Boomer Clientele

The first line in this Wall Street Journal article titled Beyond Estate Planning: Bankers Tackle Elder Care    says it all:

"If you are looking for help caring for an older family member, you might try giving your banker a call."

Many private banks and trust companies are introducing services to help older clients (or parents of younger clients) sort out medical bills, hire in-home care or even manage the sale of a home. Sometimes the bank charges an additional fee for such services; in other cases, they are included in the asset-management or trust fees families already pay.

Banks, and the financial services sector in general, were pioneers in bringing work-life or family friendly benefits to employees in the 1980s. The reason? Demographics and Money. What else? Banks tend to employ large numbers of female employees and as record numbers of women re-entered the workforce in the 1980's banks were quick to realize the important role that child care benefits played in recruitment and retention.  

So it is not surprising that banks are the early adopters for elder care benefits. What is surprising is they are now using them not just to retain employees but customers - e.g., wealthy baby boomers! 

Smart move. Really smart move.

Some examples:

• Wells Fargo's private-bank Elder Services program provides help to older clients and their caregivers.
• Merrill Lynch's family-office group offers "Stand Ready", which helps clients organize all the details of their lives in case they suddenly become incapacitated.
• Bessemer Trust offers "health advisory" services.
• Northern Trust has beefed up its training in the family dynamics involved in long-distance caregiving.
• Broadspire Care Management, which contracts with bank trust departments and wealth-management firms to provide geriatric-care management, says it has seen referrals rise 10% to 12% a year for the past three years.

"This is not just a matter of revenue. This is a matter of developing an intimate, trusted relationship with the client," says Joseph Coughlin, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AgeLab.

Check out the article for more details.

Disruptive Demographics: The Future of Retirement

I've been spending time this morning on Disruptive Demographics,  an online publication providing insights on the convergence of global aging and technology on business innovation and public policy.

Disruptive Demographics draws upon original research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, business cases, cross-national data, developments in technology, and lifestyle trends to present new thinking about old age.

In particular I wanted to share two audio interviews with Joseph Coughlin on the subject of disruptive demographics and the future of retirement – best characterized by the baby boomer’s new expectations for old age.

The next generation of retirees are more likely to demand the opportunity to remain engaged, productive, and to have the flexibility to work, care, learn and play in old age. What opportunities for business innovation do these expectations create? What personal and public challenges are ahead?

Listen to these excellent interviews with Joseph Coughlin - really interesting stuff.

Part 1. An Introduction to Disruptive Demographics 
Part 2. Envisioning Retirement Tomorrow  

Day Three - Aging in America 2010 & Boomer Summit

Today was our final day of exhibiting. Tomorrow we spend the day at the Boomer Summit.  As a marketing firm in this marketplace, three powerful themes resonated from this year's ASA event. I'll focus the two of those themes the next two blog posts. These themes include:

1. As a company selling to seniors you will fail if you rely only on traditional marketing.
2. The concept of "retirement" is going through a transformation.

Many sessions, workshops and hallway discussions were about the issues facing society as populations age. This is the third theme I took away from this event. While I will not focus on this theme in these blog posts, all of us in this space - vendors included - must never lose sight that this is the core of what these events are really all about.

Let's first look at theme #1 - As a company selling to seniors you will fail if you rely only on traditional marketing. Three points I want to make here. First, you need to be allocating a significant part of your budget to non-traditional internet marketing - SEO, SEM, PPC, etc.  A good model to follow is from our sister company HRmarketer - The Lead Generation model.

We were talking to one vendor who said his company didn't really need to worry about online marketing because their customers - the aging demographic - would rather hold a physical brochure in their hands and would be unlikely to go online to get information.

OK.

These were some statistics released last year by Pew Internet & American Life Project - they will only increase as Boomer's age.

•  74 percent use the Internet
•  62 percent have broadband at home
•  72 percent use a cell phone
•  43 percent connect to the Internet wirelessly.
•  91 percent of boomers use search engines
•  78 percent search in health care
•  30 percent use online ratings
•  38 percent share video feeds
•  26 percent read blogs
•  17 percent share creations
•  16 percent have a social network profile
•  7 percent blog.

Maybe this company's CURRENT target market isn't online (even that is debatable) but they will be soon. And if you delay building your online visibility it will be too late.  Just ask Porters of Racine.

Secondly, the messaging you used in your marketing last decade will not work with aging Boomers. Old people playing checkers and smiling will not sell your assisted living community. Many thought leaders have written about this topic including most notably David Wolfe in his book Ageless Marketing: Strategies for Reaching the Hearts and Minds of the New Customer Majority.

Finally, your marketing must account for the fact that most of the products and services relating to the care of an aging individual will not be purchased by the individual. As a result, you must also build brand awareness with numerous purchase "influencers" including the children of aging parents, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, care managers, in-home care companies, etc., etc. etc. This what our SeniorCareMarketer product is all about.  Even employers and human resource departments  may be involved.  

My next blog post will focus on the second theme I took away from the ASA event - The concept of "retirement" is going through a transformation.

Using Elder Care Programs to Retain Employees

In the latest Talent Management magazine (a popular trade magazine for human resource professionals) there is an article titled Back to The Future.

Within this article there is a sidebar article on How to Retain Generations X and Y. Something many employers are concerned about considering these generations consistently boast the highest turnover rates in corporate America (staying on average 20 months per job).

What does this have to do with senior care?

A lot.

The writer, Sarah Sladek (CEO of Limelight Generations and author of a lot of books) lists some of the ways companies can retain these employees.

And high on the list is  "Elder Care programs" considering most Gen Xers and Yers will find themselves caring for aging loved ones if they are not already.

At HRmarketer.com, a sister product to SeniorCareMarketer.com, we work with a lot of companies who market elder care programs to employers and their products/services are in high demand these days. 

Companies that market senior care products/services need to really take a look at the employer channel as a possible market - but is a far different marketing and sales process than B2C (selling to Boomers). I will be speaking about this topic at the March What's Next in Boomer's Summit. If you are attending this event I would be delighted to speak with you about this market and help you determine if it is the right channel for your product/service.