The Business of Aging

Why Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore Baby Boomers

When it comes to marketing, the focus always seems to be on youth. According to Nielson, that's a mistake.

Born between the years 1946-1964, the oldest of the Boomers are beginning to retire. But today’s middle aged and older consumers are different than their predecessors.

Boomers spend 38.5% of CPG dollars. Yet, according to Nielson, less than 5% of advertising dollars are currently targeted towards adults 35-64 years old (which includes the latter half of Generation X in addition to Boomers).

With most marketers generally targeting 18-49 year olds, more than half of the affluent Boomer demographic is ignored entirely.

Nielsen facts about Boomers:

- Dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories
- Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day
- Comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users
- Time shift TV more than 18-24s (2:32 vs. 1:32)
- Are significantly more likely to own a DVD player
-  More likely to have 
broadband Internet access at home

And if you think that the web sites Boomers visit are entirely different than those visited by adults age 18-34, you’d be mistaken: 8 of the top 10 web sites are the same (see chart on this post).

Interesting.

Print Media Dying a Slow Death. Get Social and Get Online.

Erica Morris from PR Week wrote an article about a 2010 Media Survey they worked with CA Walker to conduct. Data is based on completed surveys from 268 media professionals and 285 PR professionals during January 11-19. Results were tested at a confidence level of 90%.

The findings were very interesting. A few findings stood out for me:

1. Growing importance (and acceptance) of pitching to journalists through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.
2. Half of surveyed journalists say that only 0-25% of pitches they receive are related to what they cover.
3. Nearly 40% of journalists say pitches incorporating multimedia and high res photos help them better understand a story.
4. 84% of journalists consider email the best way to receive pitches.
5. Nearly 60% of journalists expect a further decline in print circulation and growing importance on the Web and other online channels. A blog post I made yesterday on HRmarketer discussed how the S.F. Chronicle circulation dropped 22 percent in last year! While there are exceptions we are seeing a definite trend of dropping circulations amongst print media.  

My reaction to these points:

• Senior Care vendors must do a better job at connecting, following and using social media in their media relations. Our SeniorCareMarketer.com customers have plenty of tools available to facilitate this including our database of social networking account information for senior care and boomer media and our real-time feeds of their media tweets. But they are not being used to there maximum value by most vendors.
• Knowing journalists prefer email is a plus for companies using SeniorCareMarketer.com because they can send media releases to senior care and boomer journalists. But many vendors still do not engage in ongoing media relations. This is a missed opportunity. 
• Finally, the fact that 50% of journalists say that only 0-25% of pitches they receive are related to what they cover is shocking to me. Elrond Lawrence, one of our media relations experts at our sister product HRmarketer, wrote several articles on effective media relations - read them here. And SeniorCareMarketer.com customers should review the notes we compile for journalists before sending them news releases (e.g., what they cover, what they want, etc.).

The bottom line is that print media is dying a slow death as online visibility grows in importance. More and more data is confirming this fact. As a result, companies targeting seniors and boomers  must aggressively invest in social media, SEO, SEM and other tactics that result in online visibility, web site traffic and sales leads.

Here are some free resources from SeniorCareMarketer that discuss many of the above points.

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.

Opening Day - Aging in America 2010 & Boomer Summit

SeniorCareMarketer.com is at the annual Aging in America conference and Boomer Summit this week. We are exhibiting, sponsoring and speaking. I will try and give a daily update as time permits.  

As I have said before, any company that markets products or services relating to the aging population must be at these events.  They are two of the best.

This morning I participated in a panel discussion/workshop titled Entrepreneurship & New Career Opportunities within the Boomer Market. Other panel members included:

Mark Miller, President, 50+Digital, LLC
A.D. Frazier, COO/Co-founder, BOTH
Beth Sanders, Founder & CEO, LifeBio.com
Jeff Williams, President, Bizstarters.com LLC

This was a great session that provided a lot of practical information for anyone doing business in or thinking about doing business in the "senior care" marketplace.

Mark Miller did a fantastic job moderating this event and summarizing  the opportunities in this growing market.  Mark also reminder everyone that the 55+ demographic posts the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity.

Jeff Williams, an expert on starting a business after 50, says "In the corporate world, one person can fire you. But to be truly "unemployed" as a self-employed person all of your customers would have to "fire you", and I don't think most of us are so stupid as to let this happen." Jeff discussed how boomers who have been downsized will have to accept the new reality that they may never again be employed with another Fortune 500 company - and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. 

A.D. Frazier, the CEO of a very interesting start-up called BOTH (Back of the House) spoke about how his company can help any solo practitioner (the majority of businesses) get started (incorporating, business plans, web hosting, billing, etc.) by outsourcing all non revenue producing activities. I wish I new of BOTH when I started my business ten years ago!

Finally, Beth Sanders took us through the early days of her start-up, LifeBio. LifeBio simplifies the publishing process so that anyone can create their own book of life's adventures. Customers create an autobiography or the biography of a loved one by using LifeBio's carefully-crafted questions or by using our Memory Journal or other reminiscence products. Beth discussed how she created a scalable business by utilizing innovative distribution "partnerships" - something any business, regardless of size, can benefit from.   

 

SeniorCareMarketer.com Named Exclusive Online Marketing and PR Provider for Boomer Authority™ Association

Online marketing and PR service provider SeniorCareMarketer.com (SCM) has entered an exclusive partnership with Boomer Authority, the world’s leading association for professionals and companies targeting the 50+ baby boomer and beyond demographic. 

Under the agreement, SCM will make its online marketing and news distribution services available to the 1,000+ members of Boomer Authority. A direct response to America’s growing senior population, SCM combines a database of web-based marketing and public relations (PR) opportunities with press release distribution tools and SEO campaign management and measurement abilities.
 
“Our partnership with SCM places a comprehensive suite of marketing and PR tools at our members’ fingertips, helping them increase brand awareness, develop new business opportunities and generate incremental revenue,” said Martin Diano, CEO of Boomer Authority(TM).

Please read details here.

Some Thoughts on Boomers, their "Retirement" and the Companies That Market to Them.

I came across two interesting articles I wanted to share - and why the information is important to companies selling products and services relating to the aging population.

"The Census Bureau forecasts that the 65-and-over population will rise from 38.7 million in 2008 to 88.5 million by 2050 and that the 85-and-over slice will swell from 5.4 million to 19 million. The actual size of this "age wave," though, could reach tsunami proportions, if a December study from the healthcare policy journal Milbank Quarterly turns out to be prescient. It predicts an average American life span of 86 years for a man and 93 years for a woman by 2050—more than a decade longer than now—and a grand total of up to 108 million seniors."- Excerpt from January 25, 2010 U.S. News and World Report article.

The first, Why Baby Boomers Should Rethink Retirement, from U.S. News and World Report discusses how seniors today are living more independently, dying less from lengthy and debilitating bouts of cancer, and are happier than they were in the past (according to a 2008 University of Chicago study). The article goes into pretty good detail about the impacts of an aging - and active - population on the individual and society as well as the challenges it brings to public policy.

The second article, Economy Forces Changes in Thinking about Retirement, discusses the economy's impact on senior housing including smaller homes, increased emphasis on bike paths and walking trails (and decreased emphasis on greens and fairways), a shift away from traditional "warm weather" retirement destinations, and the types of design features the 55+ population wants in their homes.

Some lessons from these articles:

When it comes to marketing to an older demographic group, strategies that may have worked in the past will not work with aging boomers.  This is new territory for a lot of companies because historically people over the age of 50 have not been highly targeted by marketers because their spending power was minimal.  But as a group aging boomers will have double the spending power of today's 60-70 years olds, will not consider themselves "old", are affluent, and will live independent and active lifestyles well into their 70s and 80s and beyond if they are healthy.

All of these changes will have a dramatic impact on how company's market their products and services - all companies, as well as how employers recruit and retain older workers.

Educational Content. What Every Senior Care Vendor Needs. But Few Have It.

A lot of senior care providers are creating free profiles in our new senior care directory - and we invite you to do the same.  But unlike our sister directory for human resource vendors, few senior care providers have used this powerful directory to syndicate content (see how HR vendors do this) from their web site.

The reason is that most senior care vendors do not have useful content on their web site. Most sites are what we call brochureware.

These sites  provide basic information on the services the respective provider offers and some contact information but they don't engage visitors to their site (e.g., potential customers), don't give them a reason to return and certainly don't give them a reason to share their contact information such as signing up for a newsletter or a blog feed (what blog - most senior care vendors don't even have one).

There is no excuse for senior care providers not to be providing useful content for their site visitors.

In a related "people" industry, Human Resources, we find that HR buyers LOVE and need information! HR vendors who produce compelling non-promotional content to address the needs of HR professionals reap the rewards through increased sales leads, higher web site traffic and improved search engine rankings.

As great as the demand is for HR content, it is much greater for senior care. Consumers need information. This would explain the enormous popularity of sites like Caring.com. Assuming that people know the differences and all the nuances of assisted living, nursing homes and in-home care is a mistake. Most don't. In fact, assuming  the adult caregiver knows anything about their care needs is a mistake.  Most don't because unlike say preparing for a newborn, elder care needs often blindside us and we are initially clueless about what to do. I know I was.

Senior care providers who understand this and can create useful educational information for their buyers will reap the awards described earlier. 

Yet, too many senior care providers have web sites that look like this.

Here is a great example how senior care provider Home Instead uses content to educate caregivers.   And here is how one franchise in Fort Worth, Texas leveraged useful content in their marketing during the recent holidays.

Producing great content for your web site results in increased traffic, improved search engine rankings and more sales leads. And this content can be leveraged in ongoing marketing and PR activities. 

Content marketing includes white papers, webcasts, podcasts, articles, tip sheets, videos, etc. You want whole-brain content marketing messages that quickly engage and entice and motivate intellectually as well as emotionally - i.e., I want to know more.

What's the context of your marketing content? Are you targeting the right audience with the right content? Remember, your long-term marketing efforts are not one size fits all. Cold marketing may start out that way, but how you use other activities like social media to spark conversation with content definitely needs to be tailored to the audience.

Are you optimizing for your buyers' experience? Is it easy to download your content? Can they easily submit feedback? Can they easily have a conversation with you if they want to know more? Ensure that your landing pages include clear call-to-actions for what you want them to do and why the content is valuable to their organizations.

Regardless of what size you are or what stage of the business you're in, the lead generation tower is best built with content and conversation in context.

Companies that Ignore the Over-50 Set Do So at their Peril!

A great cover story article in Baron's titled Boomer Consumer discusses how companies that continue to ignore the over-50 set do so at their peril, as "boomer consumers" eat up a larger slice of the nation's spending pie.

I've blogged about this topic extensively the last twelve months (including related topics):

- Event Review: 2009 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit
 
- Staying Relevant With An Aging Population. An Elderhostel Case Study.

- Recession Turns a Graying Office Grayer

Key points from the Baron's article:

• Increasingly, the 77 million [aging boomers] are being ignored by advertisers and marketers.
• By 2015, when all the boomers will be 50-plus, folks aged 50 to 75 will account for 40% of adult consumers, up from 36.8% now. And they will boast the most spendable cash. Yet advertisers and marketers still seem to devote about 90% of their energy to wooing the 18-49 group, and 10% to those 50-plus.
• Does it make sense, after all, for NBC's suits to judge a new TV show like Jay Leno's mainly on its appeal to 18-to-49-year-olds, as some published reports say is the case? Leno's advertisers include companies such as BMW, many of whose buyers are 50 or older.
• But while the aging boomers certainly will be a bonanza to health-care outfits -- they already account for two-thirds of the spending on pharmaceuticals -- they will be anteing up a lot more for other things.
• The 50-plus set already accounts for 45% of all U.S. consumer spending and, Francese predicts, the figure could ultimately approach 50% by 2015.
• One myth is that older Americans are much more interested in shedding furniture and housewares than in buying them because most are empty-nesters. The reality: Older consumers account for more than 40% of the money spent on new household furnishings and equipment in the U.S.
• Bottom line: Older consumers will keep trudging off to Bed Bath & Beyond,  Target,  Wal-Mart Stores and Ikea for years.
• Boomerologist Martin partly blames ad agencies for what he views as 
  " He says a disproportionately large number of advertising copywriters, account managers and art directors are young. "Ask them to do an ad targeting the 50-plus demographic, and they default to a gray-haired senior limping down a beach trailed by an aging golden retriever," he adds.
• Take 1965 (see chart on this blog post) when the oldest boomers were turning 18, then jump to 1995, when the very oldest were turning 49. Over these three decades, the number of U.S. residents aged 18 to 49 soared from 78.6 million to 125.9 million. In the same period, the 50-to-75-year-old cohort, many of them a product of the birth dearth of the 1930s, rose far more slowly.

Great article Baron's.

Staying Relevent With An Aging Population. An Elderhostel Case Study.

The blog 50-Plus Marketing (from consulting firm 20plus30) had a great post this week titled Elderhostel makes a fascinating marketing case study.

It is about how Elderhostel, a travel and educational organization for older adults, is trying to reverse a decreasing enrollment trend that has led to the organization losing millions of dollars this past year.

One problem is the age of their average customer has risen to 73 from 68 over the last ten years. In other words, through attrition alone they are on a downward spiral as they are losing relevance to the market they desperately need to sell product to - older Americans. And ironically, this is the fastest growing, largest and wealthiest demographic in the US. 

Not good.

So what are they doing?

A lot but the three biggest changes are:

1. A name change. They are now Exploritas.
2. Their top line messaging is now "Educational Travel in the U.S.A." with a tagline of "Adventures in Lifelong Learning".
3. They removed their age restrictions. No longer do you have to be at least 60, now anyone 21 or older will be able to participate.

I hope it works but removing the age restriction is a huge gamble.

I am in my forties but I am quite familiar with Elderhostel because my mom was a loyal customer up until her death last year. She loved Elderhostel! It was basically an educational vacation where you went to nice destinations and learned something by taking courses. She had a blast and enjoyed meeting new people.

But I'm not sure she would have enjoyed hanging out with 20 somethings - or even forty somethings. And vice versa. So this is a risky marketing strategy. In fact, I was surprised to see on Exploritas web site that in the section "Browse by' my choices were:

• Location
• Interest
• Date
• Activity Level
• Catalog
• Map

But not "age".

Interesting.

Anyway, I do hope their marketing strategy works because they have a great product.

Just about every business in the US needs to pay attention to this "case study" because:

1. If you don't currently include older American's in your target market you need to. The aging population is the largest, wealthiest and fastest market segment in the US. You can't grow your business by ignoring this demographic.
2. If your target market is limited to "older American's (like  Elderhostel's was) you need to realize that today's older consumers make buying decisions far different than yesterdays older consumers. Continuing to market today like you did yesterday will lead you down the same path as what Elderhostel has experienced. I'm not saying you need to do a 180 degree turn like Elderhostel did and include all age groups in your target market but you do need to repackage your products, branding and marketing to remain relevant to the Boomer market.

And that is the marketing case study all businesses will face the next several decades.

Interesting stuff - and a challenge all marketer's should love and embrace.

Implications of an Aging Workforce: What Japan Can Teach Us.

An article from Japan Inc. titled The Silver Market Phenomenon discusses the aging and shrinking society and its huge implications for businesses in Japan. It is a great read and I'll summarize the key points fro  the article.

• While most accounts of the so-called demographic “problem” deal with the threats posed by declining numbers in terms of the shrinking workforce, the added welfare burden, social conflict and so on, the opportunities of this trend are often neglected - the emergence of new markets, the potential for innovation, the integration of older people into jobs and workplaces, the joy of active aging and varied roles within the society. 

• Being relatively well-off, aging Boomers are an attractive and promising yet underdeveloped in terms of product and service offerings. This means that workplaces need to be adapted to fit the needs of an aging workforce.

• Japan is the country most severely affected by this demographic shift and it is the most advanced in terms of product development and innovation. Japanese companies were among the first to react to the challenge of the demographic change and are constantly coming up with product as well as service innovations.Japan offers the opportunity to study the silver market phenomenon and learn from the successes and failures of Japanese pioneer firms. Examples include:

- NTT Docomo’s ‘Raku-Raku’ (Easy- Easy) phone, with its strong emphasis on usability.

- Supportive devices, such as the Robot Suit HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb). Developed by University of Tsukuba Professor Sankai, it helps elderly people to move their limbs as well as workers to carry heavy weights by wearing a cyborg- type robotic suit.

- The Japanese automotive industry is also busy developing cars for the elderly, placing an emphasis on safety and accessibility.

• Despite what you may read in the popular press and in “marketing to baby boomers” books, the silver market is by no means a homogenous market. Companies should resist the temptation of getting too carried away by people’s agesegment and the over-50 market covers a wide range of different customers and consumers with an equally diverse range of values, attitudes, needs and wants.

• Another aspect to consider is that the silver market is not necessarily restricted to the silver generation only and it is important to remember the powerful concepts of universal and ‘transgenerational’ design. The best products, services and solutions are often those that can be attractive to a variety of customers regardless of their age, physical condition or mental wellbeing. In other words, beware of ageism, think transgenerationally! One of the most prominent and successful examples of this is Nintendo’s game console ‘Wii’ which has helped Nintendo tap into the elderly marketplace.

• The ‘Silver Market Phenomenon’ will not only be an opportunity for business but also an opportunity for innovation and invention, creativity, learning and social response and responsibility. Japan could certainly serve as an interesting role model for the rest of the world.

In a related blog post on this subject, Aging In Place Technology Watch, Laurie M. Orlov had an interesting take on all of this in a post titled Why don't large vendors invest more in technology for seniors?