Business is Waking Up to Boomer Market
We're blogging this week from Washington, D.C., site of the Fifth Annual Boomer Business Summit, which is a pre-conference for the 2008 Aging in America Conference. The energy here is positive and enthusiasm for the Boomer market is very high. Yahoo, Verizon, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, American Express, Southwest Airlines...these are some of the big names who are here as sponsors. There are even more not-so-big companies who are serious about serving the Boomer market. It's great to see, since it hasn't always been this way.
A few years ago, Boomer Media Properties struggled to find companies who would sponsor our TV series aimed at viewers over age 49. We attended the 2005 Boomer Business Summit, where true believers and thought leaders were still trying to convince business that a Boomer market actually existed. Now it seems that marketers realize that people over 50 are online, buy cell phones, travel and need career, wellness and financial advice. In three short years, awareness has been raised and sponsors are after Boomers in a big way.
Several workshops here have focused on new media marketing and social networking. Since Boomers represent about 40% of Internet users, businesses are going online to reach them. Founders of BlogHer reported on a recent survey of U.S. women online. 90% reported that they read blogs and find them a reliable source of information. The reason Boomer women read blogs and post their thoughts? To "express myself, have fun and find people like me." Those are the same reasons people in their 20's and 30's get involved with online communities...no big surprise.
But if Boomers are spending more time reading Blogs and joining social networks like Eons, TeeBeeDee and Facebook, what are they not doing? Online community-building takes time away from other media...according to BlogHer, these Boomers spend less time with the newspaper and watch less television. As with relationships in the real world, building a "virtual" community takes time and effort.
A few years ago, Boomer Media Properties struggled to find companies who would sponsor our TV series aimed at viewers over age 49. We attended the 2005 Boomer Business Summit, where true believers and thought leaders were still trying to convince business that a Boomer market actually existed. Now it seems that marketers realize that people over 50 are online, buy cell phones, travel and need career, wellness and financial advice. In three short years, awareness has been raised and sponsors are after Boomers in a big way.
Several workshops here have focused on new media marketing and social networking. Since Boomers represent about 40% of Internet users, businesses are going online to reach them. Founders of BlogHer reported on a recent survey of U.S. women online. 90% reported that they read blogs and find them a reliable source of information. The reason Boomer women read blogs and post their thoughts? To "express myself, have fun and find people like me." Those are the same reasons people in their 20's and 30's get involved with online communities...no big surprise.
But if Boomers are spending more time reading Blogs and joining social networks like Eons, TeeBeeDee and Facebook, what are they not doing? Online community-building takes time away from other media...according to BlogHer, these Boomers spend less time with the newspaper and watch less television. As with relationships in the real world, building a "virtual" community takes time and effort.
posted at 9:31 PM
4 Comments:
Thank you so much for your post at the Summit. As we speak I am writing the final chapter of a book which focuses on recreation programming and marketing -- so it is nice to live virutally through you! As a young Boomer I can give you another answer to your question, what are we NOT doing (besides abandoning traditional media? Sleeping! This access to compelling on-demad information, 24hours a day is so addictive that I find myself reverting back to the sleep habits I thought I gave up in college.
Thanks for the news on the boomer marketing conference. It's interesting that 40 percent of Internet users are boomers.
I write a blog for boomer consumers called The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com.
Here's an interesting article found on the 'Let Life In' website/blog www.LetLifein.com
What Do You Know? We’re A Demographic!
By Gary geyer &Linda Meyers
Well, it has finally happened. Those advertising people on Madison Avenue have realized that those of us over 50 are worth talking to.
We are on their radar. Now that we are a demographic, they have to re-think how they market their products.
If you haven’t noticed, most advertising you see in magazines and on TV seems to be aimed at younger people. Speaking for myself, most of the time I don’t get it. I will tell you one thing, all that stuff sure isn’t aimed at me. Or anyone else I know that’s my age. Are they interested in my business, or what?
According to the census they just did, about 25% of us are 50 or older. Mostly, we are more content and more comfortable financially, then the rest of the population. (That’s nice to know.) We feel we are better off now than our parents were when they were our age.
It’s no surprise that they are not going to lump everybody over 50 together. When advertising to us, they have realized that we are actually several different markets and we all have different needs.
Some of us are the baby boomers. Others are a little older, but not yet seniors. All those older than that middle group are considered seniors. Okay? Some of us are married; some are single, divorced, or widowed. Some work full time, some part time, and some of us are retired. Some have children that still live at home, while others never had children. Some are grandparents. We are of all different education levels and have significant income differences.
Almost half of us exercise regularly. Many of us take vigorous walks, do gardening and play golf. We eat in restaurants and we stay in hotels when we travel. We like going for drives, cooking, and shopping. We go to the movies, we shop and, maybe not as often as we used to, we make love.
As a segment of the population, we are called “mature adults”. And, I am sure you will agree, none of us like likes to be called old.
By 2025, all of us over fifty will number 115 million. Hard to believe, but we are the most affluent age group. We own more than seventy-five percent of the money in the country. And get this. We spend more than one-trillion dollars a year on things that we want. As I am sure you know, there are more things in our lives than Depends and Efferdent.
A lot of us don’t have the patience we used to. Maybe that’s why we expect better customer service than the rest of the population.
Boomers: The boomers amongst us will always be Boomers. Boomers do things their own way. They like to stay active and physically fit. They will go kicking and screaming into old age. One should never refer to them as “seniors”. It gets them crazy. You have to talk to boomers as if they were still 30 or 40.
Boomer Women: As if we didn’t know, boomer women are a potent force. They are responsible for 80% of the decisions having to do with free time. They are the boss on family issues and anything concerning the children, our health, and the house.
In between Boomers and Seniors: Many of us in this group are recently retired. We are coming off our peak earning years and are the wealthiest of the mature group. We spend a lot on travel, and recreation in general. And since we are such loving grandparents, we also spend more for quality clothes and toys for our grandchildren than the children’s parents do. We haven’t quite gotten that, for the most part, we are on fixed incomes, so we still spend big- time.
Seniors: Most of us in this group grew up in The Depression. Maybe that’s why we have such a strong work ethic. Unfortunately, we are also the group that has the least money. So we “make do”. We like personal attention whenever possible. And most of all, we like being treated with respect.
At long last, It’s good to be a demographic!
The advertising people finally realize that our mature market is a growing market. They are slowly but surely seeing we are active consumers and we like to try new things. They like the fact that we have the bucks to spend, and I am sure they are anxious to tap into that. Why, that’s the American way.
All I have to say is, “It’s about time”. <<
Hi there, my company publishes Inside Mexico, www.insidemex.com, which is the most widely distributed English language publication in Mexico. Most of our readers are, of course, Baby Boomers who have elected to retire in Mexico. The current full and part-time English speaking population here in Mexico is currently estimated at as high as 2 million. By some estimates, in the next twenty years, as many as 10 million Americans and Canadians may be living in Mexico full or part-time.
"Los Baby Boomers" have become quite a desirable target group here in Mexico, and there are scores of Mexican companies such as the bank Bancomer now setting up units especially to deal with their needs.
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