When marketers think about trying to target the senior demographic through advertising campaigns, many believe it’s all about using larger font sizes or including photos of older people in their campaign materials. But marketers ought to rethink their marketing strategy if they want to attract Baby Boomers. Here are the five best ways to market to the senior community when you want outstanding results.
1. Seniors Are Deliberate
There is a very big difference between marketing to Millennials and marketing to Boomers. Younger generations typically make impulsive purchases, and they freely use their debit cards for every single purchase. Seniors tend to buy items with a greater degree of thought and consideration. Baby Boomers often weigh the pros and cons of a purchase before swiping their credit card.
Your marketing strategy needs to be mindful of this. Your content should be designed to help seniors with their decision-making process and offer useful ideas, opinions, and reviews backed by hard facts and statistics.
2. Recognize Generational Differences
It’s imperative to acknowledge the generational differences within your target audience when formulating a marketing strategy. Fine-tune your messaging to reach specific groups, including the Silent Generation, who are ready to spend their golden years in senior living communities, leading-edge Boomers (born between 1946 and 1955), who aren’t quite ready to head to senior living housing, and trailing-edge Boomers (born between 1956 and 1964), who are preparing for life and work changes while thinking about how to best care for their family and older relatives. These three groups have very different needs and respond to different approaches.
3. Use Omnichannel Marketing
According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 68 percent of baby boomers own smartphones. Furthermore, these tech-savvy seniors are spending a significant proportion of their day on their phones. Yet, while younger Baby Boomers embrace digital content, many older members of that generation still spend much of their lives offline.
What does this mean for your campaign? Using an omnichannel marketing approach ensures your marketing message is in front of your audience on the right digital and print platforms. Knowing that one segment of your audience prefers email messaging, and that another appreciates long-form articles means you can spend your budget more wisely by delivering the right content in the right way.
4. Make It Personal
When older Americans were young, personalized attention was high on the list of great customer service traits. Baby Boomers came of age in a world where self-service and automation were second best. They remember never having to pump their own gas, receiving handwritten notes and being called by name by their waitress at their favorite restaurant. While those days might be gone, personalized attention is still possible.
When you make your content relatable, relevant, and personal, people remember it better. Whether you decide to send them something by snail mail or include key information in an email, always use a personal touch when marketing to seniors. At Sabal Group, our data scientists can provide your marketing team with the specific information you need to customize and personalize your next marketing campaign. From household incomes to browsing histories, we make it easy to know and understand your target audience on an intimate level.
5. Stay Positive
A successful marketing strategy paints seniors and aging in a positive light. The focus should be on how your brand’s products or services can empower seniors. Avoid using terms like “elderly” and steer clear of using imagery depicting seniors as dependent or helpless. Those who came of age in the 60s and 70s continue to crave independence and, naturally, they are far more likely to be responsive to messaging showing them as strong, intelligent people.
By making your content personal and positive, you can achieve amazing results from your next marketing campaign.
As you begin to develop your campaign strategies for 2020, contact Maribeth to see how Sabal Group can help you get your message to your target audience. The Sabal Group team can help your team reach its full potential!
