Doing some casual reading over at Mature Marketing Matters, I ran across the item from Chuck Nyren of Advertising to Baby Boomers. (Who is, in my humble opinion, incredibly intelligent, insightful and on-target about… well, most everything he writes about reaching people in this demographic.) In the post Picking On The Big Boys & Girls, Part I: AARP, he references something I remembered him writing in 2010 how this demographic is portrayed by marketers…
Actually, there are two distinct demos – something marketers need to know:
- Baby Boomers who scream and jump in the air on the beach
- Baby Boomers who scream and jump in the air on their motor scooters.
It made me think (again), that it really just isn’t the marketers that have it wrong. Many small businesses get into the trap of portraying (or thinking about) customers a certain way… putting them in a single, one-size-fits-all box. That’s bad for business.
Chuck goes on to say he would have portrayed people in real world scenarios and professionally photographed. Which leads me to…
You should carefully consider your ‘ideal’ client and/or who you are really marketing to. Is it the elderly person down on Sycamore Way that needs in-home assistance? Or, is it their daughter that live in the next town and is worried about her mother being able to take care of herself? (You can substitute any real-world scenario there that is applicable to your product or service.)
If that is not what you are doing, you should take some time to do that. Then, craft your marketing messages (on websites, social media, print or other ads) to address those people and their needs.
It’s not rocket science & I am sure most business owners already know that. It’s just a good reminder.
About Mark Hager
[...] data in this project illustrate what many people already believe: Baby Boomers and seniors are using the web, on many [...]