Mature Market Experts Gem Of The Day: The Siren Call Of The Vitality Calculator

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – Vitality Calculator – I’m fascinated by the “vitality calculators” popping up on all the mature market sites. From a marketing perspective, it makes absolute sense to try to engage your site visitors. People want to be reassured that they will live forever. That being said, I can’t imagine anyone being motivated to change their lifestyle from a “calculator” as simplistic as this . . . or as computer programmers used to say, “garbage in, garbage out.”

I like to remind TR Mann Consulting’s clients, that clicks don’t equal satisfaction . . . don’t insult the intelligence of your readers . . . they won’t come back.

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Mature Market Experts Stat of The Day: 65+ Population Among Biggest Gainers In Internet Usage

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – 65+ Population Among Biggest Gainers In Internet Usage – “Men and those 65 and older round out the groups posting gains greater than the national average. The gains among men are particularly interesting when compared to the negligible change among women. Further, it is worth noting that college graduates, those aged 30-49 years, and those making $75,000 or more per year were actually slightly less likely than one year ago to report using the Internet more than one hour per day.”

Source: Gallop Poll, December 4-7, 2008

Mature Market Experts Stat of The Day: Search Engine Usage

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – Search Engines – Believe it or not, aside from some vision and site navigation differences, the mature market has pretty much the same internet search habbits as the younger generations. To me this seems pretty obvious, after all, anyone with a brain quickly discovers (or learns from their kids) the easiest way to find things. “Seventy-one percent of 60-somethings and 52% of 70-somethings had used a search engine in the past week, compared with 77% of 18- to 34-year-olds. (Of course, since the survey was conducted online, the respondents were likely to be fairly tech-savvy.)”

Despite the fact that the mature market now is the most important demographic online (they have the most disposible income), I’m constantly amazed at how few companies pay attention to this as they prepare their on-line marketing.

Stat source: Advertising Age

Mature Market Experts Stat of The Day: High-Definition TVs

It's clear from web graphics like these, that most companies are not marketing high-definition TVs to the mature market (or, they just don't understand the market).

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – High-Definition TVs – The mature market buys A LOT of new, expensive TVs. Let me use my Dad as an example. He’s 76 years old and recently got a huge, flat screen, high-definition TV. My siblings and friends were amazed (“your Dad’s so frugal, I’m surprised he sprung for it!”) I’m not surprised at his purchase. Why? Two reasons . . . (1) the mature market watches a lot of TV, more than younger generations, so he knew he’d get his use out of it . . . (2) For someone with vision problems (much of the mature market) anything you can do to improve your vision (big screen, high definition) is worth while. According to a recent article by Advertising Age, “People in their 50s are as likely to own or plan to buy a high-definition TV as those younger than 50.”

 

Mature Market Experts Gem of The Day: Martha Stewart and KB Homes Team Up For First Retirement Community

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often: KB Homes and Martha Stewart team up on active 55 retirement community – Martha Stewart and the mature market? KB Homes and Martha Stewart have teamed up for their first active 55 retirement community. According the KB website, the new retirement community is coming soon to La Quinta, CA, and is inspired by classic California Spanish style architecture. Martha has a huge fan base and heads up a powerful media company, so there are obvious opportunities to spread the word for KB Homes. If you visit the KB site, you’ll see one of Martha’s video cut-ins.

Martha seems to be taking a real interest in the Baby Boomer / mature market space . . . she opened the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Medical Center in October 2007.

Martha Stewart and her mom at the Martha Stewart Center for Living Grand Opening.

Martha Stewart also headlined a Senate Aging Subcommittee hearing in April of 2008 designed to push for the expansion of recruitment and training of Senate Aging Subcommittee to meet the needs of the 78 million mature market members about to join the Medicare ranks, as well as provide assistance to the 44 million Americans serving as caregivers.

 

As someone who has helped sell A LOT of retirement community real estate, I can tell you that peer to peer testimonials, unstaged and unscripted is one of the most powerful tools you can use. While I was at Erickson heading up the advertising, we never used models or stock photography. Why? Because I believe Boomers / the mature market have an incredibly refined  B.S. detector.

Mature Market Experts Stat of The Day: Baby Boomer Women Online

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often: Baby Boomer Women Online – According to a recent study by SheSpeaks, nearly one-half (45%) of 40-something women respondents have profiles on popular social networking sites. A majority of these social network users indicated frequent activity on these sites, logging in several times per week.

As I have said before, Women Rule The World!

 

Mature Market Experts Stat of The Day: On-line Social Media and Facebook

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often: On-line Social Media and Facebook – I’m amazed at how quickly on-line social media and technology is being adopted by the mature market. They are quickly being pulled along by their children and grandchildren who are using on-line social media as a way of staying in touch and sharing.

To give you an idea of how quickly these tools are being adopted, according to O’Reilly Media in the last twelve weeks (from December 4, 2008) the ranks of mature market Facebook users is jumping:

45 to 54 year olds — up by 70 percent

55 to 59 year olds — up by 73 percent

60 to 65 year olds — up by 53 percent

65+ — up 37%

I believe the reason Facebook continues to see such healthy numbers is that it is inclusive . . . there are no gates around the community . . . which means children and grandchildren can share photos, notes, etc. The mature market is looking to stay in touch with their entire family and circle of friends, no matter what age they may be (my daughters frequently communicate with their grandparents online).

Sites like AARP, Eons, Boomj, Vibrant Nation, National Association of Baby Boomer Women, and GRANDMagazine.com need to be thoughtful of this as they develop their strategies.