Online Marketing to the ‘Oldies’.
Have you ever thought ‘old people’ don’t know how to use the internet or a computer so there is no need to use online/digital marketing to that sector?
Well you’re wrong, more and more classes are being held to train senior citizens to use online tools. For this reason, the age group should not be overlooked as there are more active in the online/mobile world than you would expect and they make up a significant share of the market, making online marketing to old people essential.
Don’t forget those that created these technologies like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are both great examples of baby boomers using technology.
It is important to remember to KISS (no, not literally) with this age group: keep it simple stupid, this makes it easier for consumers to understand and keep engaged with the online world.
When trying to promote a product to the senior market make sure to focus on the benefits that the product or service is going to give to them, as it has been found that baby boomers don’t normally like to feel like they are being sold to.
You can do this by showing them the value for money of the product or service, valuing the privacy of those customers in order to build a trusting relationship with them, and make communication with your company easy for this market. This will make them aware that they have support and help sustain a relationship with them.
A way in which we can make it easier for seniors to use ‘online shopping’ is by doing cart abandonment marketing, to remind these consumers through an email that they have saved shopping into a basket online. This will help give a gentle reminder to those that have been distracted whilst online shopping and have not been able to proceed with payment.
Social media is being widely used by seniors, with currently 39 million people 65+ are using Facebook, Twitter and Skype, with this demographic being the fastest growing on these sites.
Although it is shown below that this is not the biggest sector of social network users, it is important to realise that this sector is growing faster than the others and it needs to be understood rapidly to be able to effectively market to this age group.
It is shown by Forbes.com that seniors use social networks as a means to:
- connect with family and old friends
- share photos
- social gaming
- contests and games
Brands should take these into consideration when targeting their online marketing to old people. It is reccomended within this by Forbes.com for brands to have a seperate account for this demographic as although they will use social media for the same reasons as millenials they require different content. For example, baby boomers prefer to see pictures and videos rather than, promotion of services.
Forbes.com have said that it is important that brands grasp the idea of social media marketing to seniors at the least very quickly, due to the fact that 10,000 baby boomers will join this senior demographic each day for the next 2 years. The reason for this being that soon they will retire and will be more computer literate than previous senior generations.
Due to this generation’s wide knowledge of mobile and computer use it is important that brands get to grips with online marketing to old people, as with the time passing so quickly sadly all of us millennials will soon become seniors.
