Baby boomers are looking for different solutions as they age.
How to market to baby boomers today. What do they want and what do they value?. See the changes you need to make when marketing to baby boomers
Web Video and Content Marketing
Web Video and Content Marketing
With the Internet seeping ever deeper into every pore of modern day life, our consumer habits are drastically changing. As a result, most people have turned their backs on conventional marketing. They skip television ads with the help of various technologies such as DVRs, often ignore magazine marketing, and are proficient in surfing the Internet in such a way as to disregards banners, buttons and pop-ups. In order to reach out to a new consumer, useful content is of paramount importance. A marketing strategy has emerged to address these issues, and it is called content marketing.
Content marketing
The idea is not to simply push a product and make it visible, but rather to provide the target audience with information that will be valuable to them, and that they will enjoy, share and think about. Not only does content marketing create increased visibility and engagement, but it also attracts and retains customers. The focus is on consistently and methodically creating and curating valuable, interesting and relevant content with the goal of enhancing or modifying customer behavior. Rather than having potential customers avoid your ads (the well-known process of channel switching during commercial breaks), the goal is to design your content in such a way that they actively seek it out. If customers enjoy the content, think about it and ultimately learn something from it, they are more likely to buy your product, or at the very least have a positive view of your company. There is a wide array of content marketing tools that you can utilize, just as there are many types of content. The four most frequently used types of content marketing are infographics, web pages, podcasts and videos. This article will deal primarily with web videos, but first a few quick words regarding marketing theory.
The Buying Cycle
According to a well established marketing theory, there are four basic steps in the buying cycle: awareness, research, consideration and, finally, buying. Awareness refers to the first phase when the customer becomes aware that there is an available solution to their need. It is then that they research the desired product and educate themselves on what is available on the market. The consideration stage occurs when the customer begins comparing various products from different competitors in order to ensure a quality product at a reasonable price. After the first three steps are completed, the customer makes a final decision and goes through with the purchase. Conventional marketing and advertising excel at targeting the last two steps, as they increase the awareness of a product and show off its best assets while, in most cases, presenting a competitive price. In contrast to this, content marketing focuses on the first two stages of the buying process: awareness and research. Content marketing aims to educate potential customers. By providing them with valuable and interesting content, content marketing teaches customers about a product that they may not have contemplated buying before.
Web Videos
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth at least a million. Online video content has never been so cheaply and readily available to such a large portion of humanity. Hi-tech personal devices such as tablet computers, smartphones and laptops are everywhere and they make video viewing possible at any time and in almost any place. Videos have many advantages over printed advertising, the most obvious of which is that it is easier and more entertaining to watch a video than to read a long article. And there are solid facts and research to support this. According to a study carried out by Implix in 2010, adding a video to email marketing increases click-through rates by more than 96%. In the same year, Comscore found out that people are 85% more likely to purchase a product if they have first watched a video about it. Another telling fact is that 70% of Google’s top listings include video material of some kind. However, the advantages of videos are not limited to consumers. Forbes Insight found that an impressive 59% of senior executives would rather watch a video than read a lengthy document. If these figures are not convincing enough, web videos have a number of advantages over other marketing tools.
Advantages of Web Videos
When compared to other (often expensive) types of advertising, such as TV commercials or magazine ads, web videos are far more cost efficient. If you are on a particularly tight budget you can even film a video yourself and upload it to the Internet free of charge. If, however, you would like a higher level and quality of production, there are many professional external production companies that specialize in producing web videos. A well filmed and produced video will undoubtedly go a long way in building trust in your brand. The key is to maintain a personal tone throughout the whole video. Avoid using stock footage at all cost, as using real footage of your business gives potential clients greater insight and builds trust. Another thing to avoid is scripts and direct marketing approaches. If someone is appearing and speaking on camera, the viewer will be put off by a mechanical and calculated approach, coming across as natural is key. Not only are web videos great for capturing the attention and sparking interest in potential buyers, they are also a great tool for search engine optimization. Web videos are a tried and tested way of optimizing your results in search engines such as Google and increase the traffic to your website. They are also versatile as they can be posted on almost any online platform or social media. You can post your video on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and even local online business listing sites. As a result, one single advertising web video has the potential to reach a huge number of future consumers.
In Conclusion
Web videos are a powerful method of content marketing featuring great potential for growing your brand and boosting sales. With the significant fall of production costs and a staggering rise in global Internet usage, there has never been a better time for investing in web videos. If done right, a good web video can be a foundation for the expansion and advancement of your business. The key word is value – provide value and everything else will fall into place.
What is the new normal for baby boomers?
From 79 million baby boomers in the US, 43 million of us are taking care of someone older than 50.
Baby boomers are also not getting any younger. Every day 10,000 boomers hit 65 years of age and since all boomers want to live forever, they are conscious about their health and consume more supplements than any other group, they might as well become the first generation to take care of its parents for as long as it cared for its children. But they want to do it their way.
Care giving is really becoming a common word in any boomer vocabulary.
Even though care giving might be the right word, many boomers just see themselves as the spouse, the son or daughter and they see themselves doing what is expected of them without any labels. Boomers after all don’t like labels. But this can also be an issue since they don’t tend to look for resources related to caregivers which impact them as caregivers as well as the aging parent.
For businesses selling online this means thinking outside the box when looking for keywords. The obvious is not what people search. They search for a solution to a problem according to their views.
For example, instead of searching for a “bed rail” for an aging parent, he/she might search for “stop falling out of bed”.
Because boomers want to live forever, talking about aging or care giving can lead to a stressful conversation but is also important that this type of conversation occurs.
Again, to make this conversation easier specially when addressing the fact that baby boomers are aging, refer to “a new phase in life”, just never call a boomer “old”
Freedom is an important concept to boomers specially when we take into consideration that most of them are empty nesters really immersing in a whole new phase in their lives. They can easily understand the importance of being independent when relating to their aging parents. These are concepts to explore in your marketing as well.
The concept of their parents being safe and having peace of mind is also crucial when we take into consideration that many boomers become distant caregivers and parents tend to stay into their own homes longer.
When marketing to boomers, words matter a lot. They want innovation, a honest conversation, freedom, peace of mind and are not so price conscious as their parents.
This different behavior might provide an extra challenge when marketing to this generation but can be extremely profitable since this group is known to be big spenders and hold a tremendous buying power.
How Network Marketing Can Save Baby Boomers From The Retirement Crisis
There are 90 million baby boomers between US and Canada (baby boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964.) Although this generation is known to spend 2 trillion a year and is said to have a disposable income of $24,000 a year, a significant part of this population is in trouble when it comes to retirement.
Yes, baby boomers want to live forever, we are entering middle age kicking and screaming, and we say we never want to retire because we love to be active but reality shows that many boomers wouldn’t be able to retire even if they wanted to.
First we are big spenders. We like to buy, we love Infomercials, we fall for advertising all the time because we grew up with it, and we don’t save.
- 50% of boomers don’t expect to retire before 65 and 24% before age 70.
- 13% expect to never be able to retire.
- On average most boomers figure they will retire around 68.
According to a survey done by EBRI, here are some staggering numbers when it comes to baby boomers and savings:
- 60% have less than $100,000 in retirement savings
- 43% have saved less than $25,000
- 36% have saved less than $10,000
As a point of reference, of all workers surveyed:
- 76% have less than $100,000 saved
- 57% have less than $25,000 saved
- 46% have less than $10,000 saved
Just to put this into perspective, one night in a hospital could cost you over $10,000
You can add to these grim figures the fact that a lot of baby boomers work because they have to, and not because they are connected to their own higher purpose, and baby boomers want to live their purpose, they care about leaving a legacy, participating and becoming relevant in their communities.
So, is there any hope for baby boomers or is it too late?
If you didn’t start saving early can you still have a confortable life and be finacially free in your late years?
Yes you can if you consider network marketing. Yes, I know, there is a lot of prejudice in this industry, but there is a lot of prejudice in other industries as well. Any car sales people out there?
Network marketing is just a distribution method where your investment to start is usually very low, no prior knowledge or degree is necessary, and a lot of support is provided! Very different than starting your own business from scratch where you have a lot of uncertainties, have to go without a salary every now and then (probably more often than you would like to admit,) you have to erase the word security from your vocabulary, and you have to figure out things on your own all-the-time!
Network marketing offers you recurring income which means you know how much is coming in for the month. It comes when you get sick, or when you travel, or when you spend a week visiting grandchildren.
It is a great way to supplement your retirement income.
Network marketing companies offer a lot of personal growth resources which is always very appealing to baby boomers, but most of all it is a channel through which you can impact other people’s lives, live your passion and feel relevant.
Yes, some people never accomplish anything in network marketing companies, but the sad truth is that for most that is mostly just a matter of attitude and wrong mindset. If you stop to think about it, network marketing has a simple model that is aligned with the sharing economy we now live in.
In the end it comes down to a simple choice: to spend the rest of our life working without being connected with something that really matters to us and be afraid of not having enough in our late years, or to align ourselves with a passion.
Now, in order to save your retirement you need to start fast, and start as soon as you can. Time is our most precious asset and we don’t have enough of it.
Which type of network marketing company should you choose? There are many options out there and the compensation plan is a key point to look at carefully.
Remember that we tend to duplicate with people like ourselves and baby boomers have a new appreciation for a healthy lifestyle. This group spends a lot in diets, supplements and exercise. The diet, nutrition and personal care industry is a 56 billion dollar industry and it is expected to double in the next five years.
Shahar Boyayan is a marketer that specializes in Selling to baby boomers. She hosts a weekly TV show called Boomerology Revealed and yes she is involved in networking marketing.
She has a thriving organization in a Natural healthcare company where we educate people on essential oils. They are phenomenal, affordable and effective. You just educate people.
She is looking for leaders that want to build an organization and have around 1 hour a day to devote to it.
If interested call me at: 801-680-7220 or write: letschat@healthessentialists.com
Who Are America’s Affluents, And What Are Their Top Spending Categories?
Some 67.5 million American adults lived in a household with annual income of at least $100,000 (“affluents”), a 5 million (or 8%) increase from last year, details Ipsos in its latest annual study of the affluent population. As such, 28% of the adult population can be classified as affluent, as can 23% of all US households. So who are these affluents?
While Millennials (18-32) comprise 22% share of affluents, roughly two-thirds of affluent Millennials qualify on the basis of their parents’ income rather than their own. (The definition of affluence is based on living in a household with annual income of at least $100,000, rather than personal income of that level.) The most highly represented generation is Boomers (50-68), who represent 38% of the affluent population. (For details on advertising to this prized segment, see the MarketingCharts Debrief, “Advertising to Baby Boomers: The Why and How.”)
The affluent and wealthy also are far more likely than the general adult population to have postgraduate coursework (study or degree), with 31% of affluent adults and 43% of the wealthy having at least 5 years of college, versus 10% of the adult population at-large.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, these high-income adults also tend to be in managerial and professional positions: 63% of affluent adults and 66% of wealthy adults hold these roles, compared to 23% of adults in general.
When it comes to race/ethnicity, the data indicates that the affluent and wealthy adult populations are less diverse than the population at-large:
84% of affluents and 83% of wealthy adults are white, compared to 79% of general population adults;
6% of affluents and 5% of the wealthy are black/African American, versus 12% of the adult population; and
8% of affluents and the wealthy are of Hispanic descent, compared to 15% of the general adult population.
Past-year affluent spending was greatest for the following categories:
Automotive – including the purchase price of vehicles and motorcycles, as well as auto maintenance and supplies ($398 billion in aggregate spending; 20% of total spend);
Personal insurance ($227B; 11% share);
Home & garden ($208B; 10% share);
Education expenses ($201B; 10% share); and
Groceries ($193B; 9% share).
While total spend on automotive, education, alcoholic beverages and groceries grew the fastest, those aggregate increases were driven more by the increase in affluent population size than to average spending per affluent, which decreased across most categories.
Millennials Mostly Talk About Brands Offline.
Online recommendations might be as influential as in-person ones, but the vast majority of word-of-mouth (W-O-M) impressions about brands occur offline, at least among Millennials (18-34). That’s according to new figures released by the Keller Fay Group, which show that some 84% of Millennials’ word-of-mouth impressions about brands take place offline – with 71% the result of face-to-face conversations (versus just 3% over social media).
Not surprisingly, digital media acts as more of a W-O-M driver for Millennials than for other adults, referenced in 25% and 19% of impressions, respectively. (Of note, social media takes a backseat to brand websites and internet ads within the digital media category.)
Second to digital media is TV, referenced in 17% of Millennials’ brand word-of-mouth conversations and 18% of all other adults’ (aged 35-69), suggesting that TV remains a force with this cohort even if they’re watching less than older generations.
Understanding how and why brands are discussed in Millennials’ conversations is particularly important given research suggesting that word-of-mouth has a high degree of influence on Millennials’ purchase decisions and tends to act as a bigger influence on consumers than any paid or owned media.
Advertising to Baby Boomers
There’s tremendous logic in advertising to Baby Boomers in the US: they control by far the largest share of discretionary spending of any generation, and they are heavily reliant on advertising as a product information source.
Yet only a small portion of advertising dollars are targeted to them, with many Americans complaining that advertisers fail to cater to aging consumers. Marketers must also overcome obstacles, such as Baby Boomers’ skepticism about advertisers’ trustworthiness.
A report released in late 2012 by Nielsen and BoomAgers estimated that less than 5% of advertising dollars are targeted to adults aged 35-64. In other words, an even smaller portion of advertising dollars are aimed at Baby Boomers – and many Americans indeed note that advertising fails to cater to aging consumers.
Despite some Boomers’ use of smartphones for shopping – which is mostly limited to search (66%) rather than applications (4%) – they estimate making 74% of their local purchases in-store. That compares to an average of 56% among the 18-34 bracket.
Points to Remember When Marketing to Boomers
- Boomers are at a time in life when they really don’t want to compromise their authenticity.
- For Boomers, process is at least as important as the end result. They want “the ride.”
- Boomers like to inspire others. Help them feel helpful.
- Boomers have been around long enough to know there are few absolutes, little is black or white.
- Accentuate personal style over rote action or blind ritual.
- Boomers are oriented to the human dimension, that’s the only real thing. They can see the humor in most situations.
- What Boomers really dislike is felling put upon by arbitrary power, feeling trapped, conned, boxed-in, and being thought of as one of the masses.
- Boomers are both creative and conservative (“A beautiful garden is wild and tended”).
- Boomers go for what gives voice to things they are thinking and feeling, but haven’t fully worked out yet.
- Boomers respond to what stands out by its presence, not its loudness; and what shows them it really listens and, therefore, understands.
In its recent list of Top 10 Consumer Trends for 2010, trendwatching.com identified several trends that closely match with Boomer trends. These include a need for companies to be transparent and honest about their efforts to conduct environmentally sustainable business practices and genuinely collaborate with their customers rather than try to dictate to them. In addition, consumers are increasingly using social networks as part of everyday life and respond well to products and services which have a charitable component.
Are Young People Watching Less TV?
Nielsen’s most recent study indicates that Americans aged 18-24 watched a weekly average of a little less than 22 hours of traditional TV during Q1 2014. That was a 95-minute drop-off from Q1 2013, which in turn had been down by 80 minutes from the year before. In fact, in the space of 3 years, Q1 TV viewing by 18-24-year-olds dropped by a little more than 4-and-a-half hours per week. That’s a substantial amount, equivalent to roughly 40 minutes per day.
Traditional TV viewing among 18-24-year-olds in Q1 2014 was down by almost 7% year-over-year.
The decreases in viewing might reflect increasing consumption of over-the-top video, although it should be noted that the Nielsen data indicates that time spent watching traditional TV still exceeds online and smartphone video by a considerable margin, even among youth. Indeed, research suggests that online video tends to largely act as a complement rather than a replacement for traditional TV, at least for the time being.
The Best reasons to create an information marketing business
You have seen businesses out there that besides the main business they also sell information products: CDs, DVDs, Training etc. When we get what we have inside those 6 inches between each ear (our brain) and package as a product we have an information marketing business.
An information marketing business can be a business in itself or a side business that compliments your main business. It can be a nice 6 figures business. You can cater the information to your existing customers or to people in your industry that would like to do things the way you do.
CDs and DVDs are some options but you actually have dozens of other formats to sell information including training, live events, online courses etc.
It does take some work to create and market the products but the return on your investment can be quite high. There is no magic but information when well packaged always sell.
Over the last 10 years I have created tons of information products for my main business, for side niches and to my competitors. Why not? There is a lot o money with our competition waiting for us.
I’ve done the same with several clients. For example, Phil D. came to me several years ago with an idea of an e-book to help authors market their books. We first turned that into a full training program called “Publishing in a Box” and then into a membership site.
Phil later offer that box program to a printing company which was later turned into a program for franchisees and a whole revenue model called “Book to market” for that company.
I believe it takes the same amount of effort to create something small as it does to create something big so why not go for big?
The fact is that information marketing businesses last and can be done in any industry from coaches to dentists to carpet cleaning.
That is why I love it so much. Just by packaging what you know you could easily double your exisiting business.
There is a process here: You need to pin point what type of information you have that can be sold.
Package the information in a way that is proprietary to you.
Find the best format to deliver
Market.
Not too much but it can bring so much.
Why not start the second half of this year creating something new in your business and a whole other source of revenue?
Talk to me.
Millennials Spend More Time With Digital Than Traditional Media
American Millennials (18-34) spend a slight majority of their weekly media time using digital devices, and are the only generation where digital media consumption exceeds traditional media, details Experian Marketing Services in a new report. But, Millennials share a common trait with their older counterparts: of the various devices available to them, TV still rules, accounting for the single largest share of their total weekly media time.
For Millennials, TV captures about 25 hours of their 67 weekly hours of media time, or about 37% share. By comparison, TV accounts for 42% share of total weekly media time among all adults, with its consumption far higher among older generations.
TV is also the device with the largest reach for each generation, with 97% of all adults watching at least some TV on a weekly basis. While TV maintains significant reach across the generations, the same isn’t true for other devices and media. More than three-quarters – 77% – of Millennials own a smartphone, for example, compared to just 48% of Baby Boomers (50-69) and 16% of Silents (70+).