Mature Marketing Matters

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Creating Results is a full-service strategic marketing, public relations and advertising agency with more than 15 years of experience. Our expertise is motivating mature 40+ consumers, including Baby Boomers, Silent (Ike) Generation and Gen X.

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 1/23/2012

January 23rd, 2012 Posted by Erin Read Ruddick

It’s time once again for the top baby boomer and seniors marketing tweets that were most shared or talked about last week.

1. MOST CLICKED: Poor photo choice – unprofessional, young – for a press release about marketing to professional baby boomer women. http://bit.ly/w43h1Z

Do you agree with our critique of their image? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Do you worry that your own photography may not be doing the job with baby boomers and seniors? To learn how you can spend less money and see more results with the right photography, download our free eBook – “Photo Finish: Images that Motivate Mature Consumers” – today.

Photo Source: Sirius Bark by Temple3

2. What influences changes in aging brains? 24% of mental #aging due to genes (Wall Street Journal) http://on.wsj.com/y2hPvP

3. MOST SHARED: Apparently consumers use QR codes for the same reason kids touch hot stoves: to see what will happen http://ow.ly/8wSgY

Related Post: A Q&A about QR Codes and Baby Boomers http://bit.ly/yF3yqF

And here’s one link that should have captured more clicks:

Five Ways Content Marketing Connects Brands & Customers (@1to1media) http://ow.ly/8uHBA As Anna Papachristos writes for 1to1Media:

“Joe Chernov, vice president of content marketing at Eloqua, defines content marketing as ‘the art of creating, distributing, and measuring share-worthy content that grows and engages an organization’s audience, while deepening affinity for the brand.’ But as this ‘share-worthy content’ expands in terms of form and delivery, content marketers need to blend old and new tactics to keep their content effective and engaging.”

Some of Papachristos’ five ways may be new to you; others, helpful reminders.

Encourage Sharing – with short-form content that engages targets in conversation
Solve Problems – with content that is informative, not self-promotional
Re-Use and Re-Purpose – to extend the reach of each piece
Observe and Report – “Content marketing isn’t about simply dumping a glut of articles or videos online; it’s about strategically presenting customers with particularly
applicable information at crucial points in the buying cycle.”
Serve It Up Social – leverage social networks to extend the reach of your content … and your brand

If you found this content relevant, we hope you’ll use the tools provided to share it with your networks. Thanks!

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Tags: content marketing, photography, QR codes
Posted in 40+, 50+, 60+, Boomers, Internet, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 1/9/2012

January 9th, 2012 Posted by Erin Read Ruddick

Every Monday, we bring you those tweets from the past week that received the most clicks/re-tweets or generated the most discussion.

1. MOST CLICKED: Red, White and Gray – the high costs and high rewards of longer lives (The Atlantic) http://bit.ly/ymnGqu

2. MOST SHARED: Advocates say more gay-friendly senior housing is needed – many older gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender adults fear discrimination and disrespect await them after a move to a senior community (CBS News) http://bit.ly/AaSNtt

3. Understanding the needs and concerns of baby boomers as they pass through five stages on the road to retirement (Albuquerque Business Journal) http://bit.ly/y08b1O

4. How choosing the right photography can make your marketing more effective with baby boomers and seniors (ICAA Journal on Active Aging) http://bit.ly/zrgdoV

And a tweet that should have received more attention – “6 Ways to Approach Branding and Social Media for Your Business in 2012.” The author of the post, Amanda Miller Littlejohn (@amandamogul), was inspired by one of our favorite books - Content Rules. She notes that too many businesses will dive into 2012 marketing without first taking time to think strategically.

“One of the things I’ve noticed when working with solopreneurs, small business clients and even non-profit organizations is the overwhelmingly ad hoc approach to creating content for the web. I get it: small business owners are short on time and short on staff. We wear so many hats that it’s easy to forget the importance of planning. But planning is the best way that you stay on message and continually reinforce your brand.”

Read Amanda’s 6 tips here: http://www.blackenterprise.com/2012/01/04/6-ways-to-approach-branding-and-social-media-for-your-business-in-2012/

Don’t let the discussion end! Share your thoughts on 2012 planning or any of these links in the comments below.

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Posted in Boomers, Housing, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Retirement | No Comments »

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 1/2/12

January 2nd, 2012 Posted by Erin Read Ruddick

Happy Monday, and Happy New Year! The team at Creating Results enjoyed a week off last week, so our tweets were fewer in number. But several struck a chord with friends and followers. Here are the links and quick hits that were most clicked on, shared or discussed.

TOP TWEETS THIS WEEK

1. Statistics on Social Media Use by Baby Boomers, Seniors and Gen X – all three age groups share a love for email and a growing use of social networks http://bit.ly/qjkPwX

2. Red, White, and Gray: The High Cost, and High Rewards, of Longer Lives – an article from The Atlantic which considers whether “a grayer society is a richer society” http://ow.ly/88Qfa

And a tweet that should have gotten more attention: Ways to use Social Media to build a loyal customer base http://bit.ly/t4rf69. I appreciated how the blogger included thoughts from Pervara Kapadia on how you can use social media to create feelings of privilege and belonging (very motivating with baby boomers). Kapadia summarized as:

“Privileged Feeling

This could be done by giving them great discounts and sales information.

You could let them have the first peek at new products being offered.

Let them be the first to know what is taking place behind the scenes.

If there is a new announcement that you will be coming out with, let your Community know first.

Belonging Feeling

Encourage customers to speak and to share.

Let them know that they are a part of your Family.

Let them share their experience with your product.

Appreciate a good comment. Make it a point to address a negative remark.”

Are you using social media to create feelings of belonging or privilege in your baby boomer and senior audiences? Share your thoughts and examples in the comments below.

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Tags: The Atlantic
Posted in Boomers, Gen X, Internet, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Silent Generation, Social Networking | No Comments »

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week- 12/19/2011

December 19th, 2011 Posted by Beth Rand

Tweets from @CreatingResults over the course of the last week that were most shared, discussed and clicked. Happy Tweeting!

By far the most shared post was Gaining Boomer and Senior Marketing Insights from Social Media. Find out what messages/strategies are hitting (or missing) the mark. Todd Harff recaps a number of resources that can be extremely helpful in determining and leveraging boomer and senior social preferences and behaviors, including LinkedIn’s which allows you to see what is generating the most interest segmented by industry or group.

Other Top Tweets:

1. Santa’s Senior Secrets- An infographic chock full of not only holiday cheer but stats on seniors the world over.

2. Baby Boomer social media revolution: More and more boomers flock to sites such as Facebook and Twitter. How will you reach them?

3. Seven reasons direct mail and print remain effective marketing tools.

4. Interesting article via @AllThingsAging examining the rise of Ethnogeriatrics within diverse communities.

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Posted in 40+, 50+, 60+, Advertising, Boomers, Generation Jones (trailing edge Boomers), Housing, Internet, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Retirement, Silent Generation, Social Networking | No Comments »

A Sleighful of Statistics on Seniors – and Santa

December 15th, 2011 Posted by Erin Read Ruddick

Seniors make up 13% of Americans and by 2030 will be 20% of the United States population. But our favorite senior may be dear old Santa Claus. The right jolly old elf is – at the least – just shy of 200 years old. This holiday, Creating Results celebrates timeless seniors everywhere with a brand new infographic. Statistics, insights … they’re all in Santa’s pack, below.

(For a version which is larger/printable/easy to share, click on the image.)

As always, we feel feedback from our readers is a great gift. Please share your thoughts on this infographic in the comments section. And, HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Creating Results!

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Tags: chart, infographic, Santa Claus, statistics
Posted in 60+, Housing, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Retirement, Silent Generation | No Comments »

Gaining Boomer and Senior Marketing Insights from Social Media

December 9th, 2011 Posted by Todd Harff

Using social media as part of your marketing program? Most likely you are. May 2011 research from Brian Solis revealed that two-thirds of marketers are conducting social media advertising activities. More and more retirement communities and other organizations targeting baby boomers and seniors are jumping on the social media bandwagon each day.

What doesn’t seem to vary is the struggle to act on or measure what your brand gains from social media. As eMarketer notes:

From the early days of the internet, the prospect of detailed metrics fueled the promise that online advertising could yield unprecedented insights about customer preferences and behavior. That promise has only partially materialized. True, online channels provide feedback that offline media cannot, but marketers are still grappling with how to make this input work toward the bottom line.

From my presentation to the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) last week, here are tools and tips that can help marketers spot and make sense of customer preferences and behavior.

We’ve focused on resources that are built-in or free, and are accessible to organizations like our clients – continuing care retirement communities, estate planners and 50+ housing developers with a lot of heart but little budgets.

Free Social Media Tools You Should Be Using

1. FACEBOOK:

* Facebook Insights: built-in and free, this tool helps you analyze your brand’s page metrics.

- Find out which messages hit (and which miss) their mature marks through “people talking about” and noting which posts attract the most engagement.

- Demographics and locations reported by Facebook also offer (free) insights. We discovered one client’s site was attracting more adult children than prospects themselves. And for another, we found that Friends were quirkier than we thought – one report showed a healthy portion of fans used Facebook with the language set to Pirate. Now our posts contain more humor and get more engagement than before.

* Facebook search: type your brand name into the search bar and then, on the results page, click on Public Posts. As Search Engine Journal put it, “what you’re left with is real time results for wall posts from all (public) profiles or pages on Facebook!”

2. TWITTER:

* TwitterCounter: track follower growth – yours or a competitor’s – for free on a weekly or monthly basis. Upgrade and you can see who is retweeting or sharing your tweets.

* Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Argyle Social, TweetAdder and Co-Tweet are tools for managing your Twitter account. All offer varying degrees of monitoring as well. Our personal favorite is HootSuite. You can track clicks and shares, and set up searches for key phrases (your brand name, your brand plus words such as LIKE, LOVE or HATE). Reports can even be exported and shared, a time-saving feature for smaller organizations.

* Twilert: Baby boomer blogger Linda Bernstein swears by this service, which delivers a regular email update with tweets containing keywords related to your brand, product or service.

3. LINKEDIN:

* Company page Analytics: see at a glance the interest your brand is generating and what kind of traffic, segmented by industry or other selects.

* Group Statistics: visualize your group members by seniority, function, location and industry.

4. SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING:

* There are a number of paid social media monitoring services out there, including Trackur, Radian6, sysomos, Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Alterian. You might first want to read a few comparisons (like this one from FreshMinds) to see what the strengths of each system is.

* A FREE and easy tool is Social Mention: Per MarketingSherpa’s Adam Sutton,

“… more than 80% of marketers say measuring brand sentiment is important, yet fewer than half actually track it. You can start gauging sentiment today by spending two minutes playing with Social Mention.

This fantastically simple and free tool provides a stunning amount of data, including a sentiment analysis of your online mentions. You can even click “positive” and “negative” to see a list of results used to generate your score. How cool is that?”

Very cool indeed.

What tool do you feel is cool for marketers focused on baby boomers and seniors? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

*Part 1: Following the True Leaders: Your Boomer and Senior Customers

* 41 Percent of Americans are on Facebook (and 98% have at least one TV set)

* Social Networking Habits of Baby Boomers and Beyond

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Tags: analytics, Brian Solis, Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing Sherpa, Search Engine Journal, social media monitoring, twitter
Posted in 50+, 60+, Boomers, Internet, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Silent Generation, Social Networking | 2 Comments »

Following the True Leaders: Your Boomer and Senior Customers

December 8th, 2011 Posted by Todd Harff

Last week I had the honor of speaking at the International Council on Active Aging’s excellent annual conference. ICAA has for ten years been trying to change not only society’s perception of aging consumers but the way we age. I had only 90 minutes to change my audience’s perception of how aging consumers are leading marketers to better, more successful programs.

And today’s boomers and seniors are absolutely telling marketers what works – and what doesn’t – in motivating them to buy a product, sign up for a list, join a club or take other actions.

You just have to know what to ask and how to listen.

Unfortunately, many organizations working to attract or motivate older adults aren’t taking advantage of new, digital research methods. Why? I addressed three main reasons in my presentation:

Misconception: seniors and boomers are not online or expressing their opinions online
Fear: digital research requires costly, specialized tools or platforms
Cloudy vision: not seeing the gold to be found in the marketing platforms and services already in use

Didn’t make it to ICAA 2011? Never fear.

All this week I’ll challenge the obstacles noted above. Posts will share actionable tips for following your customer’s lead. I’ll include lists and links to resources available to organizations of all sizes. And I’ll look to you to lead us to your favorite resources via the comments below.

Mature Market Research 2.0

Thanks to the wild and wooly world wide web, market research has gone from formal and established methods to insights that are often offered informally … sometimes without research “participants” even being aware of what they’re sharing. Data has gone from a hard-earned trickle to a flood. As Tom Webster says, we’re now “drowning in numbers.”

For example, mystery shopping has long been a terrific but time- and person-intensive way to see first hand how sales teams interact with prospects. Or to spot potential turn-offs at an active adult community or destination.

Today, you can mystery shop without ever leaving your keyboard. Want to find out why people leave your floor plan page without first signing up to receive a brochure? Program a quick poll to ask that very question of web visitors. Curious about your sales team’s performance? A few quick web searches for your brand name plus “customer service” can let you know what customers really think.

But Baby Boomers … Seniors … Older People … Aren’t Online, Are They?

Yes, Virginia, there is an older and wired consumer. In fact, the Internet population in recent years looks more like the actual population.[link to another post of ours]

And per Creating Results’ Social, Silver Surfers research we know baby boomers and seniors are expressing their opinions as they interact with websites and social platforms. We found that 36% of 40+ respondents had voted or ranked items online, 25% used comments or message boards to share their thoughts, and 21% had posted a user review.

Online share tools most commonly used by baby boomers, seniors

Voting/Ranking, Blogs, Message Boards and User Reviews are most popular with older Baby Boomers. This mirrors their offline preferences. They love to talk and share; there is value in a peer’s opinion of a product or service.

And that’s just the information they’re volunteering. In the Wall Street Journal’s terrific series “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets,” reporter Julia Angwin writes “… the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry.”

While all this can seem scary, there are big benefits to moving to market research 2.0:

* For consumers, they get more relevant content, better customized experiences and time-saving short cuts

* For marketers, you can be more targeted, more cost-efficient and more effective

Tune in tomorrow for ways you can enjoy these benefits by following your customer’s lead online.

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Tags: International Council on Active Aging, market research
Posted in 40+, 50+, 60+, Boomers, Internet, Marketing, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 12/5/2011

December 5th, 2011 Posted by Beth Rand

Before we explore the world of tweets from the previous week we first wanted to express our sympathy in the passing of David B. Wolfe. As a leading expert in marketing to mature consumers, David’s insights changed the way we marketers think about our approach to boomer and beyond marketing (his book Ageless Marketing is a required read at our agency for this reason). Brent Green wrote a very touching tribute that can be found on his blog that sums it all up.

Tweet-Worthiest Tweets from the Previous Week

1. An infographic all about tea drove significant interest last week. Did you know that tea is served with salt and butter in some countries? Learn all about the wide world of tea with this fun trivia.

2. An insightful New York Times piece from last week provides a further glimpse into the graying workforce and retirement options (or lack of) for boomers and the impact on millennials: http://ow.ly/7HrsX

3. Resolve to stand out in the inbox in 2012, explore stats on email use by age and create your own recipe for email success: http://ow.ly/7HrJd

4. Creating new Thanksgiving traditions- a sweet piece from The 70-Something Blog about being thankful for family, health, shelter and peanut butter cups.

Interested In Your Thoughts:

A Q&A about QR codes and Baby Boomers: Do you utilize QR codes for marketing to baby boomers and beyond? What successes have you seen? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Posted in 50+, 60+, Advertising, Boomers, Marketing, Mature Consumers | No Comments »

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Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 1/23/2012

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 1/9/2012

A Sleighful of Statistics on Seniors – and Santa

Following the True Leaders: Your Boomer and Senior Customers

Mature Market Research 2.0

But Baby Boomers … Seniors … Older People … Aren’t Online, Are They?

Mature Marketing Tweets of the Week – 12/5/2011

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