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Mature Marketing Links of the Week 2.20.12

Monday, February 20th, 2012

Happy President’s Day Monday. The following are the mature marketing links and resources of note for the past week. Enjoy!

1. MOST CLICKED: Love was in the air with Three Not-So-Silly Statistics for Valentine’s Day, examining fun facts about 55+ consumers from the National Health Statistics Reports.

Marriage does a heart good: Findings included that Boomers and Beyond who were married had less difficulty with social and physical activities than those who were formerly married- reminding us that connections are important and should be encouraged within active adult housing and CCRCs to keep ALL motivated and moving. Click here to read more insights and implications.

2. Florida faces fight to lure retiring boomers: this insightful piece from the Sun Sentinel received a high number of clicks for the week, and with good reason. http://ow.ly/8WEHM

The wants and needs of boomers on the cusp of retiring is changing and in order to continue to draw retirees a recent report shows that Florida may have some re-thinking to do. 96% of respondents surveyed within a Consumer Federation of the Southeast survey placed the highest emphasis on top notch health care (above climate and taxes). The article examines the strengths of Florida and other areas when it comes to attracting this Boomer market and things they will have to think about when marketing to this target if they want to capitalize on the potential revenue of even a small percentage of the Boomer population looking to relocate.

3. What Google’s Privacy Policies and what they mean for Seniors: The ever changing and expanding world of Google and recent privacy policies put in place were examined in an article on Aging In Place Technology Watch.

Creating Results is honored to be a nominee for SeniorHomes.com’s Best of the Web 2012. Please vote for our blog as top senior living industry resource. Click here to vote for Mature Marketing Matters and thank you in advance for letting us share news and insights for marketing to the 55+ market.

Posted in 40+, 50+, 60+, Advertising, Boomers, Internet, Marketing, Mature Consumers, Retirement, Silent Generation, Social Networking | No Comments »

Mature Marketing Links of the Week – 2/13/12

Monday, February 13th, 2012

Happy Monday! Following are the links and resources that were most shared, clicked on and commented on via Twitter and LinkedIn last week.

1. MOST CLICKED: Good internal communications are critical for the success of your external marketing http://ow.ly/8RcI0

“Make sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing,” writes UK blogger Kevin Baughen. Kevin specializes (that’s specialises for our British readers) in helping non-profits with their communications. His post points out that without good internal comms and team work, your brand can’t achieve its marketing goals.

2. A handful of links tied for the “MOST SHARED” title last week.

- If your image of retirees is old people in Florida, think again. The state is now fighting to lure baby boomers. ow.ly/8WEHM

- New post: Is 50+ Housing Declining or Thriving? Stats on household income growth among baby boomers and seniors offer context; excerpts from Todd Haff’s panel presentation at the International Builders’ Show. ow.ly/8Y7dE

- Big thinker (& older innovator) Joseph Coughlin of the MIT Age Lab addressed the idea of age & innovation. I confess a quote Coughlin included from venture capitalist Vinod Khosla set my teeth on edge: “People under 35 are the people who make change happen…People over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas.” Read the full post at ow.ly/8Vlgu

3. Also of interest:

- Laurie Orlov (@AgingTech) explains what Google’s new privacy policies mean for seniors – and for you. ow.ly/8V9xk

- Marketing to the 50+ Home Buyer: Social Media and Much More. Excerpts from Beth Rand’s presentation at the International Builders’ Show. http://t.co/stZPHWPn

- Pinning the future of communications on visuals. http://t.co/FJBvb7aB

As the author, Sarah Skerik, writes: “[C]ommunicators have to redouble their efforts when it comes to visuals. Visuals carry extra weight on Facebook and Google+, they’re rendered on Twitter (drawing more attention to the tweet) and are what makes services like Flipboard and Pinterest so compelling and useful.

Was there a link or resource you felt was of importance to mature marketers but it was overlooked in this round-up? Please share it in the comments, below.

Tags: baby boomers, international builders show, Joseph Coughlin, Kevin Baughen, pinterest, Sarah Skerik
Posted in 40+, 50+, 60+, Boomers, Housing, Internet, Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Social Networking | No Comments »

Social Media Marketing and the 50+ Home Buyer

Friday, February 10th, 2012

The question crops up regularly on LinkedIn Groups: “What is the best way to reach baby boomer and senior home buyers? Is social media the new priority?” Creating Results’ own Beth Rand will help address that question today at the International Builders’ Show, during her presentation “Marketing to the 50+ Buyer: Social Media and Much More.”

As experienced real estate marketers know, social media may be today’s buzzword in marketing but it takes more than a Facebook page or a blog to reach your 50+ prospects. Since many of us are not enjoying Orlando’s sunshine this week (yes, I’m jealous), we wanted to share some key points from Beth’s presentation.

Statistics: Use of the Internet, Social Media by Baby Boomers and Seniors

* The #1 Internet activity for members of the Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation or the Baby Boom is email.

* The use of social networks by adults of all ages is on the rise. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports 51% of baby boomers aged 50 to 64 and 33% of seniors over the age of 65 are now using social networking sites.

* In our study, we found that 70% of those over 40 years old were using social networks at least a little. The youngest cohort (Gen X and Gen Jones boomers aged 40-54) were the most likely to be involved; the majority of those over 65 had never tried an online social network or had not stuck with it.

Why Do 50+ Home Buyers Use Social Networking (or why not)?

* Connections rooted in the offline world are the #1 reason why older homebuyers try online social networking, we found in our study of Social, Silver Surfers.

* Reasons often align with lifestage. 40-54 year olds are most motivated by work/career. The Silent Generation and 75+ers by invitations from family members.

* Real estate marketers putting all their eggs in the social media marketing basket should be wary. Our survey found only 15 % of all 40+ers actively engaged in social networks would say “Yes, I want to engage with a brand on these platforms.”

* Older users willing to engage saw three benefits to friending brands: discounts, a convenient channel for information and a feeling of insider access. Those who said no or maybe not cited a preference for communications by other channels (phone, corporate website) or face-to-face, a feeling of being overwhelmed by marketing, and a feeling that brands were intruding on their personal space.

How do Baby Boomers Engage on Social Media?

* Social sharing tools ranging from email-a-friend “widgets” to YouTube to message boards are common ways that baby boomers engage.

* The older the respondent, the more likely they were to consider email itself a social tool.

* Retirees cited email as a social tool at 8x the rate of those who were employed full- or part-time; 3x as many singles saw it as social than did couples.

How Can Builders and Developers of 50+ Housing Apply This to their Marketing?

Beth offers 5 ways to for real estate marketers to kick social media engagement into high gear with baby boomers and beyond:

5. Provide clear and simple privacy policies.

4. Make it personal. Show your appreciation.

3. Incorporate tools that make it easy to share experiences.

2. Talk with your friends/fans/followers, not at them.

1. Expand your horizons! Social media is far more than Facebook or Twitter.

Are you a marketer using using social media to sell 50+ housing? Share your insights on what works/what doesn’t below.

Tags: international builders show
Posted in 50+, Boomers, Branding, Housing, Internet, Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Facebook, Internet Users More Similar to Offline Population Ages Than Ever

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

With all the excitement over the Facebook IPO, Heather Dougherty at Experian Hitwise today rounded up 10 stats about the social network that are key to understanding its reach and impact. We focused in on Stat #5 – a demographic breakdown of Facebook users, which include 19% younger Baby Boomers aged 49-54 and 20% older Boomers or seniors aged 55+.

The chart (below) shows the visit share by age for the big four social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. And the age breakdown of the (US?) online population.

As eMarketer has noted, “The average age of Internet users is rising in tandem with that of the general population.” It appears so far Facebook is the online social network that most closely mirrors the age diversity of our offline world. Twitter continues to appeal to GenX and GenY. And LinkedIn continues to be an excellent if underappreciated network for reaching 55+ adults – 57% of users are baby boomers or beyond!

I was surprised to see Google+ have a larger audience over the age of 55 than Twitter, but on second thought its design and functionality is so similar to Facebook, it might feel more comfortable to older users.

Stat #8 wasn’t a surprise to us. As Dougherty writes, “Facebook” is the most searched term in the US and Facebook-related terms account for 14% of the top search clicks.” We shared that insight with a team of social media marketing ambassadors from a leading continuing care retirement community just two days ago. It was terrific to see their excitement for how the network could promote deeper relationships with their senior prospects and adult children.

If your organization needs help turning social media stats into social media strategies, please check out these related posts (or give us a call – we’d love to help).

Tags: Facebook, Google+, HitWise, LinkedIn, twitter
Posted in 40+, 50+, 60+, Boomers, Gen X, Internet, Marketing, Silent Generation, Social Networking, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

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!

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- 12/19/2011

Monday, December 19th, 2011

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.

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

Gaining Boomer and Senior Marketing Insights from Social Media

Friday, December 9th, 2011

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

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

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

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.

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 – 11/28/2011

Monday, November 28th, 2011

Last week was Thanksgiving in the US, and Creating Results has plenty to be thankful for on Twitter. (Does that mean we give thwanks??) First, we’re thankful for the nearly 1,000 people who share our passion for marketing to baby boomers and seniors and have chosen to follow @CreatingResults. And, we’re grateful to those who click on, re-tweet and discuss the links and resources we share on this platform.

TOP TWEETS THIS WEEK

1. A pair of search-related tweets continue to be the MOST CLICKED. First, a link to a post by Ted Ives on a paid search finding that has bearing on organic search marketing (the post also features a nice explanation of the difference between paid and organic).

Next, a link to new research on how retailers will divvy up their digital marketing budgets in 2012. “[R]etailers intend to devote 30% of their digital marketing budget to paid search, 18% to email and 11% to SEO/natural search. And 31% of respondents say they expect SEO to generate the most revenue, 30% say mobile, and 22% email.” (MediaPost)

2. MOST SHARED: From toilet paper to technology, the challenges of Universal Design - http://bit.ly/uu0cvz. The author observes:

It’s funny how anti-universal some everyday items can be. Most toilet paper holders, for instance, require two hands to change the roll. Some people, particularly the elderly and stroke survivors, often can only use one hand – and suddenly, the simplest everyday tasks become impossible. The same thing can be said for many of our websites and consumer software. For instance, more than 100 million web surfers all over the world today are colorblind, and potentially can’t view important details in websites due to subtle color differences. So in addition to the challenge of coming up with good web pages, web designers need to make sure that their pages are viewable by people with all sorts of vision deficiencies.

(To learn how your website can create a more positive experience for users of all ages – but especially baby boomers and seniors – download our free white paper, “Usability Guidelines for Active Adults Online.”)

3. MOST DISCUSSED: Social media requires the art of brand storytelling: it must be beautiful, talkable and living. http://bit.ly/vePfN0

4. MOST MUPPETATIONAL: File this under GenX: How social media revived the Muppets. http://on.mash.to/tVbwPN

They’ve done it partly through viral videos such as a spoof of the Happy Huffmans (that senior couple experimenting with a webcam). The Muppets version features of Statler & Waldorf trying to jump on the Internet superhighway: http://bit.ly/t6iuyC

Have a thought on any of these links? Please share it below – we’re always thankful for your comments.

Posted in Boomers, Gen X, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking | No Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

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

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?

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