If your marketing strategy isn’t working, it may be time to change it up. What works for targeting Millennials may not work for marketing to Baby Boomers. Evaluate your campaigns and analyze which parts produce the ROI you want and where you’re losing money. You may be allocating too many resources to one area, while neglecting another. If you can understand how to effectively reach your audience, you can understand why your strategy doesn’t work and shift your focus.
Understand Your Audience
No matter how good your marketing strategy is, it won’t work if it’s aimed at the wrong people. The first step in effectively marketing to Baby Boomers is understanding the audience and ignoring any pre-conceived notions you may have. You have to ask the right questions. What makes them tick? How is the Baby Boomer market different than the Millennial market? How is it the same? You may find that you only need to make small adjustments to your marketing efforts or maybe you need a complete overhaul.
Baby Boomers are active and focused on doing things they’ve always dreamed of doing in retirement, which may be different than their parents, who were more focused on relaxing after they stopped working full-time. Boomers value their independence, so when you’re developing a marketing strategy, your message should be focused on how your product can empower them to do what they love.
You may have to re-think your graphic design with your marketing materials. The Baby Boomers you’re trying to reach may have declining vision. Pay special attention to fonts and colors, and make sure your direct mail pieces or leave-behinds are easy-to-read.
Marketing to Baby Boomers Online
Baby Boomers consume more online content than any other generation. More than 80 percent of Boomers go online every day, and the majority of that traffic goes to social networks. Boomers go online with the purpose of researching before major purchases, so they love content such as “how-to” articles and side-by-side comparisons. Your online content strategy should focus on blogs and website copy that details your service and how it can benefit the consumer.
A robust Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is crucial to getting eyes on your website, because 96 percent of seniors use search engines. SEO strategy is creating web content that appeals to search engine algorithms so your page ranks at the top of their search engine results pages (SERP). Use tools such as Google Ads or Moz Keyword Explorer to find out what your audience searches for and develop a content strategy around that.
Many Baby Boomers started using email in its infancy, and 95 percent of them still use email every day. If you don’t use email to reach your customers, you could be missing a huge opportunity: the average ROI for email marketing is $38 for every dollar spent. That’s 3800 percent. Create email campaigns with tools such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact. You can design templates for your campaigns, manage email lists and track campaign performance with both tools.
How Do Baby Boomers Use Social Media?
Even though you may not think of Boomers as social media-savvy smartphone users, they are 19 percent more likely to share content than any other generation. They spend an average of 27 hours per week using social media, and they want “useful content.” That gives you a huge opportunity to reach potential buyers. Boomers value recommendations from friends and family, and they love to make referrals. Give your clients something they can actually use and they’ll share it, and you will reach a much broader audience than just the people who follow your page.
Old-Fashioned Direct Mail Marketing
Even though much of your target audience is on the internet, traditional marketing methods such as direct mail and event marketing are still effective tools for reaching people.
Direct mail can help you stand out in a crowd because many companies don’t use it. There are more than 76 million Baby Boomers in the United States, and they are bombarded with digital advertising every day. If you send something in the mail, you have a great chance of the recipient reading it. If you send something that’s well-designed with the right message, the recipient will respond.
Contract with Us Today
Senior Marketing Advisors (SMA) is a Medicare insurance FMO. We give our agents the tools they need to succeed. When you contract with SMA, you get support from an experienced marketing and sales support team that’s dedicated to helping you grow your business. We also provide our agents with training to develop marketing strategies that work. Ready to start? eContract with us today.
