While many marketers might believe that senior citizens aren’t a great demographic for online advertising, a new study shows that they would be wrong. Google and Ipsos media have recently released the results of a study that show video as one of the most effective ways to market to these seniors. In addition, with more and more seniors getting online every day, not to mention the fact that thousands of baby-boomers who are already web savvy are becoming seniors, this might be a very attractive market.
The study found that 78% of baby-boomers are engaging with online content on a daily basis, and 52% of seniors are. Given the number of people in these two demographics, this is millions of individuals, many of whom are in a stable financial condition so they can afford to make purchases.
A significant amount of the online interaction is coming in the form of online video content. Mark Bradburry, director of Insights and Integrated Marketing at AARP Media Sales, said, “News is No. 1, but also popular with these demographics are paying bills, shopping, looking for recipes, getting financials, sports and medical information, playing games, sharing photos and social networking.” This might sound remarkably similar to what most people from younger generations are doing as well, because it is. This shows that any marketers who are not directly targeting the older generations are missing out on huge opportunities.
Tammy Gordon, VP of Social Communications at AARP, said “YouTube is the top word searched on Google for people over 45, they are watching all kinds of video, but the top topics are news and how-tos – like recipes, workout tips and home fixes.”
Running ad campaigns on YouTube, Facebook or AdWords is a great way to target this market directly. Each of these advertisement options offers marketers with options to show the ads specifically to people of certain demographics, which makes it very easy to make extremely targeted ads. Taking the time to learn what types of products, services and information seniors and older baby-boomers are most likely to purchase is an effort many marketers are taking today.
While there are certainly ethical lines which must not be crossed when working with older individuals who may not have the same understanding of online purchasing as younger users, it is still a great market to get into. More and more seniors are quite computer literate, and being able to provide them with the items they want at the prices which are really only possible online is a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Have you been targeting older generations with any of your marketing campaigns? If so, share your story with us. How did you target them and what type of success did you see from it?
You can see the full study HERE.
