Audiology Marketing To Boomers

Boomers as an audience for your audiology marketing

The boomers are coming, the boomers are coming! We have heard this one before but they have arrived. In my experience we have been seeing boomers for the last five years. This is the second of the series of articles about knowing your audience.

The Boomers

Boomers as a group are forward thinking and tend towards optimistic. They don’t have nearly as much faith in traditional institutions as their predecessors. Boomers formative years tend to have taken place during times of social upheaval and rebellion. They tend not to be as conservative as their predecessors and respond well to humour in marketing, even if it might be at their expense. They are wary of experts and authority of most kinds.

Trust, Connection and Networks

They are very responsive to testimonials and referrals from people they trust, people within their network. Whilst testimonials from people they know will sway them, they are not as persuasive as enforcement from their social circle. Boomers are independent and hold individuality in high regard, they consider themselves active and want to remain that way.

Boomers put a high value on their independence, lifestyle and well-being. They look at retirement as a time to reward themselves, to experience life on their own terms. They want to remain connected, happy and active and will invest in purchases that help them achieve these goals.

Connecting With Boomers

They are in general well-educated and tend to be quite technologically savvy. They tend to be data driven individuals and have the education and versatility to understand that data. They tend to research purchases and want a consultative approach from the people who sell to them. They are not averse to spending on themselves, in particular if the purchase is a lifestyle one.

They will not tolerate paternalism in the purchase relationship and will actively rebel against it bringing their business elsewhere. They put a high value on trust and face to face relationships, they are also far more open to new technology than their predecessors.

They are wary of and au-fait with modern marketing techniques. They are not as easily swayed by marketing techniques but are very responsive to content or inbound marketing.

The Channels

Boomers are actively using the web, for communication, research and commerce. They have adopted social media with a vengeance perhaps even more so than the younger generations. Boomers are some of the most active people on direct email campaigns and sign ups. If they value your information they are happy to part with their data. Boomers also value phone contact and most of all face to face contact, these are the things that have dominated their business lives.

TV can still reach Boomers, but this is mixed at best, Boomers tend to watch their TV on demand using services such as Netflix. Boomers still read news papers but circulation of all news print is in terminal decline. They can have their news served to them via the web in any form they want. They are completely comfortable with both email and SMS as communication tools.

Whilst traditional media is still important for connecting with Boomers, it is declining in importance. The use of digital media is very important to connect with Boomers and will only continue to increase in importance. Boomers will respond well to group and activity imagery, they can easily relate to these images. Wording used in marketing needs to relate to their desire to remain active. It also needs to relate to what a purchase will deliver to them in relation to lifestyle.