Opinion: Selling to the over 50's market
Denise Russell from True Digital discusses selling to the over 50's and offers some advice on the matter.
“I hate when people try to sell to me with a picture which looks like someone died in their footbath”
Those are the words of Linda Bellingham, who made a guest appearance for Isme at Haymarket Events ‘Older,Richer,Wiser’ Conference.
Selling to the over 50s is currently a hot topic in online marketing, particularly with the recent launch of high50.com, ‘the alternative to Saga’.
Pretty much half the population will be 50 or over by 2020, which begs the question: are two UK based websites catering for them really enough?
Marketers are finally realising that the over 50s – the generation who grew up with Punk, moon landings and The Exorcist – don’t consider themselves old in the same way that their parents did.
My dad, whose parents satisfied their wanderlust with a coach trip to Bournemouth every year, is planning to backpack around Ireland now he’s retired. He’s not alone in having an attitude more aligned with his children than with his elders.
It was great to hear that the Older, Richer, Wiser Conference view wholeheartedly supports the True approach to over 50s marketing:
• recognise they’re wiser, and au fait with marketing and airbrushes
• understand they may not be richer, but they do understand value
• ignore the fact that they’re older, exactly as they do
Generalising half the population as people who only want to know about pensions, Werther’s Originals and footbaths is not only patronizing – it’s poor business sense in a country where the ‘silver surfer’ is likely to be your largest customer base in a few years time.