Marketing: Find the opportunity

A. Yes you can reach them, and yes the opportunity is real, but I believe this opportunity is slightly different than what our perceptions are.

Boomers are folks born between 1946 and 1964 (roughly 50-70 years old). I hear this all the time: “My 75-year-old mother doesn't use a computer. How is this an opportunity?” A 75-year-old is not the opportunity.

So, what is the opportunity? The children of that 75-year-old. They will be more tech savvy than that 75-year-old. Targeting boomers in hopes of getting them to make purchases for themselves is not the route I would take directly. Yes it is still important to target them, but I feel the larger opportunity may be the children of the end user customer. For example, my grandfather is 86 and is at high risk for falls. My father (without my help) searched on his iPhone for items that my grandfather needed. The search took him to a local DME provider and he spent $200 dollars on bath safety and fall prevention items. This is where you should be targeting your efforts.

How can you reach these groups? Be where they are. More boomers are using technology daily. They are on their phones more than ever. If you have a website, make sure it is optimized for the type of searches that will come through such as “where to buy bath safety products for my mom in Boston, Mass.” By optimizing your site content and any online ads to be tailored to these search terms, you will increase your chance of getting that customer. The customer buying for their parents will need the same products down the road, and because you have already built that relationship, you have a darn good chance of increasing that customer lifecycle and servicing them again down the road.

Justin Racine is marketing and ecommerce manager at Geriatric Medical. Reach him at jracine@geriatricmedical.com.