It is easy to become jaded and disillusioned in marketing advertising. As a marketing consultant, I thought that most of the markets were tapped. Consumers, you see, are simply too cynical nowadays. Advertising and marketing have to resort to increasingly cheap tricks. There is no finesse in the field anymore. Marketing campaigns rely more and more on hard sells, direct marketing, and advertising saturation techniques. The situation seemed hopeless for someone like me who got into marketing and advertising because of the creativity involved in the field – there wasn’t any creativity anymore.
I didn’t see it at the time, but the solution was to specialize. There was one area where marketing strategy has not been totally tapped out and exploited, and where it might never be – marketing seniors. Marketing to senior citizens is one of the most lucrative possible techniques for any product that can be used by that age group. It might sound strange, but senior marketing is one of the easiest sells there is. Even marketing high school students isn’t quite as easy.
There are a couple reasons why marketing to seniors can be so effective. Although they don’t have a lot of money, they do have a lot of time and are frequently lonely and bored. Because of this fact, there are many possibilities for marketing seniors campaigns. You can market senior citizens by capitalizing on their nostalgia for earlier days, on their feeling of being left out or left behind, on their perceived insecurity and frailty in a rapidly changing society, and all of it works!
The best thing about marketing seniors is that they take the time to listen. Almost no one pays any attention to marketing and advertising campaigns nowadays, but seniors do. There are thousands of seniors across the country who have nothing better to do than sit around and watch TV, and you can bet that they will notice your advertisements! With the increasing popularity of the Internet among senior citizens, there is yet another field for marketing seniors.
The bottom line is that things are good for people who sell to the senior citizens market, and it won’t change anytime soon. Marketing seniors doesn’t involve ever flashier and more elaborate attempts to get attention. As a matter of fact, it involves just the opposite. If you can come across as down to earth and old-timey, they will be eating out of your hand, spending the last couple dollars of their pensions on whatever goods you’re peddling!
