If you are a business owner in the Lehigh Valley, you can’t ignore Baby Boomers. Four out of ten Lehigh Valley adults are age 55 or older. In fact, the growth of this segment from 2010 to present day exceeds 18%–compared to the growth of the overall adult population (growing just 5% since 2010).
Marketing to the more than 236,000 seniors living in Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon counties is easy when your products and services appeal to this age group. Think about some of the characteristics that set this cluster apart—they index higher than the typical adult population of the Lehigh Valley for owning homes (and being in their homes for 20 years or more), for having post-graduate degrees, and obviously, for being retired.
The Lehigh Valley’s Baby Boomers are more likely to be planning to buy a new car in the next 12 months, more likely to have made home improvements like painting the exterior of their houses, remodeling bathrooms, replacing or repairing rooves, and replacing windows.
And because they have time, travel is a big part of their leisure. Boomers index high for using travel agents, renting cars, taking cruises, and shopping on the Internet for travel reservations.
Seniors in the Lehigh Valley account for some of the largest portions of spending in consumer categories such as:
- Groceries
- More than 1/3 of the Lehigh Valley spending on groceries in the last week was by residents who are age 55 or older—that’s more than $29 million!
- Buying new vehicles
- 10% of the area’s residents in this age group are planning to buy a new vehicle in the next 12 months. The total amount of this expenditure will be well north of $601 million—39% of the expected spending in this category will be by seniors.
- Purchases on the Internet
- In the last year, seniors accounted for 23% of the Lehigh Valley’s spending for online purchases, more than $83.9 million.
- Home improvements
- The age 55+ segment spent more than $324.3 million on home improvements in the last 12 months. That was more than 40% of expenditures in this category.
- Seniors’ cell phone bills amounted to more than $16.4 million in the last month—a third of the Lehigh Valley adults’ spending for the cellular communication niche.
And let’s not forget that the Lehigh Valley’s seniors spend more than 1.3 million hours on the Internet in an average week and have contributed more than 727,000 trips to sit-down restaurants in the last 30 days!
Targeting age 55 and older can be done in a variety of ways. Catching busy, active seniors on the run means focusing your marketing plans on the things that they care about: family, leisure time, no-nonsense/trustworthy messages.
Make your branding communications shout “dependability” and “honesty.” Make your call-to-actions clear and free from complications. Make your coupons user-friendly. Boomers valued their opportunities, their prosperity, and even their “conspicuous consumption.” Now they will become fiscally conservative—enjoying spending their money but saving for rainy retirement days. Their dollars will be allotted to brands and products that have earned good reputations.
Make your marketing fun and enticing. Lehigh Valley residents in this demographic will become life-long and returning customers if they are satisfied that you have delivered on promises. Be reliable, assure them that your company, your products, your services are worth their consumer dollars. Seniors will be searching for value—make certain that you provide it!