Second50Years Marketing Blog

By Joanne Fritz, Ph.D.

Older consumers are not won over easily, nor are they a market just for adult diapers and sensible shoes.  They are looking for fashion, style, travel, luxury cars, home improvement products, and vacation homes.

The new mature market does not want to be talked down to, treated as children, or reminded of their age. Most do not consider themselves “old.” What should a marketer do?  Pay attention…that’s what.

Here are eight simple tips to apply to your communications to make sure you are enticing the older consumer, not turning him or her away:

1. Don’t use words such as ”senior citizen” or “golden
   agers.” Images of mature people should be positive but realistic…show people with wrinkles but have them doing something active.
2. Don’t just show happy couples. Include images of single people, especially women, since many of your audience will be widowed or divorced. 
3. Avoid both drab colors and overly youthful ones. Select
   elegant shades for background color or paper such as a
   light blue, gray, or violet.
4. Make sure that the color does not interfere with reading
   the copy. Vary the hues of backgrounds and type so there
   is enough contrast to read. Pairs of complementary colors, those that appear opposite of one another on a color wheel, make pleasing visuals.
5. Use dark type on a light or white background. Do not use
   reverse type where the type is light on a dark background. Designers love white type on black because it is dramatic, but don’t use it if there is a lot of type, not on a web page…not in print.
6. Keep designs crisp and interesting but avoid overly “busy” ones.
   Use a font size of at least 12 points and an easy-to-read typeface
   such as Courier or Times Roman. Use serif type in printed pieces and sans serif type on webpages.
7. Write in short paragraphs and break up the copy
   with subheads and call outs (such as a quote).
8. Don’t assume that all mature people are alike.  With an age
   range from 50 to 90 there will be some stark differences.
   Segment your communications so you can personalize to specific age groups, or, better yet, life stages.

Joanne Fritz, Ph.D. is editor/publisher of Second50Years Marketing.