A lot of online marketers are totally missing a huge segment of potential customers. Keep in mind this group has $2.3 trillion in disposable income and in 2004, people aged 50 and older spent an average of 47.6 percent of their family’s budget on “nonessentials” (Bureau of Labor). These numbers are staggering for online marketers.

I came across a blog (and site) that talks a lot about marketing specifically to Baby Boomers; it has a lot of valuable info on it that you can take away for marketing your products.

Vim, Vigor and Vassolo makes some interesting points that need to be considered when marketing to Baby Boomers:

1. Every Baby Boomer thinks he or she can make a difference
2. They care about others
3. They care more about substance than trendiness
4. Boomers don’t feel old and expect to live forever
5. They’re confidant and know who they are
6. They want to feel fully alive and connected
7. They’re willing to pay a premium for quality
8. Baby Boomers expect r-e-s-p-e-c-t

If you’re a young marketer that assumes the world of ecommerce looks like you, you need to realign your thinking.

If you’re selling your own products, give some thought as to how they will appeal to the Baby Boomer segment of the population.

By targeting the people with the most money to spend you’re bound to increase sales and ROI.

Now let’s look at the holiday shopping season. eMarketer estimates a 10% increase in online holiday sales – $32 billion. Shoppers will be purchasing from the Internet to save gas money and to take advantage of free shipping offers.

Lots of Spending Money

If you’re selling products online, remember those baby boomers have lots of spending money:

The boomers’ collective wallet will only get fatter as they continue working. As a group, people age 50 to 60 are flush, with more than $1 trillion of spending power a year, about double the spending power of today’s 60-to-70-year-olds. They’re likely to be vigorous consumers as they empty the nest, take on new jobs, relocate, support children they had in their 40s, go back to school, start a second or third career, remarry, inherit money from their savings-minded parents, pursue new hobbies, and tackle the health issues of aging. “Marketers are slowly waking up,” says Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project, a Richmond (Va.) consulting firm. “If you’re going to expand your business, you will have to market to the aging boomer.” – Businessweek.com

If you’re focus is on the younger demographics at the exclusion of baby boomers, you are missing a potentially huge opportunity to tap into a large, diverse, and fast-growing segment of the U.S. Internet population this holiday season.

Make Your Site Search Engine and Shopper Friendly

You don’t have much time left, but you can still make the small tweaks that will make your site better optimized for search engines as well as user friendly to older visitors:

Design:

• Use dark type on a light background and avoid patterns
• Use a font size larger than 10 point in Arial or Tahoma

Layout:

• Make sure your pages load quickly
• Use the same style throughout the site
• Make site navigation consistent and easy to understand
• Provide “Previous/Next” buttons
• Keep your pages clean and uncluttered

Content:

• Use bold type to highlight key terms
• Underline your links; make visited links a different color
• Attention-grabbing features on a page should be links
• Left justify body text (other than headings)
• Don’t make visitors scroll down or use pull down menus

Check your titles and meta descriptions too. You’ll have a lot of competition in search, and you want the title to be as well optimized as possible, with a description that will encourage people to visit your site. Include a call to action in it if you can.

80% of those age 18-34 say web sites are designed for them, but that percentage decreases until only 35% of the 45-54 age segment, and 20% of the 55 and older group, feel sites are designed for people their age. Lest you think older people aren’t using the Internet much, almost 50% of the 55+ users said if they were unable to access the Internet their daily lives would be significantly disrupted.

The percentage is even more dismal when it comes to the focus of online advertising. The 45+ crowd surveyed said only 17% of it is designed for them. This means the population with the most disposable income is being overlooked by online advertisers.

70% of adults age 50 to 64 are online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 80% of them are on broadband, and their overall usage patterns mirror other age segments.

Internet marketers and advertisers must realize that the Baby Boomers and older individuals, who comprise a full third of the U.S. population and control over 83% of consumer spending, are rapidly integrating the Internet into their lives. In fact, Boomers have been at the forefront of technology for years – they invented a lot of it!

Baby Boomer Online Spending

The Internet is the most important source of information for Baby Boomers when they make a major marketing purchase, such as automobiles or appliances (Zoomerang). Adults 50+ spend an average of $7 billion online annually (SeniorNet), and 42% of all travel industry purchases happen online, with adults 50+ accounting for 80% of all luxury travel spending (Pew Internet and American Life Project).

• By 2010, adults 45-years-old and older will out-spend younger adults by $1 trillion annually.
• In 2004, people aged 50 and older spent an average of 48% of their family’s budget on “nonessentials” (Bureau of Labor).
• 50% of baby boomers plan to buy a new home after retirement (Del Webb Survey).

Designing Sites for an Older Demographic

Larger, darker fonts, higher color contrast, simple design, and consistent layout will encourage older visitors to stay on a site.

Since the type of content individuals seek varies by age group, a site’s content should be created around their interests:

Age 18-34

• Entertainment info 45%
• Local/national news 40%
• Online games 38%
• Shopping/product info 36%
• Info for work 35%
• Social networks, forums and blogs 31%

Age 35-54

• Local/national news 54%
• Shopping/product info 45%
• Info for work 43%
• Health info 37%
• Entertainment info 37%
• Travel info 34%

Age 55+

• Local/national news 60%
• Shopping/product info 44%
• Health info 43%
• International news 39%
• Travel info 38%
• Food information/recipes 34%

If your target market consists of this Baby Boomer and older demographic, and you want their business, you can’t afford to ignore their wants and needs. Baby boomer spending is expected to surpass $4.6 trillion by 2015.