Mature Market Experts: Selling to Boomers, Seniors, and the Mature Market: Marketing to Baby Boomers, Seniors and the Mature Market - By Tom Mann, TR Mann Consulting: My partners at TR Mann Consulting and I regularly receive emails and phone calls from reporters, bloggers, advertising agencies, marketing firms, and consumer good manufactures asking us what the secret is to selling to Baby Boomers, seniors, and the Mature Market. I would argue that there are no secrets to selling to these different age groups, just refined techniques. Here are some baby boomer, senior and mature market marketing basics:

How is marketing to baby boomers different from marketing to seniors, the mature market or the public in general?

For decades now, marketers have been selling their clients on demographic breakouts. They tell you that the baby boomer generation (the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964) represent unlimited herd-like opportunities. On top of the 76 million American Boomer goldmine is another six to eight million immigrant boomers.

The magic demographic breakout? People born between 1946 and 1955 are called leading-edge boomers by these marketers. Those born between 1956 to 1964 are commonly referred to as late- or trailing-edge boomers.

These lazy marketers will tell you that these are two sociologically distinct target audiences . . . the “leading-edge boomers” grew up during the Vietnam War era. They will tell you that they were shaped by the “cultural revolution,” modern feminism (remember Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs?), the Beatles, the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, and the civil rights.

And yes, these events did influence some of their decisions but unfortunately for marketers, it’s much more complex than that. Boomers and the mature market (like all humans) are driven more by their personal needs (remember Maslow’s pyramid?) and the stage of life they are currently in.

In short, marketers need to understand that it’s about “stage” . . . not age. In other words, where is that individual in their personal journey? Just because we are from the same generation doesn’t mean were in the same stage.

David Wolfe, one of my favorite bloggers and a true expert on aging states on his blog Ageless Marketing:

“Needs drive our behavior. Our need to be physically and mentally comfortable, whole, safe and secure does not change from one generation to the next. In Maslow’s hierarchy, that bundle of needs is the most basic of all needs. Then, our need for love and to be loved never changes from one generation to the next. The same holds true of our need for self-esteem and the esteem of others.

What does change from generation to generation are the ways in which we strive to meet our needs.”

By approaching consumer’s with a “stage mentality” new targeting opportunities arise. My favorite example of this is one of my clients, GRAND Magazine. GRAND doesn’t address the readers’ age; it addresses the stage of life this group (Grandparents) has just entered. By recognizing the importance of this role, the grandparent role, GRAND and its advertisers, connect with their audience on a much deeper level. Think about it this way, there are over 72 million grandparents in America, and according to Age Wave Communications they’ll spend over 30 billion this year on their grandchildren. And I would say that $30 Billion is low, I’ve seen estimates of over $75 billion a year!

Because we believe it’s about stage, NOT age, at TR Mann Consulting we have created a different set of lens for looking at the sales process called the Maslow-Mann Brand Match. The great thing about this approach is that unlike the traditional marketing approach it’s inclusive, rather than “cutting out” market segments . . . so your market opportunities are bigger, not smaller. For example, did you know that the average age of a grandparent in the U.S. is 48? If you applied a traditional approach to reaching grandparents (a presumed age) you would miss much of the market.

Why are so many people and companies talking about boomers and the mature market now? How much buying power do boomers and matures have?

You have to remember, every eight seconds, another boomer turns 50. Over 50% of the households in the U.S. are now headed up by a baby boomer. And the mature market continues to grow at an incredible rate; by 2010 one-third of the U.S. population will be over 50. By 2020, one in five Americans will be over 65.

More importantly, they control the bulk of the nation’s wealth . . . and they shop! According to a recent study by Nielsen and Hallmark Channels, households with baby boomer members account for nearly $230 billion in sales of consumer packaged goods and represent 55% of total consumer packaged goods sales.

Those numbers get even bigger when you include all the mature market, the 78 million American seniors who were 50 or older as of 2001 controlled $28 trillion, or 67% of the country’s wealth.

The mature market controls 70 to 79% of all the financial assets, 80% of all the savings accounts; 62% of all large Wall Street asset accounts; and 66% of all the money invested in the stock market.

Boomer women in particular will control the bulk of the mature market’s wealth. By 2010, women are expected to control 60% of all wealth in the U.S., according to a study from Allianz Life Insurance Company.

If you want to see more of these amazing numbers on mature women, click here.

What is the best way to market to boomers and the mature market?

Boomers and seniors are at completely different stages of their lives. It’s important to identify which stages most closely align with your product or service.

· Do they have kids at home? Young or returned to the nest?

· Do they have parents at home?

· Are they healthy? What ailments do they have?

· Are they retired?

· Are they active?

The point is, that by acknowledging that marketing is a whole lot harder than just selling to a “herd” of boomers you’ll start to position your product more carefully.

Aside from physical ailments and illnesses, as we age and mature, we tend to proceed further up Maslow’s pyramid with our needs becoming less materialistic and more emotional/spiritual. Creating advertising that connects emotionally and logically is essential. This is one of the reasons TR Mann Consulting likes to use testimonials for our clients. Testimonials tell stories, they connect emotionally and logically. Plus, they maximize the principals of authority and social proof (The principles of influence: Consistency, Likability, Authority, Social Proof, Scarcity, and Reciprocity — as taught by researcher, Dr. Robert Cialdini).

Next, you have to take in consideration the visual and psychological differences between the different stages. One stage might be “elderly with declining health.” For the 65+ audience your ads should look dramatically different than if you were targeting younger boomers exclusively. Why? Because vision becomes an issue for print and TV, as do fast cuts in TV commercials. Although, in my opinion, all your ads should include these inclusive visual techniques . . . after all, why cut out potential customers? (If you’re interested in learning more about the mature market and vision, click here, then go to the bottom of the page and select “Vision and Aging.”)

Want to learn more about Baby Boomers, Seniors, and the Mature Market?

Of course, an article this short can’t possibly cover a topic this complex and do it justice. But hopefully, it does stop you from buying the traditional “herd-mentality” marketing approach being sold by most marketers for reaching the Boomers. If you’d like to learn more to improve your chances for marketing success with the mature market, give TR Mann Consulting a call at 410-292-4333.

Note: this blog was orginaly published December 23, 2008. For some reason, when our blog was rolled over to our current URL this blog didn’t follow. Therefore, we have reposted.

Enjoy!

Mature Market Experts: More news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Baby Boomers Boom into Volunteerism - Volunteerism is on the rise in the US. Some site the realization of increased need in this difficult economy as their motivator. Others are unemployed and willing and able to contribute their time, perhaps instead of the money they might have given in the past. The president’s emphasis on community service is also credited with the drastic increase in volunteers. Numerous people have signed up through the website www.serve.gov. Many of these volunteers are boomers, and nonprofits are benefiting from their business and professional skills, as well as more traditional physical labor. They in turn, site satisfaction as a major reward for their altruistic efforts. To read more click here.

Baby Boomers and Volunteering

• Nearly a third of all boomers – comprising some 25.8 million people – volunteered for a formal organization in 2005. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• At 33.2%, the volunteer rate for baby boomers is the highest of any generational age group, and more than four percentage points above the national average of 28.8%. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• A typical boomer volunteer serves 51 hours a year, or approximately one hour a week. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• The percentage of retired baby boomers who volunteered increased steadily, from approximately 25% in 2002 to approximately 30% in 2004. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Volunteering tends to peak at mid-life, around the current age of baby boomers, and then decline slightly; declining further among the oldest old (typically 75+).
• The biggest single inducement for baby boomers to volunteer is being asked by someone with whom one has an established relationship.
• Baby boomers are less likely than older age groups to volunteer out of a sense of duty or obligation and more likely to volunteer as part of a social interaction.
• Baby boomers are more likely to volunteer as a result of social, self development, self-esteem, or leisure-focused motivations. Episodic, familiar, community-based opportunities are also preferred.
• Four out of five boomers see work as playing a role in their retirement years, with only 20% anticipating retiring and not working at all (AARP):
• Of U.S. workers over 45, 69% plan to work in some capacity during retirement, with only 28% expecting not to work at all.
• More than 75% of workers 45+ feel that work is important to their self-esteem.

(Research taken from the 2004 “Reinventing Aging – Baby Boomers and Civic Engagement” report, Harvard School of Public Health & MetLife Foundation Initiative on Retirement and Civic Engagement, unless otherwise cited.) Source: Get Involved

If you own or operate a retirement community or health club, you owe it to your residents/patrons and yourself to serve as a spark for their spirit of volunteerism. By enabling them, you not only engage their body, mind and spirit … you also open an incredibly valuable public relations source for the community. Many retirees are searching for new meaning in their lives. After all, society tends to devalue you once you retire. What’s the first question someone asks you at a party? “So, who do you work for?” Well, these stories don’t appear in the paper by accident, they are often guided by talented PR people. And the effect? Seniors look at a story like this and go, “I want to be involved!” Very often their next thought is, “Man, I want to live at a place where people are doing cool stuff!”

Think about it this way, have you ever placed an inspirational story about one of your residents/health club members? PR is even more powerful than advertising. It comes across as an unsolicited recommendation. I guarantee you, the stories that you don’t yet know about your residents/members will amaze you. And even more importantly, getting to know your residents/members this deeply, so that you can discover these stories, will be even more important than the PR itself. Your members will feel a real connection with you. They know that they belong and are cared for. Plus, most people love being stars!

Hint: These stories are EASY to create, if you know how to create real relationships with the people you work with and the surrounding community. If you’d like some more “relational marketing” ideas, check out this PowerPoint presentation.

Mature Market Experts: more news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Marketing to Boomers Event - How to Build Your Business with the Mature Consumer – More than 15 experts on the Boomer market, including moi (Tom Mann of TR Mann Consulting), will share strategies for marketing to Boomers in a workshop at the East Side Marriott in Manhattan on May 14. The organizer of the workshop is Dr. Leslie M. Harris, a noted Boomer expert and the author of After Fifty: How the Baby Boom Will Redefine the Mature Market and After Sixty: Marketing to Baby Boomers Reaching Their Big Transition Years. The workshop is titled “Marketing to Boomer Men and Boomer Women: How to Build Your Business with the Mature Consumer.”

After conducting successful workshops in the Chicago and Washington, DC areas, Harris decided to organize a third workshop in New York to help marketers tap into the $7 trillion in personal wealth that is held collectively by people over the age of 50.

“Marketers continue to undervalue Boomer and beyond consumers and therefore allow these consumers to make their buying decisions with few marketing or advertising programs to gain their loyalty or favorable brand attitudes. This is a long-held and failing attitude toward these consumers,” Dr. Harris tells Selling to Seniors. “The Boomer and beyond generations are the most written-about age segment. The objective of this workshop is to try to point out that Boomers are big business. The presentations will clearly identify the importance of the 50-plus marketplace.”

Confirmed speakers for the workshop are as follows:

• Jerry Shereshewsky, CEO, Grandparents.com – luncheon speaker
• Kevin Lavery, managing director of Millennium Direct, UK, and president of the International Mature Marketing Network (IMMN) — keynote address
• Adriene Berg, CEO, Generation Bold, a business development and marketing consultancy
• Pat Burns, author of the best-selling book Grandparents Rock
• Helen Foster, Foster Strategy, Former Partner, JWT Mature Market Group
• Todd Harff, president, Creating Results, and a founding member of IMMN
• Steve Howard, author of 50 Low-Cost Ways to Acquire New Customers and Boomer Selling
• Paul E. Johnson, former account manager at TNS, who will report on his recently published article “Grandparenting: A New Image”
• Dr. Elaine Lyons and Ken Lyons, Perceptive Market Research, who will report on a national omnibus study of “Boomers and Beyond” that they recently conducted
• Jerry Maffia, a 30-year veteran of marketing research and promotion
• Kurt Medina, president of Medina Associates consultancy and co-author of the best-selling book 77 Truths About Marketing to the 50+ Consumer
• Tom Mann, managing partner, TR Mann Consulting, and founder of the Mature Market Experts (a LinkedIn networking group and blog for anyone who serves or sells to boomers, seniors, or the mature market) 

Special Panel Presentation

 Also, a panel presentation titled “Marketing to Boomer Women: How to Successfully Reach Them Using Social Media” will be moderated by Martin Diano, CEO of Boomer Authority and publisher of the Baby Boomer (Knowledge Center). The four panelists will be:

• Nancy Padberg, CEO, Navigate Boomer Media        • Marva Goldsmith, CEO, www.branding50.com
• Sandra Levitan, CEO and publisher, www.KalonWomen.com
• Dotsie Bregel, founder, National Association of Baby Boomer Women

Tom Mann

I love Manhattan, so I’m really looking forward to speaking at this workshop. I’m constantly amazed at all the wonderful people and meaningful business contacts I make when I attend these events. Usually, the most valuable contacts come from companies and people that hadn’t been on my radar prior to the event … but something magical happens when you get a bunch of people together, focused on a few important topics. By the way, I’ll be presenting on “Changing how we age: innovative trends in health care and commercial products.” In fact, if you have any ideas or products you think I should consider including in my presentation, let me know. I hope to see you there!

Early-Bird Deadline: March 1

Those who register for the workshop by March 1, the early-bird registration deadline, can attend the workshop for $175 per person or $275 for two attendees. In addition to breakfast and lunch, each attendee will receive a copy of Medina’s book 77 Truths About Marketing to the 50+ Consumer and a copy of one of Harris’s books – either After Fifty or After Sixty; both are described at http://www.beyondboomers.com/.

Additional Sponsorship Opportunities

A Sponsorship at the workshop of $500 gives you:
- Two (2) complimentary registrations to the workshop.
- Company logo and acknowledgment on Workshop Entrance Signage.
- Company logo on any Educational Workshop web page, highlighting sponsorship.
- Verbal acknowledgment during workshop made by the workshop organizers and speakers.

Don’t miss the opportunity to be a sponsor at this workshop.  It’s a great way to engage your peers, reach potential buyers, and show your commitment to the largest and wealthiest age cohort bar none. In addition to face-to-face interaction with the most highly qualified and knowledgeable people in the Boomer Market today, sponsorship helps you gain market leverage to an audience ready to embrace this market’s incredible revenue potential. If your company sells markets or promotes products or services directly to boomers and beyond, then your company should have a presence at this workshop! Trust me, this market … particularly older women, control the world’s wealth (to see some incredible statistics, check out this PowerPoint)! Please contact, Paul Johnson at pejconsulting@hotmail.com for additional sponsorship information.

 Info: For more information about the presentations or speakers, or to register, visit the website or contact workshop organizer Dr. Harris at mmrharris@aol.com; he will contact you with instructions about how to make your credit card payment.

PS   Here’s an earlier presentation I gave to T. Rowe Price that might be of interest to you on Inspiring the 65+ Market to Act.

Mature Market Experts: more news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors, and the mature market – Shh, the secret to selling to the mature market? – My partners at TR Mann Consulting and I regularly receive emails and phone calls from reporters, bloggers, advertising agencies, marketing firms, and consumer good manufactures asking us what the secret is to understanding Baby Boomers, seniors, and the Mature Market. I would argue that there are no secrets just refined advertising and marketing techniques. Here are some baby boomer and mature market marketing basics:

How is marketing to baby boomers different from marketing to the rest of the mature market or the public in general?

For decades now, marketers have been selling their clients on demographic breakouts. They tell you that the baby boomer generation (the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964) represent unlimited herd-like opportunities.  On top of the 76 million American Boomer goldmine is another six to eight million immigrant boomers.

The magic demographic breakout? People born between 1946 and 1955 are called leading-edge boomers by these marketers. Those born between 1956 to 1964 are commonly referred to as late- or trailing-edge boomers.

These lazy marketers will tell you that these are two sociologically distinct target audiences . . . the “leading-edge boomers” grew up during the Vietnam War era. They will tell you that they were shaped by the “cultural revolution,” modern feminism (remember Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs?), the Beatles, the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, and the civil rights.

And yes, these events did influence some of their decisions but unfortunately for marketers, it’s much more complex than that. Boomers and the mature market (like all humans) are driven more by their personal needs (remember Maslow’s pyramid?) and the stage of life they are currently in.

In short, marketers need to understand that it’s about “stage” . . . not age. In other words, where is that individual in their personal journey? Just because we are from the same generation doesn’t mean were in the same stage.

David Wolfe, one of my favorite bloggers and a true expert on aging states on his blog Ageless Marketing:

“Needs drive our behavior. Our need to be physically and mentally comfortable, whole, safe and secure does not change from one generation to the next. In Maslow’s hierarchy, that bundle of needs is the most basic of all needs. Then, our need for love and to be loved never changes from one generation to the next. The same holds true of our need for self-esteem and the esteem of others.

What does change from generation to generation are the ways in which we strive to meet our needs.”

By approaching consumer’s with a “stage mentality” new targeting opportunities arise. My favorite example of this is one of my clients, GRAND Magazine. GRAND doesn’t address the readers’ age; it addresses the stage of life this group (Grandparents) has just entered. By recognizing the importance of this role, the grandparent role, GRAND and its advertisers, connect with their audience on a much deeper level. Think about it this way, there are over 72 million grandparents in America, and according to Age Wave Communications they’ll spend over 30 billion this year on their grandchildren. And I would say that $30 Billion is low, I’ve seen estimates of over $75 billion a year!

Because we believe it’s about stage, NOT age, at TR Mann Consulting we have created a different set of lens for looking at the sales process called the Maslow-Mann Brand Match. The great thing about this approach is that unlike the traditional marketing approach it’s inclusive, rather than “cutting out” market segments . . . so your market opportunities are bigger, not smaller. For example, did you know that the average age of a grandparent in the U.S. is 48? If you applied a traditional approach to reaching grandparents (a presumed age) you would miss much of the market.

Why are so many people and companies talking about boomers and the mature market now? How much buying power do boomers and matures have?

You have to remember, every eight seconds, another boomer turns 50. Over 50% of the households in the U.S. are now headed up by a baby boomer. And the mature market continues to grow at an incredible rate; by 2010 one-third of the U.S. population will be over 50. By 2020, one in five Americans will be over 65.

More importantly, they control the bulk of the nation’s wealth  . . . and they shop! According to a recent study by Nielsen and Hallmark Channels, households with baby boomer members account for nearly $230 billion in sales of consumer packaged goods and represent 55% of total consumer packaged goods sales.

Those numbers get even bigger when you include all the mature market, the 78 million Americans who were 50 or older as of 2001 controlled $28 trillion, or 67% of the country’s wealth.

The mature market controls 70 to 79% of all the financial assets, 80% of all the savings accounts; 62% of all large Wall Street asset accounts; and 66% of all the money invested in the stock market.

Boomer women in particular will control the bulk of the mature market’s wealth. By 2010, women are expected to control 60% of all wealth in the U.S., according to a study from Allianz Life Insurance Company.

If you want to see more of these amazing numbers on mature women, click here.

What is the best way to market to boomers and the mature market?

Boomers and seniors are at completely different stages of their lives. It’s important to identify which stages most closely align with your product or service.

·        Do they have kids at home? Young or returned to the nest?

·        Do they have parents at home?

·        Are they healthy? What ailments do they have?

·        Are they retired?

·        Are they active?

The point is, that by acknowledging that marketing is a whole lot harder than just selling to a “herd” of boomers you’ll start to position your product more carefully.

Aside from physical ailments and illnesses, as we age and mature, we tend to proceed further up Maslow’s pyramid with our needs becoming less materialistic and more emotional/spiritual. Creating advertising that connects emotionally and logically is essential. This is one of the reasons TR Mann Consulting likes to use testimonials for our clients. Testimonials tell stories, they connect emotionally and logically. Plus, they maximize the principals of authority and social proof (The principals of influence: Consistency, Likability, Authority, Social Proof, Scarcity, and Reciprocity — as taught by researcher, Dr. Robert Cialdini).

Next, you have to take in consideration the visual and psychological differences between the different stages. One stage might be “elderly with declining health.” For the 65+ audience your ads should look dramatically different than if you were targeting younger boomers exclusively. Why? Because vision becomes an issue for print and TV, as do fast cuts in TV commercials. Although, in my opinion, all your ads should include these inclusive visual techniques . . . after all, why cut out potential customers? (If you’re interested in learning more about the mature market and vision, click here.)

Mooo!

Of course, an article this short can’t possibly cover a topic this complex and do it justice. But hopefully, it does stop you from buying the traditional “herd-mentality” marketing approach being sold by most marketers for reaching the Boomers.

As, I’ve posted before, and will repost today, the hip/cool ad agencies on the coasts are somehow just missing it.

Seniors, road rage, IPod phones, consumer products and why older women rule the world!

One of my favorite movies scenes of all times is when middle-aged baby boomer Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes) is waiting patiently for a parking spot in a shopping center. Just as the spot becomes available, two young girls in a cute little car cut in front of her and steal her parking spot.

Evelyn Couch: “Hey! I was waiting for that spot!”

Rude Girl: “Face it, lady, we’re younger and faster!”

Then, Evelyn calmly and coolly reeves up her car and then repeatedly rams her car into the back of their tiny VW Bug, smiles and says, “Face it, girls: I’m older, and I have more insurance.”

As our population ages, and as the senior population continues to possess the lion’s share of our country’s disposable income, it becomes more and more apparent to me that the mature market rules — or can choose to rule as Kathy Bates’ character did — which is why two years ago we created a firm specializing in marketing to boomers and beyond, TR Mann Consulting.

Research from Harris Interactive says that retirees feel that Madison Avenue has forgotten they exist. The study, commissioned by the TV Land cable network, shows that two-thirds of adult TV viewers say that most television programming and advertising is targeted at people under 40.

In cities around the county, an eye-popping 80+ percent of mature market respondents over 40 claim they can’t find TV programming that portrays their lives. The sooner programming reflects seniors’ interests, the sooner they will buy the advertised products. OK, maybe they aren’t rushing out to buy IPhones yet (although they might if more apps were written for them), but the mature market still buys a ton of consumer products.

I think these PowerPoint slides  accurately capture the insanity of this situation.

Truth be told, I could care less if the mature market buy doesn’t buy products from marketers who are asleep. But I’m smart enough to know that economics is very often the driving force behind our society. How much longer will society devalue the mature market’s contributions (current and future)? If we are going to climb out of this recession, we need to recognize both the economic and social value of the mature market.

How come the only boomers or seniors we see on TV are buying products of weakness (Depends, Viagra, etc.)? Listen up people, the mature market has the money and they buy stuff. Lots of stuff!

Mature Market Experts: more news and stats  you can use on boomer, seniors and the mature market – The Best Type Font to Use on a Website Targeting Seniors? The Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University recently completed a study to determine which type fonts and sizes were most readable to older web site visitors. The results were surprisingly contradictory to conventional graphic design wisdom. The fonts used in the investigation were Georgia and Times New Roman (Times), and the sans serif fonts were Arial and Verdana.  The fonts were displayed in 12 and 14 point type, making a total of eight variations. Predictably, the 14 point type was the most readable and most preferred. Serif type was read faster and sans serif was preferred by the volunteer testers. Click here to learn more.

At TR Mann Consulting, we stress the importance of clean design. Tell your design firm or advertising agency to forget about winning awards and focus on winning customers. For more on communicating with the mature market and understanding senior vision click here.

Mature Market Experts: more news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors, and the mature market -  5 GRANDparent Facts You Should Know - (1.) The average age of a first time grandparent is only 48. As baby boomers find themselves grandparents, they’re “thinking outside the rocking chair,” reports Linda Matchan of the Boston Globe and rejecting traditional stereotypes in favor of a younger, hipper image. They like adventure, iPods, even Facebook. And, whatever you do, don’t call them “Grandma” or “Grandpa”. (2.) Grandparents are expected to spend $2 trillion on consumer goods this year alone according to a report by Peter Francese, founder of American Demographics Magazine.  (3.) 55% of grandparent homeowners do not have mortgages. (4.) 75% of the wealth in the U.S. is controlled by grandparents. (5.) 72% of grandparents take care of their grandchildren on a regular basis.
 
If you’re not marketing to grandparents yet, contact GRAND Media today and let Christine Crosby, the publisher, help guide you to them.

I recently had a horrendous day traveling from Raleigh, NC to Baltimore … with over 5 hours of flight delays … much of it spent on a Southwest plane sitting on a runway. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper and was ready to put a black mark in my “book” next to Southwest.

By then they redeemed themselves by doing the unexpected. The following email arrived shortly after my misadventure:

Did they have to do this ? No, but they knew it was the right thing to do (in case you can’t read the letter, they apologized for the incident and provided me with a $75 LUV voucher). The best companies pleasantly surprise, even in bad situations. The best companies understand that it’s all about relationships (and not about lip service).

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – What’s Your Life Expectancy? – This fun/interesting rollover map from MSNBC provides an interactive map of the USA that shows your life expectancy on a state by state basis. What’s your life expectancy? It also has a really neat “National timeline” that shows major health milestones/events that changed history.

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – With 77.5 million boomers focused on staying young, fitness industry focuses on them – ““Baby boomers are a booming population. Their numbers are expected to increase by about 25 percent in the next eight years,” said Kara Thompson, of the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA).

Boomers span ages 43 to 61, approximately. With the U.S. Administration on Aging reporting that 77 percent of all financial assets in the United States are held by those 50 and older, it’s like the poet said: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Thompson said an a survey by IHRSA, which promotes fitness through education and sports club membership, showed that gym membership among the 55+ group in the United States jumped from 1.5 million in 1987 to 9.9 million in 2007.

“It is estimated that in this year alone, Boomers will spend over $70 billion on ways to stave off the aging process,” she added.

As we age, tendons and muscles shorten, bones lose calcium and lungs lose elasticity, writes Dr. Vonda Wright, in her new book, “Fitness After 40.”

But that’s just the bad news.

“Only 30 percent of aging is genetic,” Wright, who specializes in sports medicine, explained. “That means that 70 percent of how we age is determined by the decisions we make.””

Source: MSNBC and Reuters

Note from Tom Mann: Remember, With the 77.5 million boomers expected to increase by 25% in the next 8 years, the fitness industry will continue to represent a growth opportunity even in a down economy. I recently spoke at the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) and presented some ideas on how retirement communities and fitness centers could engage the mature market through relational marketing. Regardless of your product or service, many of the techniques I discuss in this PowerPoint are effective ways to cost-efficiently market while building strong, lasting relationships. To see the presentation, click here on: TR Mann Consulting – Relational Marketing.

Also, worth repeating, several years ago the AARP in conjunction with the ICAA did a study on terminology . . . the mature market reacted very negatively towards the term “exercise” while the term “active” tested very positively.