Bill Swanston
These days, the Baby Boomer generation tends to be overlooked as talk surrounding Millennials permeates the industry. But Baby Boomers are still an important consumer segment. Just like Millennials, this generation is huge in size, interested in experiences, owns digital devices and is active on social media. Because 60% of most hospital admissions are Medicare (age 65+), this is a segment hospitals cannot forget.
Luckily, we have the inside scoop on what makes this audience tick.
Check out the tips and tricks below for reaching Baby Boomers. Through our work in the active adult real estate industry, we’ve learned how to best target messaging and media to those 55+ in order to generate leads and drive engagement.
Pick a topic that resonates with Baby Boomers
Online content isn’t about using the biggest megaphone you can find to blast your message to the world; it’s about knowing what’s relevant to your audience, and tailoring your message in a way that they find compelling. What are the most common health concerns that boomers face? What kind of preventative care are they seeking most? Why are other forms of preventative care so easy, yet so underutilized? What’s most important to them about their health?
Define the topics that drive Baby Boomers’ search traffic
Dive a little deeper by researching where the most direct and organic searches are leading. This data can be extremely useful in determining what kind of content to create, and which mediums to target. Are they visual learners who prefer diagrams, infographics, and short blogs? Or do they read longer articles and data-drive research?
Write for the Baby Boomer audience
Your content will be addressing a specific age group, which makes it all the more important that the writing be addressed directly to them. The wider the net you cast, the less your target will feel like you’re speaking specifically to them, which often leads to an immediate tune-out.
Keep content up to date to stay relevant and encourage repeat visitors
Consistency in your content has several benefits. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube – the algorithms of all these channels look for and favor consistency. But keeping your topics new and fresh is where engagement can really soar. When your posts are compelling and consistent, your followers are more likely to comment, share, and engage on your posts.
Strategies in action
Unlike the fairly rapid sales cycle for a traditional homebuyer, those 55+ take their time searching for the perfect location and lifestyle to meet their needs. There’s really no sense of urgency. Our client, Kolter Homes/Cresswind, challenged us to find a way to engage and motivate these apathetic buyers over several months, if not years.
So, we positioned Cresswind as an expert advisor to the 55+ homebuyer. The idea was to develop an ongoing series of communications to help our audience find the right community for them – Cresswind or not. The approach would allow Cresswind to stay in constant contact with their prospects with meaningful content. We developed an ongoing digital communications campaign that revolved around an online guide to active adult homebuying. An online media effort and social posts directed traffic to a landing page encouraging browsers to register for the free guide.
Within the first full year of the campaign, we achieved some pretty amazing results and completely surpassed every benchmark. At the beginning of the campaign, Kolter Corporate set our goal of increasing internet inquiries by 40%. Instead, we hit over 200%. Simply put, the client is pretty happy.
Let Frederick Swanston help you connect with your target audience in unique and innovative ways – contact us here.
