As an internet marketer, have you ever considered what segment of the population by age is your target market? Fair to most established marketers and gurus, it is widespread common knowledge that they teach a wide variety of marketing methods and techniques, chief of which is the need to identify a hot market product that can sell like crazy.
And to do so, we go to extra effort to identify the products with the highest keyword searches and the least pages online, to get a competitive edge over other marketers who are selling online similar or equivalent products. But perhaps we have missed what can be the most lucrative market segment by age in the whole American market. Let me show you why. Firstly, there is a fixation by online marketers to push their products to the age group 18-to-34 years with the understanding that they are the younger set who are computer literate and can take to the internet and have little or no qualms about buying online. But consider this – The US Census Bureau indicates that 40% of the US population is 50 and older, and this group holds 75% of the nation’s financial assets, and this same group did all 55% of all consumer spending! Indeed, the younger set of old are now the senior citizens, and many older internet users are getting more internet savvy to «trust» the internet and to buy something online. It is no surprise that a recent Nielsen survey showed a growth in this figure – 27.4 million people aged 55 or older brought something online during the last 6 months, improving from the figure of 26 million a year ago.
If you have been targeting only the younger population, consider that most senior citizens were eager buyers in clothing, flowers and gifts, shoes, health supplements, travel plans a year ago.
Consider these as niche markets to the older population, and build some support system to help the less internet savvy to interact with your sales platform. Studies have shown that where there is an human support or contact number on your sales website, the majority of those using the service was aged 35 and above. It therefore makes sense if you are targeting this older population set to include an interactive contact number or email support. The older population set are not ancient yet, and they are not relics. Once they get more technological savy, this older population set can become the most loyal online buyers, and they are the ones who hold the purse strings and can enhance your bottomline.