Senior Consumer Insights

During the last years we have been witnesses and participants (or victims) of the increasing technological developments in different areas. We passed from the days when the computers were exclusive used by big corporations to the point where they were an essential home device in every household and later on to be considered a personal use device. The continuous development of such advancements made the technology more accessible to most of the people. This accessibility helped to satisfied the basic need of the people of being communicated in a different way than we were used to; this and also created opportunities for new business models to appear on this Internet era. 

Nowadays one of the most popular topics between the Marketers has been how to use the new communications tools to get closer to the customers and also in a more interactive way. As mentioned in the previous blog, everyday there are new gurus that assure they have the key to help business to take the most from the Social Media and the e-business, using these tools not only to reach more customers but also to get insight information that could be valuable for the companies

In parallel to the IT technology some other areas have done meaningful developments that have shape our present, which is the case of the medical advancements. During the 20^th century made possible to gain 30 years in life expectancy, which together with the higher birth rates in the post-Second World War years had resulted in a different new demographic composition. The expectation is that the aging population will continue to increase in the upcoming years. The new social structure will have different implications in different areas such as economic growth, care giving, living arrangements and quality of life.

Under the above scenario new challenges will arise for companies looking for attracting and retaining more customers. It looks like most of the companies are focusing their efforts in new technologies and emerging channels to reach their customers. However they need to pay attention to include the growing senior segment in their strategies and not underestimate their value as consumers.

Based on the above information I would like to go deeper on the senior market segment and answer some of the following questions

• Is there only a senior segment with similar necessities and tastes? Or are there many different senior segments with different characteristics?

• How is the senior segment attitude toward technology and Internet usage?

• Are the Internet marketing efforts suitable for this market?

• What are the needs for the senior people and how they look for ways to satisfy these needs?       

• What are the best ways to get Senior Consumer Insights?

In order to define the scope of this research I would like to focus in the post-retirement life of American senior people. I would like to focus especially in senior retired people looking for re-start their lives abroad and try to understand what make them look for the expatriate adventure in this stage. Also I would like to find out what are the most common difficulties they face after taking their decision and starting their new lives abroad. 

Social Media Insights

Nowadays one of the most discussed areas of insights for marketers is social media. It looks like everything has something to say about the best way to use them as marketing tool, either for companies to interact with customers or as source of insights to understand the customers in a best way.

Every time there are new companies or gurus that appear saying they have the key to understand how to get the most from the social media for marketing.  They offer new ways to measure the digital world and help the brand agencies to maximize the value of their social marketing programs. That is the case of Buddy Media, who recently announced a strategic partnership with eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers to help them to optimize their social communications on their own media and also quantify the impact of the earned media using meaningful metrics. They propose as meaningful social media metrics the reach / frequency, demographics, online behavior and benchmarking of competitive brands in the social landscape. (Computer Weekly News via VerticalNews.com, 2011)

The reality is that the social media is an emerging phenomenon, which is still in evolution and has not been completely established, there are a high variety of social networks available for different purpose and some of them do not last long time and others are appearing. The ones that have survived the most time are constantly adding new features and are still developing the business model.

Additional to the evolution of the social media tools that are available there is one more factor that is important to consider, the way the people is using these tools. The fact that the user is not required to proof his / her identity has made possible for people to create alternative life on the web and the information it cannot be as reliable as the experts may think.

Under this scenario it is not very likely that the information generated is a fully reliable source of customer insights.

BLOG 1: PERSONA

Margarita is a 69 years old Mexican woman who lives in Guadalajara, Jalisco. She was widower in 2005 of her only marriage; from which she grew up five daughters, all of them married by now. She has 9 grandchildren and two brothers older than her. Her family visited here frequently but not as much as she would like.

Margarita owns a well know restaurant in Guadalajara, which is run by the oldest of her daughters. However the performance of her business has not been as good as it used to be many years ago. Due the business situation she cannot afford the life style she would like to have; however it is enough to hold her big house where she lives and an apartment in the beach.

About five years ago she got an unusual decease that took her mobility, after a lot of hard work of on many rehabilitation sessions she was able to recover almost all her mobility. However she got some collateral damages that affected her autonomy. She walks only short distances using a cane now; also she is not longer able to drive. But life goes on and she is rebuilding her life now. She got back to her aerobics classes every other day where she can meet with some of her friends. It can be said that she has a lot of women friends; most of them are around her same age that share similar backgrounds and problems.

1.       What does she think and feel? 

She feels alone, most of the time she stays at home by herself; “my daughters are very busy and they have not time for me” she thinks. She is afraid of being a burden for her family and also she is not comfortable with her current situation where she depends on others to go out and get her things done, every time she needs to go out she calls to a driver to take her but does not like to do this frequently. She feels that he is not capable of many things especially when it comes to the use of technology as cell phones and computers. 

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2.       What does she see?

Every morning the newspaper is delivered to her door, she is interested on different kind of news and articles related to her community as well as sports; she also likes to check if there is any upcoming event or special sales.  She dedicates long time of her day to watch the TV, she likes to find movies during the day and follow the soap operas at the evening. 

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3.       What does she say and do?

She says that there are many things she would like to do but she cannot because of her movement impairment. Every other day she enjoys of going to the aerobics classes for seniors. Also one of her hobbies is to knit clothes for her grandchildren and also for her daughters. Sometimes she complains that her family is very busy and they have not time to take her to do the things she wants or need to do outside. She says that is not capable of doing anything related to technology. When she feels optimistic she says that it is time for her to take the control of her life back, face her fears and do the things she wants by herself besides her impairment. She also says that she needs to accept her reality and her loneliness. However she is not optimistic every day.  

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4.       What does she hear?  
She hear many different people every day, she likes to talk by phone with some of her friend, sometimes they invite her to go out, other times they talk about their problems with them or within their families. Some other days she receives calls from her brothers, which make her very happy (she loves to know about her two brothers). Almost every day she also receives the calls of most of her daughters at night to say hi and talk about how their day was.

However not everything what she hears is what she wants to hear. Many times she receives feedback, mostly from her daughters, when she is complaining about her situation and giving up. They always try to encourage her to put more effort and do things by herself; however she argues that they do not understand her

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5.       What are his or her pain points?

She yearns for her old days, when she used to have control of her life. She remembers when she was able to do the things she wanted without depending on someone. She is afraid of  being a burn for her family in the future, and even worse to be more dependent of others around her. Basically she is afraid to lose the most valuable thing for her: control.

As most mothers she is very concern about the happiness of her family, specially her daughters and grandchildren. She is always worried about any problem that her daughters would be facing and tries to support them the best she can. Fortunately for her all her made a good life and happy, with minimal problems.

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6.       What does she hope to gain?

She is working hard to rebuild her life and she is positive most of the time about the future. She expects to improve her condition as much as possible. Eventually she would like to get more control over her life and be able to do what she wants when she wants.