You are Carol
Morgan, President of Boomers & Their Elders, a division of Strategic Directions
Group, Inc. Could you introduce the company and its expertise on the 50+ market?
Strategic Directions Group, Inc.
specializes in motivational segmentation research on both consumer and
business-to-business markets using our proprietary motivational measurement
method, which we call Marketer®. ; We have over 25 years of experience in this
type of research which places people with the same motivations toward a product
or service into a group or segment. ; This type of research answers the question
of why someone wants a product or service or does something.
;
Our work on the U.S. mature market stems
from our specialization in motivational segmentation research and consulting. ;
In 1989, Strategic Directions Group completed its first in a series of studies
using our methodology to investigate the maturing U.S. marketplace. ; Over the
last 15 years we’ve conducted eight nationwide studies, gathering data from
25,000 Americans 40 and older. ; These comprehensive studies have allowed us to
gather a massive amount of highly diverse insights. ; In addition, we’ve created
nine psychographic segmentation strategies that reflect the complexity and
diversity of the huge mature market.
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We began this research because we
believed that the purely demographic segmentation perspective that was dominant
then—and is to a great extent still prevalent—was too simplistic for effective
marketing. ;
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We believe that an understanding of
underlying consumer motivations provides marketers with the most effective
framework for developing strategies. Demographics are easy to collect, but often
people with the same characteristics behave very differently.
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While we begin with motivational
segments, we correlate them with demographics, behaviors, and media and Internet
usage. ; The result is a comprehensive, 360 degree view of mature consumers, or
consumers in any market.
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Our expertise in the mature market,
which we define as people age 40 and older, is based on our continuing mail
panel studies and our motivational segmentation strategies of the market, as
well as proprietary work for clients.
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In a book
entitled “Marketing to the Mindset of Boomers and Their Elders,” you introduced
some segmentation strategies. Would you like to talk about them?
Our nine different segmentation
strategies on aspects of older consumers’ lives cover lifestyle, financial
matters, travel, automobiles, food, and health. ; As far as we have been able to
determine, these nine segmentation strategies examining various facets of the
U.S. mature market deliver the most comprehensive perspective on any single
population ever completed.
;
In 1993, we published our initial book,
Segmenting the Mature Market (McGraw Hill). ; In 2002, we published our second
book, Marketing to the Mindset of Boomers and Their Elders (Attitudebase), in
which we describe all nine of our segmentation strategies.
;
Understanding the rational, and
sometimes irrational, reasons why customers buy products allows planners to
design more suitable offerings, craft more relevant messages, utilize better
channels of communication, and better satisfy their most profitable customers.
;
Using our Marketer system, Strategic
Directions Group has divided Boomers and their Elders nine different ways:
Lifestyle (four segments), Health (four segments), Health Information (six
segments), Health Compliance (four segments), Car Purchase (four segments), Car
Maintenance (three segments), ; Food (three segments), Travel (five segments),
and Financial (five segments). We created these segmentation strategies by
differentiating people mathematically based on their motivations. ; After
creating a segmentation strategy, we gain unique insights by correlating it to
behaviors, demographics, and other data.
;
A few examples will help to flesh out
these segments. ; If the tourism director of a European country were attempting
to attract U.S. tourists to historical sites, he or she should be most
interested in Global Explorers. ; This segment isn’t defined demographically,
but, rather, by their intense interest in exploring new countries and learning
about them.
;
Someone marketing luxury cruises in the
Mediterranean should target another Travel segment, the Pampered Relaxers. ; For
this segment, travel is meant to deliver an experience of great luxury, one
during which they are served royally. ; In our Food segmentation a marketer of a
nutritionally enhanced yogurt would find a predisposed, motivated market in the
Nutrition Concerned. ; The basic idea is to market products that fit the existing
needs and wants of a segment. ; Attempting to convince a segment having no
interest in your product or service that it should buy it is an expensive and
doomed proposition. ; ; ;
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Because many of our respondents have
participated in our surveys more than once, we’ve also developed a priceless
longitudinal perspective. ; This long-term perspective has provided us with two
important things. ; First, we’ve gained insights into how our respondents have
dealt with aging and their lives as mature consumers. ;
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Secondly, we have also been able to
substantiate the reliability of our segmentation strategies. ; In our studies we
now use very brief scales that have been extracted from our original set of
extensive batteries. ; We’ve proven that these brief scales reliably replicate
the more detailed, original versions. ; These brief scales are highly useful in
conducting cost-effective research and classifying persons into databases. ;
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What services
do you offer to companies that want to reach the 50plus market?
The services we provide to companies
that want to effectively reach the mature market run the gamut from consulting
to proprietary research projects, reports based on our existing database to
participation in our syndicated studies. ; We’ve structured our services to fit
the needs of those making first forays into the mature market, as well as those
who need to drill down for detailed insights. ; We’ve attempted to disprove the
myth that motivational segmentation research has to be extraordinarily
expensive. ; Our services provide insights, regardless of budget. ;
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Through our consulting practice, we
assist clients in devising strategies, products, and services by determining
which segments, whether ours or ones we have developed for them, offer them the
best opportunity. ; We also help them determine messages consist with the needs
and wants of their target motivationally defined segments. ; Besides consulting
with them on product design and marketing, we also develop systems to categorize
their customers and map segments onto databases.
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Our continuing nationwide studies of the
U.S. population 40 and older provide a cost-effective method for companies to
survey, test concepts, and measure important issues about this market. ; These
studies are specific to four industries: ; health, financial matters, food, and
travel. ; We sell space in our extensive questionnaire to clients on a
proprietary basis. Wrapped around the proprietary questions that remain their
property are sixteen pages of questions on behaviors, demographics, media and
Internet usage, and our segments. ; Data from our studies provides participating
companies with information they need to make important strategic and tactical
decisions.
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What are your
recommendations for successful marketing to the 50plus marketplace?
As segmentation experts, we caution our
clients about assuming that any market is heterogeneous. ; ;Successful marketing
to the 50+ population requires that we move away from easy generalities, from
demographics or behaviors. ; After all, since demographics are so easily
obtained, they don’t really deliver a unique perspective. ; Everyone has
demographics. ; Behaviors report what has been, the past. ; With the aging of the
baby boomers we’re moving into uncharted territory. ; We need more than
demographics and behaviors. ;
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Successful marketing to the mature
market requires that, along with demographics and behaviors, we thoroughly and
deeply understand differing needs and wants. ; Sociologists have shown us that as
people age, their life experiences make them increasingly different. Because
people are similar in age does not mean they are alike in purchase behavior. ;
The mature market is not an easy market to crack. ; Quite the reverse. ; It is
very difficult to understand. ; Because this market is difficult to figure out,
those who wish to approach it need good market research. ;
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The reliance on demographics for
marketing to the mature consumer makes it difficult to achieve success. ; In
addition, the idea that a clutch of comments extracted from a series focus
groups represents the market is equally misleading. ; The odd comment from a
focus group does not provide sufficient insight. ; And then taking these focus
group insights and gluing them onto behavioral or demographic data is not
effective either. ; In this instance, too much is being extrapolated; it becomes
guesswork. ; In our view it is important to gather motivational insights from the
same population and at the same time as demographics, behaviors, and media and
Internet usage. ;
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This approach, which we advocate,
provides a method to examine and quantify the motivations which influence buying
behavior and divide the mature population into segments or groups with similar
wants and needs. By looking at each group’s behaviors, demographics and buying
potential, we determine our clients’ best prospects.
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You are
currently writing a third book on you research on the mature market. What is the
topic?
Our third book, currently untitled,
focuses specifically on health. ; As baby boomers live longer, they will endure
more chronic diseases, such as diabetes or heart disease. ; This situation will
create both a financial crisis for societies, as well as an immense opportunity.
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Our new book describes a comprehensive
and yet easy-to-use system which lays out the most deeply embedded
health-related motivations. ; This system can be used to motivate individuals to
improve their health-care practices, as well as reach prospective buyers of
health-related products and services. ;
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From our three health segmentation
strategies we’ve isolated seven motivational dimensions which impact good health
practices. ; By determining each person’s position on each of these dimensions,
actions can be taken to promote better health practices. ; At the same time,
companies can develop products and services specifically for consumers based on
their position on the health-related dimensions we’ve identified. ; The seven
dimensions can be used on their own. ; For clients wanting the ultimate drilling
down to understand the health-related motivations of the 50+ market, we overlay
these dimensions with our health segments.
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We believe that the financial crisis of
providing health care to millions of aging baby boomers can be mitigated by
motivating them to adopt good health practices. ; General motivational approaches
may not have been successful in the past. ; Messages targeted to a specific
motivationally based segment or group and delivered using a preferred
communication channel or health care provider will increase the chances of
success. ; For example, using our system, health care providers, such as doctors
or an insurance company, can create programs to change harmful behaviors. ;
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While the cost of providing health care
to aging baby boomers threatens to engulf societies, this phenomenon also
provides incredible opportunities for the development of products and services
providing support, diagnostics, and a more healthful life, whether through a
prescription medication or surgery for the replacement of a painful, poorly
functioning knee.
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Contact
Information
Carol M. Morgan
President
Strategic Directions Group, Inc.
Website:
www.boomersandtheirelders.com
E-mail:
cmorgan@strategicdirectionsgroup.com