Segment Your Senior Market

Senior citizen shoppers differ in ways important for you to know. Certainly, abilities almost always deteriorate as we age. All consumers have that in common. But even with this, people age at different rates. Beyond that, because life experiences condition our shopping behavior, there is more variation among older than among younger adult shoppers simply because the older adults have had a greater multitude of life experiences.
     Researchers at Wageningen University approached this issue by considering criteria for useful segmentation of the senior market. Here is my version of the list:

• Distinctiveness. The marketing approaches effective with each segment must be different enough to justify attention to which segment a shopper belongs. 
• Substantiality. The number of seniors in a segment must be large enough to justify special attention to that segment. 
• Stability. Membership in the identified segments must last at least the duration of a marketing campaign. 
• Identifiability. To use the segmentation, the marketer must be able to tell who falls into what group. 

     The researchers then applied this framework to understanding the actual heterogeneity among elderly consumers who are selecting foods to purchase. Their review of the literature produced another list, this one of factors marketers might be able to profitability attend to for a segmentation of the market. These are not completely independent factors. They are associated with each other. Here’s my version of that list

• Gender. Of the four factors, this one has the easiest identifiability. One implication is that women, compared to men, are more accepting of foods serving a nutritional function without highly pleasurable taste. 
• Cognitive age. More important than calendar age is how old the shopper feels in their mind. Cognitively younger seniors are less likely to accept senior discounts than are cognitively older ones. 
• Life stage. Seniors who are retired and on a fixed income purchase differently than do people of the same age who are still employed. Death of a mate, birth of grandchildren, remarriage, and relocation are other life events which often place a consumer into a distinctive life stage. 
• Time perspective. Seniors with serious health problems consider their time as more limited than do younger seniors in good health. Hedonic products like tasty foods are especially appealing to seniors having a limited time perspective. Similarly, advertisements portraying strong positive and negative emotions, although attractive in general to seniors, carry extra influence with the segment having a limited time perspective. 

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

Click below for more: 
Schmooze Away Problems for Seniors
Clock Customer Actions to Fit Time Metaphors
Shape Benefits As Hedonic or Utilitarian