By Ernan Roman, ERDM Corp

Many marketers have invested significant portions of their budget chasing the millennial consumer. But, here’s a fact that might make some rethink that strategy. According to DataMentors, while Millennials do make up the largest generation today (86 Million), Baby Boomers still take second place (77 Million.)

If marketers are putting all their chips on Millennials, they could be in for a surprising loss when they realize just how much they are leaving on the table by excluding other demographic groups in their marketing mix and messaging.

But marketers are just not marketing to this lucrative “older” consumer: “[Baby Boomers] can sustain and be a strong driver of the consumer economy over the next five to ten years especially the upper-income households. They have the money to spend. It’s a different mindset… now saying, I’ve got to spend it while I’m here,” says Doug Hermanson, principal economist at Kantar Retail.

• The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) calculates that less than 15% of firms have developed a business strategy focused on the elderly.
• The Economist Intelligence Unit found that only 31% of firms took increased longevity into account when making plans for sales and marketing.
• A report by the McKinsey Global Institute points out that older consumers are one of the few engines of growth in an otherwise sluggish global economy.
• According to DMN3, online research shows an overwhelming 82.3% of Boomers belong to at least once social networking site and over half of Boomers who use social networking sites will visit a company website or continue their search on a search engine as a result of seeing something on social media.

See full article here.