Marketing to prospective clients is tricky business, especially when pursuing clients of a different generation. Working with various generations requires that financial advisors recognize and meet the different values, needs, motives and wants that characterize that age group. For the senior market, this means understanding what makes them tick and applying that knowledge to your sales plan.
The first step to being able to prospect this generation successfully is identifying how they view the world and their money. To J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, authors of Rocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing, some of the main qualities of this group include:
? They spend money wise and responsibly, yet have reached a point of financial security where they're less likely to deny themselves life's pleasures.
? They rate crime and personal safety as among their top concerns.
? They respond well to marketing that plays to the notion that they have faced daunting odds and have reached a point of payoff.
? They generally do not respond as well to marketing that encourages "luxury" or self-indulgent services.
? They are known to respond favorably to marketing that emphasizes introspective or altruistic values and that encourages a sense of community.
