Brand Intimacy & Baby Boomers: A Few Surprises

 

Okay, it’s time to get intimate – with the Baby Boomers. Hear me out.

As I’ve advocated previously in this blog, creating a connection with your target market and tapping into their emotional drivers can significantly alter their buying behaviour. At Verv, we spend hours researching your target markets and peeling back the layers to understand these emotional drivers, so we can build your project a brand that stands out from the competition and becomes intimately connected to the buyer.

And for very good reason. A “Brand Intimacy” report from market research firm MBLM confirms our approach. After measuring the brand intimacy of some of the most renowned brands on Earth, the report suggests that companies with higher levels of brand intimacy have much better business success, seeing higher revenues, higher earnings, and higher stock prices.

I love this introduction to the study:

“We know that 90 percent of all decision is based on emotion. We know that human behavior is largely intuitive and instinctive. We know for brands to succeed they need to be emotive, distinct, and immediately understood.”

So what does this have to do with the Boomers? Here are two insanely important reasons why you need to pay attention to this market segment:

• Boomers have more than 60 percent of the wealth in North America, AND

• They are in a transition stage when it comes to their primary residences.

Sure, maybe you already know that, but a reminder doesn’t hurt. Here’s what you didn’t know – according to MBLM, Boomers also:

• are extraordinarily brand loyal,

• expect concierge-level customer service, and

• are extremely comfortable shopping using digital devices.

Surprised by that last one? It gets better. In the MBLM study, the top five brands for the Boomer age group were:

  1. Samsung
  2. Coca Cola
  3. Toyota
  4. Levis
  5. Amazon

Amazon??? Honestly, I was surprised too. Boomers are spending more time online each week than even Millennials; and a whopping 70 percent of them report using Amazon at least once per month.

Of course you’re not selling your development on Amazon, so why should you care? Here’s why: this level of internet usage demonstrates that Boomers want a variety of products for comparison and informed decision-making. The number-one influencer (62 percent) for Boomers is a brand’s online presence. (This is followed by advertising, and having both the online brand and the advertising reinforced by a well-informed salesperson.)

This information is like gold in our industry. Here’s what we know, and how we can act on it:

  • FIRST: Create emotional connections with the Boomers and your other markets using distinctive branding that resonates with them personally. That means making sure your brand is more than just a pretty logo or fancy tagline; it’s a brand story that reflects their deeply held internal values, beliefs, expectations and desires.
  • SECOND: Sit down and really think about your clients’ path to purchase, the touch points, the considerations they make. How you can make that a smoother journey? How can you speed it up? Be ready to deploy different promotional and sales strategies for different target markets to drive traffic to your database and sales team. Watch the data relentlessly.
  • THIRD: Ensure that for all markets, you are creating digital experiences that are robust, deep, rich and dynamic, and that overlap seamlessly with all other brand touchpoints. For Boomers, pay attention to what consumer brands are doing with online shopping, advertising, and high-level customer service. This demographic has little urgency and expects a high level of engagement and seamlessness. Align corporately with all your projects to ensure a consistent and predictable brand experience across all channels.
  • FOURTH: Train the hell out of your sales team so they can create delightful, memorable customer experiences. It is vital that your front line knows how to deliver this experience to support and consolidate all your branding and advertising efforts. Sales teams should have enough training and information to give Boomers the personalized care they expect.

That’s it: four steps. Simple, right? Of course not. It’s a complex process and requires deep digging to unearth each and every strategic insight for each and every project – and skillfully implement them.

But that’s why we’re here – it’s our job to help you. We view ourselves as key supporters of your sales team. Even an incremental increase in your prospects’ engagement with your project makes life exponentially easier for your front-line sales team; and ultimately mitigates risk for you, the developer.

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