The Senior Segment will be one of the most important in the future.
The UN estimates that by 2050 there will be 2 billion older people, which means that 22% of the planet’s inhabitants will be over 70 years old. This reality poses great challenges for businesses, proposing solutions to the social demands of consumers and the new society in which digitalisation, ageing and post-pandemic converge.
This paradigm shift is causing all sectors to anticipate, analyse and explore the business opportunities brought by the Silver Economy, understood as that specific economic activity aimed at meeting the needs and motivations of seniors and their environment.
The opportunities of the silver economy
The silver economy (in honour of grey hair) is an economy of opportunities. It aims to bring together a vision of older people as consumers and producers who demand specific goods and services. In Spain, according to data from the World Health Organisation, the economic impact of the wealth of older people translates into 26% of GDP and 60% of national consumption. These data lead to the need to seek new products and services adapted to the needs of the elderly, relying on the area of gerontology and encouraging investment in solutions that improve the health care and independence of seniors.
Implications of the Silver Economy for organisations
The Silver Economy leads us to position ourselves in two situations:
- Falling into social pessimism, not making changes and letting everything remain the same.
- Position ourselves as new seekers of economic and social opportunities.
Against this backdrop, companies must avoid falling into social pessimism and start to consider the senior profile as one of their priority interest groups within their business and communication strategies. It is the population group with the highest average net income per person, and the one that is growing more and more every year within the population pyramid, thus welcoming a golden age where the Silver Economy will be the key factor for sustainability, social benefit and economic profit.
The senior community is much more rational and less impulsive, so the approach to corporate communication and marketing must be different. It is a target audience, which is very concerned about lifestyle and wellbeing, as well as leisure and tourism issues. However, we cannot think of the senior public as a single community, but must take into account their income, lifestyle and consumption habits.
Formats are also important: how messages are conveyed to them in a clearer and simpler way, in a way that generates trust and closeness. A clear example of evolution is influencer marketing, which has been able to detect this opportunity and it is now common for brands to include more senior profiles in their strategies. Cases such as the digital transformation of banking, which is generating controversy due to the financial exclusion of the elderly, show that companies must not only adapt their business strategy to respond to the needs of this profile, but must also take into account that we are moving from a transactional buyer profile to a relational buyer, for whom the treatment of the company and the salesperson is more important than the product itself. They like to feel listened to, to be advised by an expert, and to have a person in whom they can place their trust. In short, the demographic revolution and the Silver Economy are having a major impact on organisations. Obtaining a good market study of customers, defining and designing business models to adapt them to this economy, and developing products and services related to the Silver Economy will be key for organisations to survive and take advantage of the socio-demographic context.
