Explosive Growth of Wired Seniors Presents Opportunity

This is the first installment of a three part series revealing Internet use by seniors, how it’s affecting your bottom line, and your strategy for surviving the “Silver Tsunami“.

“Silver Tsunami” is a term coined to describe the maturing of baby boomers. It has been estimated that a Baby Boomer turns 50 every 7 seconds. In fact, while you’ve been reading this, another Boomer reached the half-century mark. So how many are there? Read on.

Here are some statistics: According to Nielsen NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis, senior citizens age 65 and older were the fastest growing age group online, surging 25 percent year over year to 9.6 million Web surfers from home and work in October 2003. (Nielsen//NetRatings, 2003)

Now, some clarification is needed. “Wired seniors” (internet users age 65 or older) are often cited as the fastest-growing demographic group online, but that description can be misleading. Most of the growth in this group over the last few years has come from long-time internet users in their early sixties aging into senior status. There is little evidence that many non-users in their seventies and eighties are suddenly getting the internet bug.

In January 2006, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 34% of Americans age 65 and older go online, up from 29% in January 2005. But a closer look at the data reveals that just 28% of Americans age 70 and older go online - essentially the same percentage as in January 2005 (26%).

By contrast, internet access is near-universal for Americans under the age of 60: 89% of 18-28 year-olds, 86% of 29-40 year-olds, 78% of 41-50 year-olds, and 72% of 51-59 year-olds go online. About half (54%) of 60-69 year olds go online. (Fox, 2006)

By 2025, people 65 and older will make up 18.2 percent of the U.S. population, according to projections from the US Census Bureau, up from 12.4 percent this year. In raw numbers, that means that in 2025 there will be an estimated 63.5 million seniors in the US, 73 percent more than today.

Until recently, there was very little interest in the idea of marketing to aging Baby Boomers-those post-World War II children born between 1946 and 1964-online or off. Despite the fact that the over-50 population is growing faster than the under-50s and Boomers have $1 trillion in spending power, marketers have largely ignored them as a target market, according to eMarketer, a UK research firm.

In many ways, the Boomer demographic is a perfect target for online marketing, the company says. They are frequent, engaged online users and they are approaching a stage in life where major issues-the decision to stop working, investment planning, health care, downsizing a home-come to the fore. (Strong Internet Use by Tomorrow’s Seniors Means Big Changes for Market, 2005)

Are you ready to be a part of that? The next installment will reveal the online activities of “Wired Seniors”. Stay tuned.

Ken Ivey

Works Cited

Fox, S. (2006). Are “Wired Seniors” Sitting Ducks? PewInternet.org.Nielsen//NetRatings. (2003, November 20). SENIOR CITIZENS LEAD INTERNET GROWTH, ACCORDING TO. Retrieved August 27, 2007, from Nielsen//NetRatings: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_031120.pdf

Strong Internet Use by Tomorrow’s Seniors Means Big Changes for Market. (2005, May 19). Retrieved August 27, 2007, from SeniorJournal.com: http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/SeniorStats/5-05-19OldBoomersOnNet.htm

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