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Perceptions, Myths & Facts About Boomer+ Customers-By Jim Gilmartin The inability to effectively market, sell and render quality customer services to Boomer+ customers (38 and older) is too often apparent in the vacation ownership industry. Companies generally know that effective marketing, sales and service are essential for business, and for survival. Paradoxically, marketing and sales approaches may be getting worse for the largest segment (estimated at 70 to 80 percent) of a vacation ownership company’s market. The spoils will go to those who perceive the current situation, better understand the changing behavior of these market segments and out service their competitors. Boomer+ customers are smarter than many marketing and sales professionals think they are, and they are willing to take their business elsewhere. Growing at a rate of approximately 8000 a day, the Boomer+ customer is today's vacation ownership’s target population, and, even more so, tomorrow's. There is typically a direct correlation between a marketing and sales professional’s knowledge of the behavior of these populations and successful marketing, sales and customer satisfaction. The purpose of this quiz is to help you to gage your knowledge of Boomer+ customers. Please do not deliberate each question; answer it as quickly as you can. The answers have been compiled from many sources on communicating with older customers. The answers are at the bottom of this quiz.
1. Boomer+ customers over 50 represent approximately what number of the total U.S. population?
2. Boomer+ customers over 50 will represent approximately what number of the total U.S. population by the year 2010?
3. Over the next decade Boomer+ customers over 50 will grow by approximately:
4. Over the next decade Boomer+ customers under 50 population will grow by approximately:
5. Every 7 to 10 seconds someone in America turns 50 years of age.
6. Boomer+ customers under 50 care more about others, while people over 50 care more about themselves.
7. Mental confusion is an inevitable consequence of old age.
8. As Boomer+ customers change physically, so does their personality.
9. It's difficult for the average Boomer+ customer to learn something new.
10. The Boomer+ customers have more self-gratifying interests, while the younger person wants to do more for others.
11. In general, Boomer+ customers are pretty much alike.
12. One of the critical factors involved in different thinking styles between younger and older consumers is the level of emotional response to stimuli.
13. The more material possessions a mature adult has had the more they become important.
14.Age is the major factor to consider when defining and predicting specific Boomer+ customer behavior.
15. Physical changes Boomer+ customers experience include:
16. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
17. Intelligence tends to decline with age.
18. Boomer+ customers eventually become senile.
19. Most Boomer+ customers eventually live in nursing homes.
20. Boomer+ customers have little interest in sex or romance.
21. Boomer+ customers want to be young.
22. How old is old is relative to your age.
23. Most Boomer+ customers are in poor health.
24. As Boomer+ customers age, material things become more important to them.
25. As Boomer+ customers age the desire to be catered to decreases.
26. Boomer+ customers generally:
27. Boomer+ customers generally:
28. It is best not to look directly at Boomer+ customers over 50 when you are talking to them.
29. The best way to sell to Boomer+ customers is to attempt to instill a sense of urgency in the purchase decision process.
30. In the marketplace, price is generally more important than service to Boomer+ customers.
31. In general, Boomer+ customers tend to buy products and services that reflect positively on how they are viewed by others.
32. When marketing and selling vacation ownership to Boomer+ customers, it is better to define products in absolute terms.
33. Boomer+ customer satisfaction rests on:
34. Pricing strategies for vacation ownership purchases should be based on the Boomer+ customer's tendencies to judge the value of a product or service on its ability to fulfill the desire for experiences made possible by the purchase.
35. Boomer+ customers typically develop:
36. Boomer+ customers typically develop:
37. The physiological and behavioral changes caused by the aging process will demand significantly different marketing and sales approaches than currently practiced by most vacation ownership companies.
38. Effective vacation ownership sales and service to Boomer+ customers requires knowledge of:
39. Boomer+ customers’ final vacation ownership purchase decision is the usually direct result of the reasoning process
40. The best way to market or sell vacation ownership to Boomer+ customers is to appeal to the intellect.
41. The brain, then the preconscious mind and then the conscious mind first process marketing and sales information flow.
42. Research has shown that the right hemisphere of the brain processes emotional information and the left processes logical information such as product demonstrations. To avoid blunders that might turn interest into disinterest, it’s OK to draw the viewer, listener or reader into an emotional scene, and then quickly cut to product information.
43. Vacation ownership marketing and sales professionals often pay little attention to how the consumer thinks and processes information.
44. How the brain works has not been important to most vacation ownership marketing and sales professionals.
45. The human brain only processes copy (words) not images.
47. Boomer+ customer vacation ownership purchase decisions are virtually never the direct product of the reasoning process.
48. The human brain sorts’ information received and determines what information is sent to the conscious mind based upon the message’s relevance to one’s survival scenario.
49. Younger and Boomer+ customer’s brain/mind complexes process marketing and sales messages the same but have different purchase motivators.
50. Information processing changes take place across our life span, and changes in motivational forces and how we experience and think about matters evolve.
51. As Boomer+ customers age they become more selfish and less altruistic.
52. How we process information changes in a predictable manner and schedule so we can create a dependable map to shape and transmit messages to consumers.
53. Vacation ownership marketing and sales messages can be designed for maximum impact on the brain’s response to messages.
54. In the Boomer+ customer vacation ownership buying decision making process:
55. All Boomer+ customer behavior has roots in some aspect of survival needs & root motivators.
56. What is the basic Root Motivator that drives purchase decisions?
57. When developing vacation ownership marketing and sales messages for Boomer+ customers it is always best to include facts, features and benefits early on in the marketing or sales process.
58. To focus upon features and benefits in the early stages of a vacation ownership sales presentation is to place emphasis on the least important issues in the Boomer+ customers mind.
59. Boomer+ customers tend to be more motivated by the capacity of a product /service to serve as a gateway to experiences than by the intrinsic value or generic nature of a product or service.
60. Consistent with the quality desired, Boomer+ customers tend to place more importance on price when purchasing basics, but in vacation ownership purchases, they tend to place more importance on the potential experience resulting from the purchase.
61. Discretionary purchase decisions of Boomer+ customers tend to originate with the more "instinctive" or concrete right brain processes, and concludes with left-brain abstract processes.
62. As Boomer+ customers age the perception that the product or services is a gateway to desired experiences becomes the overriding motivation to purchase.
63. Boomer+ customers have a difficult time of articulating why they do what they do and why they buy what they buy.
64. Consumer surveys are one of the least effective ways for learning why Boomer+ customers buy products or services.
65. Many intergenerational differences exist due to developmental differences across the life span in:
66. Because of the limited experience of many younger vacation ownership sales people, there is often a tendency to “oversell” Boomer+ customers.
67. After Boomer+ customers get the basic picture, they mainly want unadorned information if they decide to consider a product or service.
68. Relationship selling is more important in Boomer+ populations than in younger populations.
69. The emotional quality of a prospective relationship is more important than product competence in the initial stages of bonding between seller and Boomer+ customers.
70. Boomer+ customers are generally unable to make vacation ownership decisions unless motivated by their emotions.
71. There is more emotionally derived content in the fully formed perceptions of Boomer+ customers.
72. Boomer+ customer’s sense of “truth” is more emotionally originated than reason-originated.
73. Boomer+ customers more readily regard something as true because “it feels right.”
74. Boomer+ customers generally “get the picture” with less being said, when what is communicated quickly stirs emotional responses.
75. Boomer+ customers quickly “get the picture” when the message is emotionally neutral.
76. When selling vacation ownership to Boomer+ customers it is best to focus early on “objective” product or services features and amenities.
77. Vacation ownership product features and amenities are usually most important in a Boomer+ customers mind.
78. Often, the best way to transmit objective emotionally neutral messages to Boomer+ customers is not to piggyback it on, or sandwich it between, emotionally neutral information.
79. Marketing and sales professionals will benefit from communications to Boomer+ customers when the message respects differences in:
80. The traditional focus of vacation ownership marketing communications and sales messages on product features, amenities and other objective information reaches a point of diminishing returns more quickly among Boomer+ customers.
81. Relationship potential is more emotionally inferred and less rationally deduced in Boomer+ customers.
82. Negative impressions conflict with a Boomer+ customer’s idealized image of self, especially with respect to autonomy and independence.
83. Boomer+ customers are more resistant to absolute propositions so it’s generally best to present the product in a qualified or even differential manner.
84. One of the best ways to assure interest in your vacation ownership message is to make better use of storytelling techniques for Boomer+ customers.
85. The older a market, the more important it is to present a product in story form. The right brain processes information as sensory images rather than as words and numbers. To arouse the strongest attention, product messages should be rich in sensory stimuli. Even though the right brain can’t process words, words can create sensory images, as every storyteller knows.
86. When meeting a Boomer+ customer the best tactic is to address him/her by their first name to show your friendly nature and personality.
87. Boomer+ customers respond better to vacation ownership messages that tweak the imagination.
88. When purchasing basic goods Boomer+ customers look for the generic value of the product. When purchasing vacation ownership they generally look for the value of the experience.
89. Boomer+ customers typically buy products and services that help them to achieve pleasure and/or avoid pain.
90. When selling to Boomer+ customers it’s best to stress that your vacation ownership product will provide them luxury and self-indulgent opportunities.
91. It’s best to create vacation ownership sales presentations and advertising that allows the Boomer+ customer to define the product attributes using their imagination.
92. When communicating with or selling vacation ownership to Boomer+ customers, it’s best to be sympathetic to increase the human connection and positive interaction.
93. It’s best to design the vacation ownership sales presentation to appeal to the self-gratifying interests of the Boomer+ customer.
94. There are material differences between Boomer+ males and females in the architecture and functioning of their brains. This often leads to different responses to the same experiences. However, research indicates that in later life, the gap between males and females in emotional sensitivity narrows.
95. Boomer+ customer’s purchase motivations tend to be qualitatively more experiential and less materialistic than younger people’s motivations.
96. Vacation ownership messages will be more effective when expressed in the stage-of-life language style of the Boomer+ customer.
97. Boomer+ customers use the same brain sites and mental processes in answering sales’ hypothetical questions as they use in real life situations.
98. The older people are, the less skilled they generally are at reading facial expressions. For instance, Boomer+ customers lower sensitivity to facial expressions means that facial expressions need not bear authentic connection to the product and product message.
99. Vacation ownership product messages for Boomer+ customers should have more affect (emotional toning) than product messages for younger people. Under 35, people tend to have a stronger reasoning bias, thus product messages generally should implicitly or explicitly promote concrete reasons for purchase.
100. Language style preferences also change over time. For example, youth and young adults generally have a less assertive language style than older people.
Answers: 1. 75 million 2. 100 million 3. 50% 4. 1% 5. True 6. False 7. False 8. False 9. False 10. False 11. False 12. True 13. False 14. False 15. g 16. False 17. False 18. False 19. False 20. False 21. False 22. True 23. False 24. False 25. False 26. f 27. f 28. False 29. False 30. False 31. True 32. False 33. d 34. True 35. g 36. e 37. True 38. f 39. False 40. False 41. True 42. False 43. True 44. True 45. True 46. True 47. True 48. True 49. True 50. True 51. False 52. True 53. True 54. f 55. True 56. f 57. False 58. True 59. True 60. True 61. True 62. True 63. True 64. True 65. f 66. True 67. True 68. True 69. True 70. True 71. True 72. True 73. True 74. True 75. False 76. False 77. False 78. False 79. f 80. True 81. True 82. True 83. True 84. True 85. True 86. False 87. True 88. True 89. True 90. False 91. True 92. False 93. False 94. True 95. True 96. True 97. False 98. False 99. True 100. False
Ranking: Number Correct: 90 – 100 = Very, Very Savvy 80 – 90 = Know Your Stuff 70 – 80 = Good Knowledge 60 – 70 = Starting to Slip 50 – 60 = Need to Catch Up 40 – 50 = Paradigms Need Changing 40 & Below = May Be Wasting Your Communications Budget
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