Happy Monday! This week our mature marketing stories of interest focus on technology—the power it provides for connecting with family and taking charge of our own health. Have something to share? We’d love to hear from you.
MOST CLICKED: The most clicked mature marketing story of the week was a blog post by one of our favorites, Chuck Nyren. In the post Chuck chronicled his adventures in the hospital after a fainting spell, sharing his interactions with doctors, not-yet-doctors and the like. After his “team” tossed around a number of likely reasons for his fainting, Chuck took the matter in his own hands and searched his symptoms online.
Early next morning. I grab my smartphone and search for orthostatic hypotension, find out there’s a good chance certain prescription drugs cause it, I search for a medication I take right before bed. Bingo. Recent studies link fainting to the med. If there’s a culprit, that’s the culprit.
While self-diagnosis (especially if you’re not a doctor) isn’t encouraged, many utilize online searches for this very need. For marketers, knowing how your senior target uses technology (in real-time) is important when developing an integrated marketing strategy. Make sure you have a digital presence and the information you provide is easily digestible through a variety of platforms.
MOST SHARED: According to a recent eMarketer article, mature consumers aren’t rejecting newer technology, they are 
embracing it. The article highlighted findings of digital methods used for communicating with grandchildren. What they found is that 54% owned a smartphone and 46% a tablet, with the most popular communication avenues including email, text and video conferencing.
Grandparents acknowledged that digital tools had reshaped the frequency and method of communicating with younger generations. Among this group, nearly half said that technology gave them the ability to communicate more with their grandchildren than they did with their own grandparents, and one-fifth even spent more time communicating with their grandchildren online than offline.
Creating Results’ Social, Silver Surfers research reinforces this trend of technology usage. In fact, we found that email is the leading social tool among boomers and seniors. While traditional print and online avenues are important, don’t be afraid to consider the possibilities for reaching your audience in a variety of digital methods.