Confused about the many channels targeting Australian mature audiences? We can help.
Mature media channels are under-represented within current marketing strategies despite the age and spending power of the 55+ demographic according to a recent survey conducted by specialist 50+ agency, Evergreen Advertising & Marketing.
Evergreen invited 23 publishers to participate in the self-reporting survey including The Senior, Readers Digest, Over Sixty, COTA and Active Retirees. Questions varied from their opinions on market penetration, what content is popular with readers and why, as well as reach and engagement numbers.
Managing Director, Gill Walker said the purpose of the survey was to uncover key insights and to critically review and compare each publisher’s performance, as do date, there were no formal industry benchmarks in this area.
“The survey results showed that over 40% of the publishers interviewed claim the mature channels are rarely included in marketing strategies and 83% believed mature channels deliver a better return on investment when targeting the mature market,” said Ms Walker.
Today there is a multitude of mature audience media publishers across digital and print channels which is reflective of the importance of this market of 8.55 million Australians aged 50+. While this represents 33.7% of the country’s adult population*, the survey indicated that essentially mature media publishers believe they are being ignored by marketers.
Chris Grice, National Seniors Australia General Manager believes
“It’s imperative for older Australians to have their own media channels that provide specific information for them and their life stage as well as giving them a voice in the community. This also gives advertisers a unique, engaging and direct channel to this important target market, which in turn often yield very strong campaign results ” he says.
While the survey showed that mature market profiles suggest print readership skews older v digital consumption slightly younger, according to Roy Morgan 79% (4.8 million) of mature Australians cited their number one internet activity as “did one or more research and information internet activities online in the past 4 weeks”* in other words the target market are very receptive to your message online.
A note of caution, whilst we started this project because there is no third party auditor for the mature market media category, the data contained in the report is publisher supplied.
In some cases, it appeared not to correlate to data reviewed via independent web analysis tools. Evergreen also found understanding of media terminology mixed across the publishers so diligence is required. From experience at Evergreen, we know that campaigns advertised in these important and targeted publications can return a great ROI. However, keep in mind when planning and buying media with some of these publishers although the editorial environment may be excellent, the audience data and targeting may not be as accurate as audited media channels and analytics not as sophisticated, or real time as expected.
For a full copy of survey results or further information, please contact Evergreen Advertising & Marketing.
*Roy Morgan, June 2020 and ABS 2019 **Mail Chimp, 2020
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