“For those of us aged over forty, we don’t use the web. And neither do our customers!”
An audience member threw this statement to the panel at last night’s Let’s Talk Business seminar discussing The New Consumer. One of the panel members, Adam Ferrier of Naked Communications, replied flatly; “you’re wrong”.
That business owner assumed her own likes, priorities and experience are shared by her customers. This isn’t always true, what we think is true about our clients and markets often proves not to be the case.
Just because you don’t have time to surf the web, use social media or play online games doesn’t mean your clients aren’t using these tools.
Assuming that the internet is for young folk means your business focus is on older people who don’t use the net – which is probably the fastest declining segment in our society as seniors move online.
The US based Pew Internet Survey’s Generations Online in 2010 Report reported older user were rapidly increasing their net use while in Australia the 2010 Sensis ebusiness report came to the same findings saying;
“The groups most likely to report below average usage were those aged 65 and above and retirees. For those Australians 65 years and above only 66 per cent reported accessing the internet in the past 12 months. However, usage in this age group has increased by six percentage points over the past year.” – p. 17 Sensis e-business report.
Six percentage points to 66% represents 10% growth in the over 65 age group. At that rate we’ll see the seniors reaching the 97 to 98% levels of Internet usage sometime in 2013 and the 50-64 year age group will be there next year.
Restricting your business to an 8% slice of the market – which will soon be 3% – is up to you, it may well be that is where your customers are. But it’s a big risk and one you wouldn’t want to make on some blind assumptions.
Many of us may be too old to surf the point at North Narrabeen, but we’re all using the web and older users are the fastest growing group. Rather than assuming your customers aren’t going online, it’s time to ask them what they are doing with their computers.
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