8 Mistakes Growth Hackers Make When Creating Text Marketing Campaigns for The Elders

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re just starting your business or experimenting to find the best marketing tools; there is so much to do and prepare for, that some things simply slip through the gaps. Everyone makes mistakes, but it’s important to make sure that you come back from them quickly, so you don’t cause serious damage to your business’s marketing strategy in the long run.

A common mistake when testing out different marketing tools is forgetting that not every target audience is going to respond to the same marketing in the same way. Text marketing campaigns for elders can be difficult to get used to, and is an area where mistakes are common.

In the US, 94% of adults between the ages of 50 and 64, and 85% of adults over the age of 65 own a mobile, so mistakes in your campaign could have big ramifications. To help you bounce back from mistakes and avoid them altogether, we’ve put together eight of the biggest mistakes that growth hackers make when designing SMS campaigns for the elderly.

Mistake One: Not Making the Information Relevant

Sending irrelevant texts is a sure-fire way to annoy your subscribers, nobody wants to receive a text message that doesn’t interest them. Another way to annoy your audience is to send texts that are clearly meant for a different target audience.

The words and sayings that you use in your texts need to change depending on who the text is being sent to. You may have had success using certain language for younger target audiences, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll have the same success with an older audience.

Mistake Two: Not Linking to Social Media

Social media isn’t just for the young, in fact, the growth of social media use has been shown to be much higher in adults that are above 74 years old. Not linking to your social media page in campaigns specifically targeted at elders could be costing you a lot of potential subscribers. While social media may still be youth-dominated, it certainly isn’t exclusive.

Mistake Three: Forgetting to Include a Call to Action

A call to action is just as important as a catchy heading or first sentence, if not more so. Forgetting to include a call to action or not optimizing it can cause your marketing campaign to suffer significantly, no matter the audience that you’re targeting. The call to action can be responsible for up to 93% of your leads!

Simplifying the call to action by adding a link to the text or clearly indicating how to perform your desired action can seriously improve your results. Having a good call to action will provide your audience with what they need clearly, saving them time and leading to a higher conversion rate for your business.

Mistake Four: Making Everything Too New

Sometimes the best results aren’t ground-breaking or innovative, they’re just familiar and relatable. Getting too creative with your SMS marketing can sometimes hinder its performance, especially if you make the processes too difficult to understand, or don’t make your desired action clear enough.

Familiar practices in modern technology can be very successful, especially when targeting an older audience. Giving your elderly audience a messaging template that is clear and easy to understand can help to make the modern marketing style much easier to digest.

Mistake Five: Not Building Trust

Much of your audience will have grown up surrounded by the technology that we use today or have spent a large part of their life using it, but that’s not the same for everyone. Text message marketing can be a very new experience for seniors.

Building up trust is essential if you want your campaign to be as successful with an older age group as it is with a younger group. It may take longer to build trust with an older audience, but as there are about 48 million adults over the age of 65 in the US, it’s something that will help your business in the long run.

Mistake Six: Not Understanding Technology Limitations

The majority of elderly people have mobiles but a large percentage of them don’t have the kind of phones required to use apps or get involved in more advanced functions. In the 65 years and older demographic of mobile users, only 46% own a smartphone, which means that a lot of the target audience aren’t going to be able to perform advanced functions, like scanning QR codes.

Mistake Seven: Sending Messages at the Wrong Time

An important practice in good text message marketing is sending messages at the right time to get optimum results, like sending dinner offers with plenty of time to take advantage of them without having to change plans. A common mistake here is forgetting that not every age group has the same schedule.

Elderly people often wake up earlier, and for those that do, it can be the case that their days are structured differently. The optimum time to send a text can change between age groups.

Mistake Eight: Not Considering the Differences in Spending Habits

The older generation spend more on groceries, pharmacies, and general items than any other generation, and less on restaurants, hobbies, and clothing.

Between millennials, generation X, baby boomers, and traditionalists, there is a big difference in spending habits. Not factoring in the difference in habits could mean that you’re missing out on a large number of potential conversions.

The only way to get the full potential benefits of SMS marketing, and any marketing, is to understand your target audience and make sure that you’re tailoring your marketing tactics to them. Finding the quickest way to grow a business is one thing, but if you’re making big mistakes along the way, you could be doing more harm than good to your business!