3 Hot Demographics Your Business Can Profit From in 2012


Remember when the Baby Boomers were the hottest consumer group to target? The Boomers are still pretty influential, but this year, three different age groups are making waves with their size, influence and purchasing power. Here’s a closer look.

3 generations

Children

If you think the baby boom is over, think again. There are over 83 million children age 19 and under in the U.S. From 1987 to 2010, close to or more than 4 million babies were born in the U.S. each year—the official designation of a “boom”—and the trend is likely to continue for at least.

There are many entrepreneurial opportunities when it comes to children, but education is a particularly hot area. Faced with state and local budget shortfalls, school districts nationwide are slashing their budgets. At the same time, it’s much harder to get into college than ever before, yet parents consider a college education essential to make their kids competitive in the job market. As a result, they’re eagerly spending on extracurricular programs that help their kids get better grades or learn skills like music and art that schools have eliminated.

Language instruction is a major growth area here as well, as a more global workforce and more diverse U.S. drives home to parents the importance of children learning a foreign language. AnythingResearch.com reports that language instruction is already a $1 billion industry, and has a 13 percent annual growth rate.

Twenty Somethings

Remember that new baby boom I just mentioned? Well, the oldest members of the boom that began in 1987 are turning 25 this year, and the rest of those echo boomers are right behind them. Meanwhile, the median age at which people first get married has been on the rise since the 1960s: In 2010, it was 28.2 years old for men and 26.1 for women. Next year, a whole generation of women will reach prime marrying age—creating a huge market for wedding-related products and services.

Although a recent Pew survey found 40 percent of Americans say marriage is “obsolete,” there are plenty of people for whom weddings not only are still in fashion, they’re also big business. Based on population data, America is on the verge of a wedding boom that’s expected to last for the next 23 years.

If you already own a wedding-related business such as a catering, floral design, videography or photography company, it’s clear how this trend relates to you. There are also new opportunities, such as those created by the legalization of gay marriage in a growing number of states, and the plethora of overweight Americans who need stylish plus-sized formalwear and wedding gowns.

Seniors

Remember those original baby boomers I mentioned? The oldest of them turned 65 last year. According to the 2010 Census, 13 percent of Americans were age 65 or older in 2010, but by 2030, that percentage will jump to 20 percent. In other words, the U.S. as a whole will look a lot more like Florida.

But baby boomers aren’t the big story here: The real boom will be in Americans aged 85 and up (the boomers’ parents). The number of Americans 85 and older doubled between 1990 and 2010, reaching 6 million.

One of the biggest trends with seniors is that they overwhelmingly want to “age in place” in their own homes instead of going into a senior living facility or nursing home. As a result, services and products to help them do so will be hot for the next 20 years or more. These could include in-home medical or nonmedical care to assist with activities of daily living; senior day-care programs to get seniors out of the house and socializing; products or services to retrofit homes with grab bars, wider doorways and other features that allow older people to move about safely; and monitoring services that let adult children check in on their senior parents’ health and happiness via webcam, email or text updates.

How will you capitalize on trends?

Generations Photo via Shutterstock

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Rieva Lesonsky Rieva Lesonsky is a Columnist for Small Business Trends covering employment, retail trends and women in business. She is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Visit her blog, SmallBizDaily, to get the scoop on business trends and free TrendCast reports.

10 Reactions
  1. Nice job, (as usual) with this post, Rieva.

    You are right on the money with the 3 demographics you wrote about.

    The one that stands out for me? Children.

    Every generation wants their kids to have more than they had, and having access to a great education is paramount not only for parents who really do want the best for their kids–but for employment.

    Without a great education, there just won’t be as many doors opening for tomorrow’s job-seekers.

    The Franchise King®

  2. Rieva has written a very interesting article here. We know that children and “senior” Seniors make up large demographics. But when one’s market is mainly other businesses like ours one tends to forget about the large and potentially lucrative markets. Thanks for bringing them to our attention.

  3. It is amazing to me how computer savy some of the baby boomers parents are. I had a 90 year old client day trading a $100k every day on his own.

  4. Seniors definitely. A huge market for new products and services also.

  5. Great article! The shifting of demographics, shifts psychographics: what people consume, how and why. This is the most important trend to stay on top of! Multiple generations with major influence.

  6. Ma. Imelda Corpus

    Thank you for this very insightful post, I am sure many business owners would greatly benefit from this helpful information, particularly in coming up with products to offer to the market, considering the 3 largest age groups (demographics) that you’ve cited. This gives businesses, whether traditional or online-based, great idea how to build money by selectively designing consumer products that address the in-demand needs of the mentioned demographic age brackets. I hope you can do a bit of a research as well regarding the hottest products that might greatly appeal to these ages.

  7. We’ve definitely seen an increase in our wedding clients, and you’re correct about the L&G community – everyone’s tying the knot!