How to write – more about targeting your customers

I was reading one of my favourite newsletters this week and the writer was talking about the next trend for baby boomers.

Via riches with good pensions through the credit crunch, out the other side and then they might be looking for something beyond the material.  At the moment with the credit crunch and other assorted things on our doorsteps like the cost of energy (how good to think we have another price rise to look forward to in the autumn!)  it may seem unrealistic that anyone might consider any other trend than sheer survival.

But the newsletter writer John Forde hangs out and works with some top marketers and they’re obviously looking for something to aim at, market wise with their customers for a year or so ahead.  And the interesting thing is that what they’re looking at is a kind of ‘go back to basics’ that I certainly knew when I was growing up.

Now we didn’t have much money to spare in our household so many of the strategies they’re offering us now to save money came naturally to our family.

• No car… so we had to walk to school or use public transport.
• No central heating so use of fuel was economical and local, like burning left over wood.
• No supermarkets as such so most of our food was homegrown or locally produced.(New potatoes just lifted in time for Sunday lunch, so sweet with a knob of butter and meat that probably lived no more than 20 miles away from us)

Given current circumstances we’re not learning a new way of living with limited resources but remembering how we did it in the past.

What that should mean for companies targeting me and my age group is to combine our understanding of a higher standard of living with a return to commonsense and practicality in using resources.

Whether they will is another matter.

I think I’ve referred to John Forde before but to repeat – if you’re interested in writing for any market, happy to read someone with wide ranging views then you can sign up to his free fortnightly newsletter Copywriter’s Roundtable at signup@jackforde.com