With the new year upon us, it’s an opportune time to take a step back and see the bigger picture of the market landscape and corresponding market opportunities. With that in mind, let’s examine three major demographic trends that you can look to leverage in the coming year to grow your business:
Trend #1: Seniors
Americans over 50 years of age represent a staggering 40 percent of the overall population, and those online represent 32 percent of the overall online population.
With more than 78 million Baby Boomers representing approximately 25% of the US population, the continued increase in seniors to our overall population in 2009 will be significant.
Seniors have special needs. How can your business address these needs, or how can you customize your products to serve seniors specifically?
Trend #2: Generation Y
Another growing segment of the population is Generation Y, otherwise known as Millennials or the Net Generation. If the years 1978-2000 are used to define the birth years for this group, then the size of Generation Y in the US is approximately 76 million.
This generation faces a daunting job market, with unemployment expected to increase dramatically in 2009. How can your business help these individuals find work? Or, can you help them start their own home-based, bedroom-based or dorm room-based businesses? Alternatively, can you help the younger segment of this group in preparing for college?
Trend #3: Moms
With the recession, families are going to try to generate additional sources of income. To that end, expect more stay-at-home moms to start new businesses.
There are 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the United States generating $2.5 trillion in annual revenue, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research. Women are starting businesses at nearly twice the rate of men. According to certain industry experts, 85 percent of these businesses are run by mothers.
If you are a mom looking to start a business, you now have many support options that simply did not exist in the past.
Others should explore how their business can potentially help the mom entrepreneur succeed. Moms at home, for example, would be expected to outsource quite a number of materials and services in order to grow –- can you provide flexible outsourced solutions to this growing demographic?
