By 2021, Thailand fully emerges as a senior society with 20% of the total population being made up of senior citizens. “Silver Age” is the term coined this new group of aged consumers wealthy, modern, and young at heart. This group of consumers will be an important market for their high spending behaviour and increasing population size. It is clear that the silver age is a rapidly expanding blue ocean.
With the rapid leaps in technology of the past decade, the silver age is different from any of the aged population in history. The silver age does not want to feel socially irrelevant and outdated. The strive to stay current is the motivation that drives them to adapt to changes. It is astounding that 90% of this consumer group owns a mobile phone with 50% of the phones being smart phones. There has been a 400% increase in smartphone usage in silver consumers aged 55 to 59. As for those older than 60 years old, the increase in smartphone usage has been 600%.
Their shopping behaviour is particularly interesting. Since the pandemic of COVID-19 started, the E-commerce statistics for the first half of 2020, as collected by We Are Social, shows that online shopping made by silver consumers take up to 37% of the total. The group is more concerned with the quality of the products than the price. They are also more attracted to famous and reputable brands. They may be old but they are smart consumers who are definitely not lost to the ages.
The silver consumer’s content consumption behaviour is also very interesting. When it comes to the media they are interested in, the top 3 are as follows: academic article and health article makes up for 61%. Reruns of Thai soap operas is 22%. Dharma, psychology and family make up the remaining 9%.
LINE is the most popular social media among silver consumers, gaining 50% of the market share due to its accessibility in both communication and information sharing functions. The silver age possesses more than 5 million users who heavily use LINE. We call them very active silvers. This group LOVES to share pictures to one another on a regular basis. Statistically speaking, they are considered a higher tier of active users than their grandchildren.
The silver age uses LINE as their communication channel for many reasons.
The elderly have a lot of time to themselves. They want to talk to those around them to ease themselves from loneliness. This is why they communicate more. Whether to chitchat, inquiring about the ongoings in the lives of their friends and family, or even sending good morning messages to show their thoughts and care for one another.
Being a one-stop service app with a simple user interface, just by entering the app. LINE is able to satisfy every need. Whether it is chatting and sharing your stories with LINE Chat, consuming updated news and content with LINE TODAY, or even getting a full knowledge on the lives of those around them by a few simple scrolls with the tip of their finger on LINE Timeline.
As mentioned before that silver consumers are drawn to famous brands and easily influenced by their family and friends who also use LINE to communicate, every silver consumer eventually uses LINE. Some of them use LINE even more intensely than their younger relatives.
By ranking in usage, silver consumers use LINE Chat the most, followed by LINE Today and LINE Timeline.
From observing this LINE usage behaviour, you can see that there are numerous angles in which businesses and brands can capture this consumer group of silver age effectively with LINE Ads and LINE OA (LINE Official).
The silver consumers use LINE to communicate and follow news at all time. This positions LINE as the group’s online touch point for the whole day. Brands can capitalise on this opportunity by launching ads from LINE Ads to precisely target the group. Using placement targeting to display ads is also an effective strategy to make sure the target group sees what the brand wants to communicate.
Take the LINE Chat List where silver consumers visit first thing in the morning to send greeting messages to family and friends, placing an interesting ad on the Smart Channel at the top of the Chat List is an easy way to draw the attention of these tech-savvy elderly.
Another strategy to utilise LINE Adsfor launching ads at the silver consumer is to use LINE Today. Whether it is the TOP page or sub-pages of various categories, or even the advertorial pages, LINE has revealed that 22% of users with more than 45 years of age use LINE Today. Popular content categories among silver consumers are health and entertainment. LINE today also supports many ad formats, making your ad unique and interesting.
The silver consumers are also attracted to LINE Timeline. While they are going through their daily routine of browsing through the ongoings in the lives of their loved ones, they can view your ads on both Feed and Explore pages.
The behaviours of silver consumers are very beneficial to your ads as they spend almost all day online with LINE. This is where your brand catches the attention of the elderly.
All the best ads and placements in the world cannot sustain your long term success without data collection. Next up, we will talk about LINE OA and how crucially data collection benefits personalized marketing that in turns generate more effective ads the more ads you launch.
LINE OA - the secret weapon to win over silver consumers
A successful marketing tool to win over consumers from the silver age is the Mission Stickers on LINE OA, where the stickers become available to users only after the user has added LINE OA of the brand. Besides the benefit of collecting usage data of this valuable consumer group, they simply love free stickers and are not prone to blocking accounts. This is a great communication opportunity to send your ad to the silver consumer.
Once your brand achieves connection by getting added in exchange for the Mission Stickers, the next task is to broadcast the information of your products to the right target. This is where we utilise the data we collected to create personalised marketing - creating messages that align with the interest of your target market. Whether it is a cute and pleasant greeting message, additional information inquiry, or a show of concern for the user in order to build a good experience, you can end every message with a strong call to action to reinforce sales conversion at the end.
Another trick to establish effective communication with silver consumers is to make your message clear and simple. By simplifying your communication and purchase process, you will already be halfway to closing the sales. Brands should offer COD (Cash on Delivery) in order to prevent any complication the user might encounter with the process of money transfer. This also gives the target group to communicate to you via Service LINE so you can react to any of their concerns, assuring that the conversion process is smooth and ultimately leads to a sure sale.
LYO is a hair serum brand that succeeded in effectively penetrating the silver age target group. This is the strategy LYO applied to gain online success via LINE.
Creating a marketing strategy to capture the silver age is a great opportunity for brands and businesses. With this target group having online consumer behaviour that is susceptible to ads from LINE Adsand the data collection function of LINE OA, LINE is a great marketing tool that marketers should not ignore as Thailand enters the era of senior society in 2021
LINE for Business has the solutions to every need any business has. We have every tool to equip businesses as they leap into social commerce success. If you are interested in growing your business to the next level, LINE is always just a click away.