Helping Seniors Get Healthy While Creating a Healthy Business
At a small networking event, after I presented my philosophy about advertising & marketing, a man approached me to see if I could help him with an idea. He was (and still is) a mortgage broker, but times were tough, and he was in need of re-inventing himself. He was 62 and a fitness enthusiast that had trained some friends one-on-one. He loved fitness and would love to make that a way to supplement his income. I helped him. Since getting a “You-nique” advantage is part of my marketing credo, we talked about how I could make his training method stand out from the crowd.
The baby boomer generation is a large segment of the population, but they were getting older and getting frail. Why not create a training regimen that catered exclusively to them….after all, he was part of that generation, and they would see him as one of them. We focused on a niche market and went whole hog.
Because many people over 70 are embarrassed to join gyms, it would be one-on-one training in their home. In addition, the inability keep one’s balance is the biggest reason why the elderly fall and break bones. The other big reason why the elderly end up in nursing homes is, not because of illness, but because of just being too weak and frail to function. We realized we had lots ammunition for copy to put into launching this new idea.
I did a vast name exploration, along with a search to make sure nothing like it was taken, either on the web or registered anywhere. “Fitness Senior Style” was born. I then created a logo, that was different, with the right image and could be used everywhere from web, ads, brochures to T-shirts.
We started with ads in local newspapers on a small budget, going to the target themselves as well as their adult children. For when these children realize their parents are becoming more and more dependant then they recognize the need to get their parents back in shape.
With an ad approach that focused only to the Seniors, emphasizing: Strength, Balance, and Flexibility, it really connected with the target. The success of the initial ads propagated tripling his ad budget in one year. He became so busy he couldn’t attend any of those business-networking events where I met him to begin with. After 2 years of constant growth he is now doing seminars and videos. He has hired a staff and is about to license products under the “Fitness Senior Style” name. That’s Success Senior Style.
With franchising his business on the horizon, this broker will soon be brokering his new business.
