Part 1: Small Business Ideas for the Baby Boomer Market

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The baby boomer market is an extremely desirable market because of its sheer size. While niche marketing is almost a rule for small business success, it makes sense, too, to try and target a niche as large and moneyed as possible — and the huge baby boomer market is full of niche opportunities that can be extremely profitable.

Contrary to popular belief, there are a great many baby boomers that are not retired. Even better, many baby boomers are at the peak of their earning years and have comparatively large discretionary incomes to spend.

Read on to learn about trends in baby boomer behavior, and, more importantly, how you can profit from them with these small business ideas for products and/or services that appeal to the baby boomer market.

1) I have to see it or do it before it’s gone.

One of the big baby boomer trends is the compulsion to see it/do it before it can’t be seen or done anymore. The Great Wall, the Great Barrier Reef, Venice — boomers feel a need to visit places, species and lifestyles that are vanishing and experience them for themselves. Environmental concerns, such as global warming. seem to have exacerbated these feelings. Seeing polar or spirit bears in their natural environment or visiting Antarctica, for example, are high on the “must-see” list.

2) Our kids are smaller and furrier than they used to be.

I think you have to have been living abroad to have missed this baby boomer trend. Dogs and cats aren’t just pets any more; they’re treasured members of the family. Remember the old days when dogs slept in dog houses? Not in boomer households. Baby boomer pets eat, sleep and do things with their people. They watch TV, they get dressed up, they have their own friends and their own doctors. They are a multi-million dollar industry!

3) We need help with our aged parents.

Remember that the baby boomer generation is so large that it encompasses a whole range of life events. One of the larger subsets of the boomer demographic is those who are currently dealing with aged parents or soon to be about to. Many baby boomers feel incapable of dealing with their parents’ problems themselves. They want to know what the options are or are looking to hire people to help with specific problems such as home care or moving an elderly parent from his or her home to new quarters.

Related Small Business Ideas

4) Look how fit I am!

Boomers care about their health, probably because they see health and fitness as a way of staving off age. Boomers are age-obsessed. We all are now but almost none of us will admit to being middle-aged or, God forbid, seniors! Those are titles for old people and we’re not. One of the ways we let the population at large know that is by dressing in fitness gear as much as possible. The man stepping off the elevator in his spandex bike gear? A baby boomer. The woman on the street wearing the yoga outfit? Another one.

Related Small Business Ideas

• Flavour of the Year fitness instruction – yoga, Pilates, tai-chi, kick boxing
• Personal training
• Fitness clothing retailer (on or off-line)

5) I’ve got that loving feeling.

For the world. For whales. For victims of the latest hurricane. Baby boomers love to feel good and contributing to a cause is one quick way to do that. Especially if it’s a popular cause. In some circles, there almost seems to be a cause-upmanship operating; the more causes one visibly supports, the better. The best thing to do, though, is to espouse your own cause and host/sponsor your own events.

Related Small Business Ideas

Continue onto the next page to read about more baby boomer trends and how you could profit from them by starting or investing in a small business that appeals to that particular segment of the boomer market.