NEMOA: Think About The 5-10 Year Cliff For Judy-Based Businesses

We've talked about the cliff facing catalog brands that market to Judy, the 59 year old, catalog-loving Baby Boomer.

I know, I know, we don't want to talk about this.  Who would want to talk about this?

Let's use an example outside of catalog marketing, since we won't take this one personally.  Go to Quantcast, and take a look at the folks who read DMNews, the trade journal that historically represented the catalog industry ... click on this link for details.

Clearly, and I mean CLEARLY, this is a trade journal read by Judy, and to a much lesser extent, by Jennifer.

Twitter verifies this ... under 7,000 followers ... remember, Judy isn't a big fan of Twitter, and is on Facebook to see her children and grandchildren.

If you were the editor of DMNews, and you knew your audience was largely 59 years old and was going to be retiring in the next five years, how would you respond?  Be honest, what strategy would you employ to make sure your long-term success was protected?

Now that you've thought about that, think about the catalog brand you represent ... is your customer Judy?  And if your customer is Judy, what do you do in 5-10 years when Judy retires and stops spending money?

We had a lot of good, spirited discussions about this at NEMOA ... a great place for the industry to consider what the future looks like.  Some of the conversations were about the cliff that Judy-based businesses are about to drive off of.  It's time to take these conversations to our Executive Board Rooms.