More and More Seniors are Online: Should You Revisit Your Approach?

Two years ago we published our first post on the internet usage by seniors across America and today their usage of the internet is still growing. At that time, 50% of seniors were using the internet, up from 33% in 2011. Today that number is at 59% – a 20% rate of growth since 2012.

An April 2014 report by Pew Research, stated “Younger, higher-income, and more highly educated seniors use the internet and broadband at rates approaching—or even exceeding—the general population; internet use and broadband adoption both drop off dramatically around age 75.

Smartphone use is growing at an even faster rate than overall internet usage as seniors are becoming more comfortable with the technology especially as more and more baby boomers are turning 65. As of 2013, 43% of seniors were using smartphones up from only 18% in 2011.

For those of you marketing medicare supplement plans and other senior insurance products, this is great news as these are the seniors you want to connect with and help find insurance.

And you should note that seniors over the age of 75 are not using the internet at anywhere near the same the rate as their younger counterparts, so there is natural filtering resulting in very few of your leads coming from people in this age group.