Savvy Women

PrimeTime Women

By Candace Bahr, CEA, CDFA and Ginita Wall, CPA, CFP

Have you noticed that more and more advertising is aimed at you lately? In Marti Barletta’s new book, she says that’s because PrimeTime Women™  stand at the intersection of the two most powerful and prosperous consumer segments in the world today:

1.  The so-called “Mature Market” whose numbers are growing exponentially and who enjoy above average income, wealth, and spending power. Here are a few facts that demonstrate the enormity of this market:

• The population over 50 has increased an astronomical 45 percent from 2000 to 2020, while the population under 50 is actually declining, down 2 percent 2000–2020
  
  
• The 50+ crowd already control 79 percent of the financial assets in the U.S. and will keep accumulating more, as they continue to bring in two paychecks, and add to that some inheritance money from their parents.
  
  They have the greatest discretionary spending power of all consumer segments, because their expenses decline when their kids launch their own households. On a per capita basis, consumers over 50 spend 2.5 times what the average person spends.

2.  Women, whose earning power has accelerated like a rocket over the past 30 years, and more important, who act as Chief Purchasing Officers in almost every household, as well as in many small businesses and corporate buying functions.

• In the consumer sector, women bring in half or more of the income in 55 percent of U.S. households.
  
  
• In 27 percent of U.S. households, single women are the sole earner, and 30 percent of working wives out-earn their husbands.
  
  
• Women are estimated to make 80 percent of all household buying decisions. This includes handling the majority of purchasing in such traditionally male categories as investments, automotive, consumer electronics, and home improvement.
  
  
• They are in the prime of their lives – It comes as a surprise to most pre-Primers that people in their 50s and 60s report these two decades are the happiest of their lives and, as you will see later, women experience this phase even more positively than men do.
  
  
• They are the prime target opportunity for marketers in almost every category, because they handle 80-85 percent of the spending decisions for households in the peak years of their income, wealth and spending power.

This book is a wonderful resource for those marketing products and services to women. But it’s also an enlightening and empowering read for the rest of us. PrimeTime Women is a breeze to read. Written in a conversational, story-telling style, Marti makes the prospect of becoming an "older" woman sound like fun.

The overarching theme of PrimeTime Women really isn't the money they control - it's the fact that they are taking control of their lives.

To order PrimeTime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders, click here

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