APE APE February 2020 | Page 20

MARKETING MATTERS Strong Processes Reach Millennials Marketing reflects stock market trends J ust the other May my Edward Jones agent explained the cycles of the stock market to me. Now, I would like to as- sure you, I am certainly not about to give advice on the stock market. But the cy- cles that she highlighted really rang true, because they are the same trends I see in marketing. She explained that there are four phases of spending in everybody’s lives: 1. People up to age 25 are in the dependent phase where other people provide for them. 2. People between age 26 and 45 are in the heavy spending phase. This is the time of life, when they www.callape.com MONICA PITTS are buying cars, houses, paying for daycare, raising kids. Money is flooding out the door. 3. And then, age 46-65, is the sav- ing phase when they focus their money on saving for retirement, and put it away. 4. 65+ marks the retirement phase where the spend the money they saved. The Effect of Boomers Each generation has gone through these phases. The one we have felt most acutely are the Baby Boomers because they were the first big generation. The market grew in the 80s as Boomers, [20] moved through the heavy spending phase. Interest rates were high, matching the high demand for properties as Boomers made their first big purchases. Post recession our interest rates stay low because Boomers have entered the savings phase and are making more conservative in- vestments. In 2019 there were 72 million Boomers, there was nearly 79 million at their peak in 1999. Then came Generation X with 66 million. Now the Millennial population of- ficially outnumbers boomers at 73 million. Prepping for the Millennial Shift Now, the average age of millennials is 26, they are moving into the heavy spending 1.800.210.5923