Turning Silver Into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace

Dr. Mary S. Furlong

FT Press,  February 2007

As they age, America's 78 million baby boomers will live more active, creative, inventive lives than any generation before them. This represents a truly enormous business opportunity. In this book, the world's number one authority on marketing to "post-50" baby boomers offers a complete blueprint for profiting from that opportunity. 

Dr. Mary Furlong reveals breakthrough product and service opportunities, and gives you the tools, resources, techniques, and data you need to capitalize on them. She offers powerful insight into baby boomers' new lifestage transitions in housing, health, fitness, finances, family, fashion, romance, travel, and work -- and the new brand choices they're about to make.

Throughout, Furlong combines extensive, authoritative market research with inspirational stories about passionate, tenacious entrepreneurs and brand leaders who are blazing new trails in these fast-growing markets. You'll learn how to segment boomer markets, and identify opportunities to innovate entirely new categories of products and services. You'll discover which sales and marketing strategies really work, and even uncover opportunities in the surprising worldwide boomer market. 

Five Trends Shaping the Next Baby Boomer Revolution
Global markets, longevity, lifestage transitions, technology, and spirituality 

From Concept to Product to Financing, and Beyond 
All you need to execute on your baby boomer product/service opportunity 

The New Healthcare Revolution, The New Healthcare Business 
How boomers are using the newest innovations to take control over their health futures

Sex and Romance: I'll Have What She's Having
The new sexual revolution: making it feel like the first time -- or better 

Choosing Families, Making Connections
Powerful new opportunities in helping boomers reach out and connect 

hardcover | ISBN: 9780131856981 | Publication Date: February 2007

Reviews:
"Turning Silver into Gold is a 'must-read' for all those entrepreneurs who are considering entering the senior market. Through the great examples in a wide variety of business opportunities, Mary Furlong stimulates us to develop our own business ideas."
--Jeannette de Noord, Senior Director at Philips Consumer Healthcare Solutions

"Mary is an evangelist who has been selling the dream of the boomer/senior market for over twenty-five years. She understands the customer segment better than anyone, and this book reflects her insight."
--Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures and author of The Art of the Start

"Dr. Mary Furlong is a true visionary. Her insights and market intelligence are consistently spot on and her notions about what to do and how to do it demand serious attention from start up entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 executives. In Turning Silver into Gold she has done a masterful job of revealing a broad range of timely and actionable paths to success. I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a better understanding, and meeting the myriad needs, of a maturing population."
--Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., President of Age Wave, Author of The Age Wave, Age Power, and The Power Years

"Mary Furlong's book has a social heart as well as a business sense. She is trying to assist people who are in business, but not simply for the sake of exploiting a market. Adding value to life is as important to her as it is to us at AARP."
--From the Foreword by Bill Novelli, Chief Executive Officer, AARP

"Mary Furlong is an expert on the Baby Boomer demographic as an academic, entrepreneur, and marketer. She has lots to teach about how to successfully reach and impact this enormous market."
--Myrna Blyth, Founding Editor, More Magazine

"Furlong displays a genuine grasp of boomer sensibilities, especially those of decency and happiness and the common good; when she speaks of value added, it is not just the markup but how the product or service adds to the pleasure of living right and well."
--Kirkus Business & Personal Finance Report