Isn't It Grand?

With such large numbers, the easy part of reaching boomers is they're literally everywhere. But when creating your marketing plan, be aware of your biggest constraint: finding your target market. If you're selling vacation trips, you'll want to find more affluent boomer grandparents with time on their hands. If you're marketing computer classes for kids, you'll probably do well with both college grads and those who never attended college--but you should be sure to word your pitches differently.

"What you have to do for any customer is understand the whole range of things that orient them toward the marketplace," advises Smith. "That includes income, ethnicity, gender, geography and age. And age is a funny variable because it's not only a question of the changing needs and responsibilities people deal with as they go through different life stages--each generation has its own values, skills and expectations to deal with."

So in marketing to boomer grandparents, always keep your eyes on the big picture--and the small picture. You can target boomers as a group because being a part of their generation has affected them as much as the entire generation has affected American culture and business. But don't neglect the basics of finding out exactly who wants your product and what will influence them to buy it for their grandchild. And as any kid knows, grandparents will buy.

This article was originally published in the May 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Isn't It Grand?.