purchase power of moms

Marketing to Women: How to Get It Right

Marketing to WomenAccording to The Economist, “The growing economic power of women is one of the most important trends of our time.”

Key growth drivers, such as delaying marriage and children as well as rising literacy rates, indicate the average U.S. woman’s salary will rise above the average U.S. man’s by the year 2028.

Women currently control $7 trillion in U.S. spending. And during the next decade, they will control two-thirds of the country’s overall consumer wealth.      More

Latest Yoplait Ad Empowers Moms to Ignore the Haters

moms ignore haters

It’s never been easy being a mom, but in the age of social media it’s gotten more complicated. Wanting to shine a spotlight on the struggles moms feel in today’s judgmental world, Yoplait has unveiled its newest ad campaign from 72andSunny called “Mom On.”

The 60-second spot features a montage of moms talking about their experiences that have elicited judgment from family, friends and total strangers, including breastfeeding in public, working away from home, and having kids later in life.

The ongoing criticism moms face results in many of them losing their mom mojo, and even changing the way they parent. Conversations with moms, along with a study commissioned by Edison Research, reveal that:

  • 75 percent of moms agree they’d feel happier if they felt less judged.
  • Nearly one in three moms (29 percent) adjust their parenting decisions in public because they worry others will judge them.
  • One-third of moms (32 percent) say they choose not to post, share or comment on social media because they fear others will judge their parenting.

As part of the campaign, Yoplait is also partnering with the comedians and moms behind the Facebook web series, #IMOMSOHARD. Jen Smedley and Kristin Hensley will bring their “Mom’s Night Out: Summer Break Tour” comedy tour about the ups and downs of motherhood to 40 markets across the country.

Yoplait’s tongue-in-cheek ad pushing back on the haters is a quiet victory for moms everywhere.

Marketing to Mothers In the Sandwich

Mom in the Sandwich I recently read an article by Liz O’Donnell about marketing to “mothers in the sandwich,” those women who are caring for their parents while also raising their children and trying to balance careers. Life in the sandwich raises unique challenges for these women, but also provides unique opportunities for those products, services and businesses that support these women. I should know, because I am one of those mothers in the sandwich.

These women are busy, savvy (they need to be; they are managing crises, averting crises, and solving problems every day), and influential. As Liz notes, they’re making health care decisions for three generations, managing money for three generations, consuming services for three generations, and purchasing products for three generations.

So whether it’s car services to transport seniors to medical appointments and children safely to afterschool activities, or errand and meal delivery service, these women have purchasing power that shouldn’t be ignored. Marketers would be wise to listen to them, support them, and help solve their problems. For that, they’ll be rewarded with a lifetime of loyalty.

The 10 Commandments for Marketing to Moms

Moms and MarketingHolly Pavilka recently reminded us that the power of today’s social media connected moms is never going to go away.  In fact, it will continue to grow.  Yet despite the spending power of this important demographic, most brands are still not getting it right when it comes to connecting with her. Girlpower Marketing tips its hat to Holly’s 10 Commandments for Marketing to Moms:

The 10 Commandments of Marketing to Moms

1. Work with moms to get it right.  You’re never going to get it right unless you talk to and ideate with moms. You need to solicit their ideas. The beauty of social media is that it’s easy to find them and to connect with them. Research and studies will give you clues, but not the rich real conversation moms will bring.

2. Keep it real. Real is real, inspirational stories. Relatable content. Relevant content. Useful content. Not manufactured, retouched or artificial.

3. Answer her when she’s reaching out. Engage with moms. A study by Acuity Group showed 73% of customer tweets go unanswered. What a missed opportunity. RedBull, a brand more associated with Millennials and daredevils, is terrific at listening and responding. My daughter was mugged for her latte and it blew up Twitter for a few minutes with 100+ tweets but not a word from Starbucks. Two other brands, on the other hand, responded with $5 gift cards because they wanted my daughter to know there were still good people in the world. If you take a look at the brands moms love, they typically are ones who are listening and responding.

4. Follow the moms that follow you back. When it comes to connecting to moms, brands need to follow the moms back. Stop thinking you are a celebrity and get real with your advocates. It’s the first step in the relationship, particularly if you want to grow an audience of moms.

5. Always layer in authentic conversation around your traditional campaigns. The days where brands can just rely on traditional advertising messages are gone. Today, a blog post or tweet a mom writes mentioning your brand is an ad. Organic, authentic real stories and conversation need to be layered in along with your traditional media. These are the messages she trusts.

6. Never market to them as a niche. There’s no one-size-fits-all mom. There are Millennial moms, Boomer moms, second-life moms, Latina moms … moms of every imaginable kind. Don’t stereotype and lump us into a singular “mom” bucket or you’ll miss the mark every time.

7. Remember she’s intelligent. Many stay-at-home moms are educated and have chosen family over career in many cases. With the economy being what it is, many moms are the primary breadwinners in their families. We like to talk about more than diapers, potty training or children. We have interests beyond gardening, cooking and reading books. Look at the types of blogs that are out there–everything from politics, business, women’s health issues and more.

8. Keep it beautifully simple.   Moms are busy, and crave simplicity. Make it complicated, and you’ll lose them every time. One of the reasons Pinterest is popular with women is that, along with its simple design and curation of relevant content, it’s also pleasing to the eye.

9. Balance emotional messaging with pragmatic information. She still wants to be inspired, but she’s also pragmatic. She does her homework before making a purchase. It’s part of the job of being a mom – making informed choices.

10. Remember it’s about story-selling. Place the information within reach, and let her make a decision. Marketing to moms is about telling stories, not selling. Tell how it fits in her life, layer in people’s stories, give the back story on the product – she likes details, showcase testimonials and reviews. Sprinkle in lifestyle photos of the product in use, not just beautifully lit photos of the product. All of these tell her the story she wants to hear.

Marketing to Moms: Is Abercrombie CEO Brash or Brilliant?

Is Abercrombie CEO Marketing to Moms?

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO: “Only Cool Kids Can Shop Here”

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries is in the middle of a social media firestorm with his comments that he doesn’t want plus-sized people shopping there. Jeffries is quoted as having said the following in an earlier interview:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Moms Respond to CEO Jeffries and his Remarks

“As far as Jeffries is concerned,” wrote reporter Benoit Denizet-Lewis in Salon, “America’s unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere.” His comments have many moms up in arms, including Andrea Neusner who wrote the letter below:

Dear Mr. Jeffries:

Thank you for clarifying the reason you do not carry sizes larger than a 10 at Abercrombie. Your customer is an “attractive, all-American kid with a great attitude and lots of friends.” I am a mom of 3 daughters, ages 17, 13, and 10. They are all thin, attractive, all-American kids with great attitudes and lots of friends. They shop at Abercrombie. I believe they are your target audience.

Please find the enclosed clothing, purchased at our local Abercrombie/Abercrombie and Fitch stores. My thin, popular, cool kids will not need them anymore.

Not only will I not let my kids shop at Abercrombie again, I will not let them wear what they already have in their closets. Normally I donate our unwanted clothes, but in this case, I wouldn’t want any unsuspecting thin, cool person to send the message that being exclusionary is OK.

Sincerely,

Andrea Neusner 

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Dove Real Beauty Sketches online commercials, in which Dove commissioned a police sketch artist to draw women as they see themselves, and then as others describe them. The women see themselves as less attractive, while others see them far more kindly. The commercials have gone viral with 52 million hits to date. Its mantra: “You are more beautiful than you think!”

It looks like a self-esteem smack-down: Abercrombie vs. Dove. Mean, bully culture (A&F) vs. a self-esteem promoting, compassionate, we-can-make-the-world-a-better-place sensibility (Dove).

Retailers like H&M, Forever 21 and American Eagle do a pretty good job of exciting fashion customers of all ages and sizes. And they’ve been consistently stealing market share from the floundering Abercrombie & Fitch.

And while his version of marketing genius seems to be stoking the anxiety of youngsters who want to be considered cool by their peers, it’s an anxiety that CEO Jeffries, now in his late 60s, doesn’t seem to have outgrown himself. As Salon put it:

“Jeffries wants desperately to look like his target customer (the casually flawless college kid), and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed himself from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, bulging biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big, Angelina Jolie lips.”

Is Jeffries Actually Marketing to Moms?

Here’s the thing: Jeffries is a businessman, and he can certainly market to whomever he wants. But who does he think is paying for all those A&F jeans and tops? That’s right. Moms. And though targeted marketing is done by many brands, the real issue here is that his remarks are just plain mean, and moms see that.  Call me crazy, but it seems that alienating the people who buy his merchandise might not be the smartest thing.

What do you think: Should marketers feel free to market their brands as they see fit? In the end, it’s up to the consumer to decide, even if the concept is outdated.

Marketing to Women: Emotional Attachment & Brand Loyalty

Brand Loyalty and Marketing to Women

Emotions play an important role in a woman’s purchasing decisions and brand loyalty. We don’t always buy a product or service because it’s the best value for our money; many times our choice is driven by an emotional connection.

Brands often develop exclusive campaigns and programs to build and maintain this brand loyalty. The recent success of P&G’s ‘Thank you, Mom’ campaign focused solely on females, is a great example. Brand loyalty now is a two-way relationship; businesses demonstrate their loyalty by listening to the needs and concerns of their consumers, actively engaging and responding to their issues, and using that information to anticipate market trends. In this way, customer loyalty is a mutually beneficial relationship, rather than a one-way flow of products and information.

The 2013 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index® indicates that brands driving the highest level of emotional engagement were ABC (evening news category) with 97 percent, Amazon (online retailers category) with 96 percent, and three companies at 95 percent– Pampers (diapers), Dunkin‘ (packaged coffee), and Subway (quick-serve restaurants). Other category winners include:

• Credit card: Discover, 94 percent

• Automotive: Ford and Hyundai at 93 percent

• Luxury cosmetics: Clinique, 93 percent

• Natural food stores: Whole Foods, 93 percent

• E-readers: Kindle, 92 percent

• Tablets: Amazon, 92 percent

• Breakfast cereal: Cheerios, 91 percent

• Gasoline: Shell, 89 percent

• Discount retail store: Walmart, 89 percent

• Social networking sites: Facebook, 88 percent

• Airline: US Airways, 85 percent

• Search engine: Google, 85 percent

• Pizza: Domino’s 84 percent

• Car Insurance: State Farm, 82 percent

• Casual Dining: Applebee’s, 82 percent

• Luxury hotel: Inter-Continental, 82 percent

• Bank: JP Morgan Chase, 79 percent

It bears repeating that women are the top marketing opportunity in today’s economy.  They make 85 percent of all consumer purchasing decisions, and account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending. Savvy marketers understand this, and will continue to look at ways to build brand loyalty with this key consumer.

Truths About Marketing to Moms

Marketing to Moms - Some Truths

Marketing to Moms: A List of Truths

Recently Holly Pavlika shared her predictions for how marketers will attempt to engage moms.  We’ve noted a few of them below:

  • Television, social media, and motherhood will recognize that they need each other. It’s already happening with blogger integration. Television is the second screen to her, and it will be interesting to see how apps like Zeebox, which integrates television shows and social media, will fare.
  • Technology and smartphones will become more and more a part of her life. Brands need to get ahead of the curve with mobile.
  • Brands will continue to try to reach moms through “pinked” and specially designed products. And they will fail miserably. Painting a product pink and adding glitter to something hardly raises its ability to effectively meet the buyer’s needs. To win her over, focus on features, benefits, providing value, and superlative customer service.
  • More and more advertising will feature moms. Until we want to scream. Advertising and marketing to moms is so blatant right now, it’s almost laughable. Brands will continue to think putting a mom in the picture will attract moms to listen their pitch. The emphasis should not be on “hey, mom,” messaging, but rather on recognizing whether or not moms really need the product in their lives.
  • We’ll see more growth in the Latina mom market. Brands need to get ready for her – she’s highly social, has huge spending power, and isn’t afraid to use her voice.

The Networked Mom will continue to adapt and use technology and social media to share ideas and connect with others. She loves the ability to share her passions and use her voice, and she will continue to be a primary focus of the media and marketers in 2013.

Photo courtesy of Episencial

Marketing to Women This Holiday Season

Holiday Marketing to Women

Marketing to women is worth it.

By now most of us understand that women are the primary consumers in the U.S. today, responsible for 85 percent of all consumer spending. Women’s combined consumer and business spending is fast approaching $7 trillion – roughly the size of Japan’s economy. When marketing to women this holiday season and beyond, businesses need to keep the following in mind:

There is no “women’s market” — there’s your women’s market.

Marketers should not segment women strictly by age. Whether a woman is 28, 39, or 52, she’ll respond more to marketing messages that address her life stage, not her biological age. Unlike previous generations, today’s women are experiencing life in a less linear fashion; women are having babies in their 40s, starting new careers in their 50s, and re-entering the dating scene in their 60s. Marketers need to clearly understand the differentiation in marketing to the different life stages of women, and tailor their messages accordingly.

Pink is not a marketing strategy.

Today’s women are not looking for a watered-down version of a male offering that has been feminized with clichéd colors. Instead, they’re looking for solid information, ease of use, stellar customer service, and brands that are looking to build real relationships with them based on their interests, personal identities and problems that they need to solve. Instead of relying on outdated assumptions and stereotypes, marketers must do the hard work to be relevant to women consumers – taking the time to learn what motivates them to order to present their brands in a meaningful way.

Recognize that women think different than men.

All human brains start as female brains, until the male brain is flooded with testosterone. But there they part paths. A woman’s brain has four times as many connections between the left and right hemispheres as a man’s. All of those signals hurtle down the superhighway into her right brain – the home of emotional memory, intuition and experience. A woman not only reads – she attaches feelings to what she’s reading. A woman’s heart is in her brain – tell her a story that is filled with emotion, and explain why your brand is relevant to her. Sounds simple, but many businesses develop and market products without ever asking their female customers what is most important to them and why. Companies such as Best Buy and Volvo have made gaining women’s input a key part of their marketing process, leading to product improvements that both men and women appreciate, along with marketing messages that resonate with both.

This holiday season, Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, representing a $1.25 billion day. How will female consumers manage their Cyber Monday shopping?

When marketing to women, focus on mobile.

Mobile devices will continue to play a strong supporting role in the online shopping surge, with 52.9% of female Smartphone owners using their devices to do research and make purchases. In addition, social media will continue to be a huge power player in promoting brands as women interact with them across more touch points than ever before. This constant engagement makes it imperative that marketers understand women’s preferences in order to connect with them at the correct time and with the proper information.

Finally, female consumers are more likely to interact with and buy from businesses and brands that a friend has recommended. This word of mouth interaction may be harder to track than hard mobile device statistics, but it should not be ignored.

Businesses should plan their strategies for reaching the female market this holiday season by making sure all sites are optimized for mobile devices, and providing regular personalized interactions. By enabling social media sharing across all platforms, businesses can create an integrated approach to reaching women that will be successful this holiday season and beyond.

Marketing to Moms: Shout Out to Hallmark

Hallmark Markets to Moms

Hallmark Markets to Moms

The other day I was in a Hallmark store buying Halloween cards, and it struck me that this brand is a great example of one that really understands and supports a mom’s need for community.

Moms, or all women for that matter, are part of multiple communities, from family and the workplace, to children’s and social groups, to online groups. In order to develop a meaningful relationship with these women, it’s important that brands show support for these communities. One way to do that is to identify a touch point that has emotional relevance to Mom (and her peers) and present it in a way that also provides a sense of validation on her part.

A recent study indicates that 90 percent of women agree that greeting cards can lift their spirits and lighten a heavy burden.

Hallmark acknowledges that not all moms are living the perfect lives so often depicted in the media, and has made it easier to find cards that offer words of encouragement or support with its Encouragement Cards line. This line of cards, addressing a variety of life situations including job loss, cancer treatment, stress, self-improvement, divorce, and caregiving, helps moms support other moms in their communities through challenging life events.

In addition, Hallmark introduced the Kids Encouragement line, providing moms with another platform for showing love, support and pride in their children.

Hallmark’s ongoing innovation shows a keen understanding of how to create an emotional bond with its primary customers, and how even the simple effort of sending a card can create a lasting impression and emotional bond between sender and receiver.

So, since I “care enough to send the very best,” I’m giving a shout out to Hallmark.

1 2 3