Whatever You Call Her – Mum, Mère, Madre or Mom – Here Are 4 Ways Brands Can Stay On Her Good Side
There have always been challenging times – world wars, depressions, pandemics – but families have survived, largely because of the blood, sweat and tears of mothers. If Mom is your customer, read this first. Now, sit up straight and eat your vegetables.
For brands that sell products to families, mothers can be the difference between profit and loss. Why? She controls the purse strings. Whether it’s for food, back-to-school expenses, healthcare, childcare, family vacations, recreation, or any of a thousand other categories, Mom is in charge. She’s also busy and, BTW, she does not suffer fools well.
For the brands that must convince Moms to make a purchase decision, marketing images and messages must be authentic and compelling.
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Four Easy Ways to Market to Mom
Marketing campaigns that target household managers have changed from the old days when Ward and June Cleaver and Ozzie and Harriet were in charge. Why? The world has gotten exponentially more complicated and “Wally and the Beav,” along with their long-suffering parents, are interacting with a media menagerie, the likes of which no one, or brand has ever witnessed.
A recent article on “Practical Ways to Market to Mom,” offers suggestions for brands that want to break through the clutter surrounding this very busy target market, aka “Mom.”
Writer Maria Bailey notes, “As a brand competing for Mom’s limited dollars, it’s important to be more strategic in your marketing messages and deployment of marketing tactics.”
Here are four ideas on the ways brands can grab Mom’s attention.
Remember: It’s a multicultural marketplace
As has been noted before in this space, the Hispanic market for family goods and services is enormous and only going to grow larger in the coming decades. This is also true for Asian, Black, and other minority groups. Importantly, Mom is revered in all these cultures, and so having culturally sensitive images and messaging has never been more important.
For newly arrived Hispanic, Asian, or other minority families and those who have been in the US for several generations, the consumer spend for goods and services is staggering. This makes decisions about social media influencers, stock photography and video and media placement, seasonal promotions, public relations activities and a dozen other tactics extremely consequential.
Focus on the functionality of your products over one-time benefits
Moms are savvier today than they have ever been. Plus, they are very creative about how they repurpose and reuse their way into great hacks. If a brand is creating a “mom” for print or digital ads, she should LOOK like a modern mom, not someone from a 1960s TV show. This is where great stock photos and video can come to the rescue.
The brilliance of this tip is evident in the popularity of “Mom Hacks” on social media such as TikTok. Say mom and the little ones are going to the beach. Sounds like fun (at least to the kids). However, mom knows this trip is fraught with challenges that rival “Game of Thrones.” Therefore, she is determined to maximize every trick in the book to multi-task and leverage products she has purchased for maximum return. Sand on little feet? No problem. Forgot the sunblock? Piece o’ cake.
Here’s a small sample – #MomHacks – showing how social media such as TikTok can help mom keep her cool and win big! It’s also a great way for savvy marketers to use product placement, influencer marketing, authentic photography, and video to turn our heroine into “Super Mom.”
As Bailey notes, “Enlist these social #MomHackers to be creative with your product on social media — and sit back and enjoy the viral and incremental sales.”
Align products to present increased value to moms
Here’s a marketing formula to consider. Social media + online marketing = Value to Mom. As a busy manager, a mother demands the maximum bang for the buck. Bailey notes, “With online sales and social media, this process has gotten easier to execute. In a social media post, highlight associated products that create a lifestyle solution and provide online shopping links to each.
“Moms think in tasks, so sell her everything she’ll need to take her job to completion. When each brand (in the group of associated products) features the product bundle on its social media, it increases the reach of the individual post while putting your product in front of a new audience.”
Using the “going to the beach” example (above), brands that sell sunblock, snacks and soft drinks could easily highlight their products in these categories in social media channels and provide convenient links for online purchase. This “Mom and the Kids Go to the Beach” package of products, and the ad campaign that supports it, would pay off for all the brands involved.
The result? Value to Mom.
Combine your social influencer outreach with offline sampling
Social media influencers who are also moms (see #MomHacks above), can influence purchases offline too. Bailey notes, “Now more than ever, moms are open to changing brands or products. Sending samples to your social media influencers to share with their friends is the perfect way to put product samples into the hands of potential customers.”
Annual Spending for Families is Huge
Here’s something we can all agree on. Mom is amazing.
According to several sources, there are roughly 82.5 million mothers in the United States, more than 2 billion worldwide and approximately 4.3 babies are born every second. About 2% of those US mothers have adopted a child. Plus, the average Mom will have changed approximately 7,300 diapers by the time her baby reaches age two!
Just imagine the child-rearing expenditures contemporary parents are responsible for meeting. Oh, wait. Someone just did.
In mid-August 2022, the highly-respected Brookings Institute announced a blockbuster analysis that was reported by the Wall Street Journal. It now costs more than $300,000 to rear a child through high school.
“It determined that a married, middle-income couple with two children would spend $310,605—or an average of $18,271 a year—to raise their younger child born in 2015 through age 17. The calculation uses an earlier government estimate as a baseline, with adjustments for inflation trends.
“The multiyear total is up $26,011, or more than 9%, from a calculation based on the inflation rate two years ago, before rapid price increases hit the economy, the Brookings Institution said.”
This research from Brookings calculated the cost of raising a family based on a 2017 estimate from the Agriculture Department. The estimate covers a range of expenses, including housing, food, clothing, healthcare and childcare, and accounts for childhood milestones and activities—diapers, haircuts, sports equipment, and dance lessons, among other costs.
For brands that supply goods and services to families, the CEO of Our Family, Inc. is an enormously important “prospect.” Companies that underestimate, condescend to, or miscalculate their marketing activities directed at this huge customer are doomed to become the latest version of the “Hula Hoop.”
“Hula Hoop? What’s a Hula Hoop?”
~ Perplexed shopper
Necessity Is the Mother of Invention
Moms do more with less. Period. Next question.
In trying economic times, the challenges of feeding, educating, and protecting children from danger are unrelenting. Moms do this 24/7, every day, all day. In the middle of that unrelenting schedule, most fit in another 20+ hours earning a paycheck. Don’t waste her time with useless information and for goodness sakes, don’t disrespect her. She has a large budget and must spend it. Why not with you?
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Smart, culturally sensitive images that also tug at heartstrings are waiting for your review. We’ll even help with FREE research. Click here and talk to a SuperStock representative. More than a few of them are Moms too!
