Marketing to Moms

Most of the best businesses and products for moms come from moms themselves. Your experience as a mom should help you identify with your customers, but realize not all moms are the same. How you market to them may be as important as the product or service you offer.  

For business owners, the $1.6 trillion "Mommy Market" is well worth pursuing. In the book Trillion Dollar Moms, Maria Bailey and Bonnie Ulman teach you how to take advantage of this lucrative market. They describe three generations of moms: baby boomer moms, Gen X moms and Millennial new moms. If your company is still marketing to soccer moms, you're missing two-thirds of the mom market.

Their book examines how recent generational shifts have impacted the buying behaviors of today's mothers and moms-to-be. Moms today want high quality and are proud to admit when they get a good price. That's part of why you're seeing more designer items at stores like Target and K-Mart. Most moms surveyed by Bailey and Ulman say they feel advertising is not geared toward them and many feel that advertising is offensive.

With all of that in mind, here are some tips for appealing to this key demographic.  

• Focus on networks. When marketing to moms, you need to take advantage of the networks they build. Moms love to talk about what they're buying, so if you have a good product or message, the word will spread. Virtually all new moms join some sort of play group or support group, so it's wise to get your message across to these members.
  
  
• Embrace technology. Never before have so many moms researched a product or service online. Moms don't have time to go to stores to shop around, nor do they want to bring their kids to the store if they don't have to. A good website and high search rankings are essential to being found and reviewed by the mommy market. Ideally, moms should be able to easily purchase your product online.
  
  
• Offer education. Moms use the internet to educate themselves. Offer valuable content that moms can reference as a way to bring them to your site. Moms spend more time online than they do in front of a TV.
  
  
• Save them time. Moms will all agree they need more time. Focus on the time savings benefits of your product or service, and it'll score points with moms. Moms are expert multi-taskers and crave the ability to do more in less time.
  
  
• Get to the point. Tied to lack of time, moms want marketing that gets to the point. Offer free shipping or a quick deal, but don't ask moms to spend time reading about your product or service. If you're offering a discount, show the price they'll pay. Don't ask moms to figure out what 10 percent off will be. If you have a product, show a picture; don't give a lengthy description.
  
  
• Market to the individual. Yes, we're all moms, but we're also different. Some moms stay at home, some work at home, and some work away from home. Be careful that your marketing message doesn't make a blanket statement that would leave someone out. Don't assume all moms are home watching Oprah.

Want more information on marketing to moms? There's a Marketing2Moms course offered by Moms in Business. It's a 16-week e-mail course that'll help you understand and market to today's mom. Marketing to moms is becoming somewhat of a science. It's surprisingly well researched and has very concrete solutions. With moms holding the purse strings of household budgets across the country, make sure you're sending the right message.

Lisa Druxman is Entrepreneur.com's "Mompreneur" columnist and the founder and CEO of fitness franchise, Stroller Strides. Druxman is also a nationally recognized speaker and author, and is considered an expert in thefield of fitness, particularly pre- and postnatal fitness. For more information on how to launch or grow your Mommy Owned Business, e-mail her about her Mommy Owned Business Academy atlisa@strollerstrides.com.

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