Marketing to new moms

The buying power of new moms

Moms—particularly new moms—are a significant subset of the powerful women's market due in large part to their need to buy products and services for their children. In the case of the new mother, this need is often paired with enthusiasm as she welcomes her first child into the world, an event anticipated with excitement during the course of a pregnancy and sometimes before.

The USDA estimates that a family with average income will spend $165,630 on a single child by the time that child reaches 18 years of age. And Maria Bailey, author of Mom 3.0: Marketing with Today's Mothers by Leveraging New Media and Technology, notes that mothers now control more than $2.1 trillion in household spending, and that expectant and new moms on average spend more than $10,000 in the first year of their child's life.

Mothers can be exceptionally loyal customers as well. Bailey quotes BSM Media research that found 90% of moms will stay with the same brand if the product meets their expectations... and that 92% will purchase the same products and brands for both home and office. New mothers food for thought Like all women, mothers may not fit neatly into marketing stereotypes. Of the 4 million women who give birth in the US each year, for instance, more than 100,000 are over age 40, and 425,000 are teens ages 15 to 19.
(Source: US Census, April 2009)

Moms are online. What are they finding?

Michael Mendall, chief marketing officer at HP, outlines a scary thought for his fellow marketers. "[A multi-tasking mother] may not look at a single TV screen all day or pick up a single newspaper or magazine," he writes in his forward to Mom 3.0. "The 30 second TV spot that you spent weeks crafting has gone completely unnoticed. The only medium she may be interacting with is the Internet, and now your website, which has been constantly pushed to the side (or even worse, neglected altogether!) is the sole interaction she is having with your brand, the sole influencing aspect of a purchase decision, and the sole personification of your company’s reputation."

Indeed, Nielsen reports moms between ages 25 and 54 represent roughly 19% of the total online population, and BrandWeek says moms aged 40 to 50 are disproportionately heavy online shoppers. New moms especially are online in droves, researching information ranging from proper care and feeding to how a baby learns... along with finding the perfect jogging stroller and the most trustworthy babysitting service. (Kelley Skoloda, author of Too Busy to Shop: Marketing to Multi-Minding Women, notes that women tend to find baby care websites via search engines like Google: she quotes ComScore statistics showing 60% of the 26 million visitors to these websites were directed there by an online search, highlighting the importance of good search engine optimization techniques.)

And they're surprisingly affluent as a group; BabyCenter reports that of online moms with children between ages 0 and 8 live in households with a median annual income of $73,000.

What are the leaders in marketing to moms serving up online?

One trend we've seen a lot is a shying away from the traditionally gender-specific colors pink and blue. One of our first client requests when we began designing Wiggle Giggle Learn's website and marketing materials, for instance, was the use of gender-neutral color; the principals explained that the company wanted to avoid placing children into gender boxes. When we designed Tummy Time Publications' day planner for expecting women, the firm principal also discouraged the use of blues and pinks. In both cases, we chose buttery yellows and pale greens for prominent roles without losing any of the baby-soft appeal.

Similarly, a trip to the Babies 'R Us website found mainly muted purples and yellows in use; Gymboree's website features avocado greens and oranges. And though Baby Einstein's site background is light blue, its primary page design is liberally splashed with gold, purple, and vivid primary colors.

Another trend? Increasing sophistication. Following a trend in maternity clothing, web design for moms is growing increasingly sophisticated. In a recent survey of the home pages of companies marketing to moms and expecting mothers, there was nary a crayon drawing in sight; Pampers Village used paint blobs, and Tumblon used an illustration of a child playing with blocks. Of featured maternity clothing, the colors predominating were decidedly un-childlike-blacks, deep grays, reds, navy blues, browns—and the cuts were refined, from the floor-length black gown at Isabella Oliver to the tiered red dress at Belly Dance Maternity.

Moms differ from other women online in some ways. When it comes to online consumer-related behavior, for instance, a 2009 study by Proactiv found surprisingly significant differences between moms and other women. Besides looking more for coupons, Proactiv CEO Jane Doyle reported that moms are more likely to want to hear from their favorite brands via email—35% of non-moms opt out of email from marketers compared to 25% of moms—and 47% of moms are more likely to use product samples offered online than non-mothers (38%). And according to July 2009's 21st Century Mom™ Report, 39% of moms say going online represents the most peaceful part of their day.

(Need a website that appeals to these increasingly sophisticated online moms? Give us a shout.)

Selling to moms: tips and trends

What are mothers looking for in marketing? It's important to know, because a majority of marketers are missing the mark. M2Moms reports 60% of moms feel advertisers are ignoring their needs, and 73% think marketers don't understand what it's like to be a mom.

According to Mom 3.0, mothers tend to share certain values across the spectrum of age, race, and geography. "What we found after poring over thousands of pages of research, conducting hundreds of interviews and observing millions of moms globally is that moms, regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, family size or geographical location, share five core values," writes author Maria Bailey. These values are:

~ Health and safety
~ Family enrichment
~ Value
~ Simplification
~ Time management

As with other women consumers (especially boomer women), a company's social and environmental practices are important as well. According to BabyCenter's August 2009 "Talk to Mom" study, 39% of the surveyed moms who planned to buy a car in the next 12 months were considering a hybrid car due a desire to be eco-friendly in 54% of cases and a desire to be an eco-friendly role model for their children in 39% of cases. Moms like these don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk, and they expect companies to do so as well.

Bailey describes an excellent example of social responsibility: an initiative by Whirlpool with genuine appeal for both mothers and women business owners. "It's called the Whirlpool Brand Mother of Invention Grand contest," she writes. "It is an annual contest that recognizes mom-owned companies and awards grants to help them grow. … It resonates with moms because less than 2% of venture capital funding is awarded to female owned businesses."

Lisa Johnson and Andra Learned, authors of Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy—And How to Increase Your Share of This Crucial Market, meanwhile, list seven of moms' most desired ad attributes:

~ Visible benefits of using the product
~ Pictures of cute kids
~ Solutions to everyday challenges
~ Ways to enrich their children
~ Safety information
~ Useful ideas or advice
~ Value

Moms are also looking for an accurate reflection of themselves in marketing. "Mothers today are really smart. They went to school," points out Nan McCann, president of PME Enterprises, which organizes the largest marketing-to-women and marketing-to-moms conferences in the country, in Too Busy to Shop. "I did not aspire to be a toilet paper roll changer, and I am not a joyful floor mopper. I can’t identify with these images and resent marketing that makes me and other moms seem like we should happily embrace those roles."

It's all too easy, especially in one's zeal to portray a product in a positive way, to gloss over women's individuality or completely miss the mark by serving up an image of a woman that doesn't exist—do you know anyone who wipes up spills or scrubs down showers with glee? Take care to portray women in a positive yet realistic manner while addressing her core values with respect and understanding, and you're likely to win new converts.

One approach doesn't fit all

Mothers are as individual as any other woman, and yet that's also easy for marketers to forget when they focus on the "mother" aspect of the woman to whom they're reaching out.

First, resist the temptation to box today's moms into a single role. According to Bailey, when a Marketing to Moms Coalition survey asked mothers how marketers should approach them, respondents overwhelmingly requested that companies acknowledge her multiple roles in life... not just the challenges they face with their families, but the intelligence they display in business and the physicial fitness and health they seek despite their lack of time.

"Few consumer product companies or service providers take full advantage of the buying power of the Mom Market because they fail to recognize a mother in her role as an employee or business owner," she writes in Trillion Dollar Moms. "Even the most successful marketers will stop short of tapping into the other wallet many mothers manage, that of her employer, or, increasingly, the checkbook of her own company. ... Each day, more than 25 million mothers work."

Too Busy to Shop's Skolada agrees. "Speak to what's important in her life—relationships, family, and an appreciation for her very busy life. Respect the totality of the consumer's life."

Gather a diverse sample for your focus groups, and be creative in your thinking. Consider not only roles (mother, woman business owner, friend, tennis team captain) but demographics, culture, personality traits... the list goes on.

For instance, it's a rare marketing piece that portrays an unmarried mother... yet Skolada notes that today's American mother is the first to live in a time in which a majority of women (51%) are living without a spouse. According to a US Census report released in November 2009, of about 80 million children in the US, 22 million are being raised in a single parent household; of the single parents, women constitute roughly 83% of the total. (A majority—82%— of single parents work either full time or part time.)

Marketers—even some of the most foremost experts on marketing to women—also tend to assume that mothers are outgoing social beings by nature. Research has shown that mothers as a rule will quickly spread the word about negative or highly positive experiences with a company, but that doesn't mean that every mother can be found at the neighborhood playground or every party she can possibly find time for, chatting up other mothers.

In fact, the percentage of introverts in the US has been variously estimated at 25% to 50% of the population, with the percentage of introverts growing along with the levels of education reached; USA Today has reported that four of ten top executives are introverts. We can expect, then, that somewhere between 25% to 50% of mothers are introverts... and introverts are quite a breed apart from extroverts. Although the primary difference between the two personality types relates to how the woman in question gets her energy—by being alone or being with others—it's safe to say that a commercial depicting a cluster of women furiously socializing is likely to make an introverted mom cringe... or simply shrug off the message as irrelevant to her life.

This is all to say that you should know your target market well, and take the time and care to address the rich segments within it. (Interested in learning more? We recommend The Soccer Mom Myth, in which author Holly Buchanan outlines a selection of female marketing personas that offer an excellent starting point for any marketer or company. If you need hands-on help creating customer personas for your company, too, we offer a marketing strategy service that includes just that.)

Marketing to moms: age matters less

Marketers thinking of targeting their mom-related advertising by age group should also reconsider. "It's more about the age of the child than the age of the mother when you are marketing to her parental consumer needs," say Bailey and co-author Bonnie Ulman in Trillion Dollar Moms.

Why She Buys author Bridget Brennan agrees. "Today, a forty-year-old woman might have just had her first baby and is embarking on the life stage of new motherhood—which was once the province of twenty-somethings," she notes. "For the next two decades, this life stage will drive her purchasing needs in a different way than is the case with other women her age, who may already have grandchildren at the same age, or perhaps no kids at all."

In Mom 3.0, Bailey outlines key differences in today's mothers by generation, noting that baby boomer mothers, who tend to have slightly higher disposable income due to their life stage, respond well to nostalgic marketing, while Generation X mothers are exceptionally shrewd when it comes to sales messages. "[I]f a boomer is shopping for crayons and she is standing in front of Crayola and Rose Art brands, she will select the Crayola crayons because she remembers the scent of fresh Crayolas on the first day of school," Bailey writes. "Gen Xers ... can’t be sold and see marketing at face value, looking past flash and sizzle to make purchases based on their own needs. They want results and benefits, plain and simple. They want real answers to real life challenges."

BabyCenter segments not just children but moms by age, estimating 13.44 million in the "Millenial Moms" category (age 18-29), 24.5 million "GenX Moms" (age 30-44), and 9.8 million "Boomer Moms" (age 45-59). The company reports that moms 35-44 make up the largest proportion of overall moms online at 46%; in second place are moms in the 25-34 age category at 29%, followed by boomer moms, age 45-54, at 14%—beating out moms 18 to 24 years old, who come in at only 5%.

Additional resources

Want to learn more about marketing to women—much more? Check out our list of the marketing to women books we recommend. We also highly recommend the respected Engage:Moms blog published by MediaPost, authored and read by a myriad of experts.

A partner in marketing to women

If moms are a substantial portion of your target market, we're here to help! We specialize in appealing to mass affluent women, including moms, one of our favorite niche markets. We take the latest research on women's buying habits and thinking patterns, and utilize it to strategically design websites and other marketing for companies selling to moms. Contact us today!

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