May 7, 2021
5 min read
The FanFinders Guide to Marketing is back. This time, we’re covering how brands can use content to engage, convert, and retain an audience of parents.
Let’s talk about the biggest mistake brands make when marketing to parents and families: using a one-size-fits-all approach.
The parents ‘group’ is just as diverse as the general population, so why would you treat them as a homogenous audience?
Everything from age, to family relationship dynamics and lifestyle priorities effect whether families will be attracted by new products or services.
So, you need to do your homework on your specific niche within this group, their wants and needs, and then tailor your approach accordingly.
That said, having built up a community of over 5 million parents across two continents, we wanted to share a few consistent things we’ve noticed that can help you with making those all-important connections through your content.
Modern mums want to hear from real people that have been through something similar.
While they do seek out healthcare professionals and use Google, they want to get advice from people who are either in the same situation or have recently been through those experiences.
This is why our ‘Ask the Fans’ series works well over on Facebook – where parents offer advice to other members – and why we have so many real parent bloggers.
Being real and honest is what we do, because I think people can relate to this far more than content about how you can be the ‘perfect’ parent – the ‘perfect’ parent doesn’t exist. At some point, your child is going to shout out something embarrassing in a supermarket and that’s OK.
- Laura Driver, FanFinders' Social Media Manager
Your content should have emotion. Parents can tell when the person writing isn’t a parent themselves or hasn’t been through the experience they are covering.
Lack of authenticity is obvious and detrimental to establishing brand trust.
Many underestimate the importance of taking time to just listen and learn from their audience’s behaviours.
We regularly take the time to monitor how our community is interacting online and what they want to see more of, both on social channels and with more qualitative content.
By taking this step back, you can better evaluate what your users and followers want and how they behave.
From there, you can put a more concise plan into action.
For us, it’s about channelling our efforts into valuable, saveable, sharable content for new parents; content that answers their questions, faces realities and above all, is engaging.
Video can create that feeling of someone sat in the living room with you, which can be invaluable during what is an immensely stressful time.
Since the pandemic began, we’ve given parents around the UK free access to our experts through Facebook and Instagram Lives that provide much-needed reassurance to parents, and gives them a resource that they may not have access to otherwise.
Test different formats to meet parents’ needs and find new ways to be a source of support.
Putting your ‘audience’ first should always be one of the top priorities for any content.
There are 100 different ways to be a parent, but if you continually strive to ensure the needs of your audience are met and they are made to feel valued, your business will be valued in return.
We're experts at scaling brands across multiple channels by connecting them to our engaged communities.
We don't do empty promises. Just quality connections.
