May 18, 2023
5 min read
In today’s digital landscape, where competition is fierce and consumer attention is divided, successfully marketing to mums requires a strategic approach that goes beyond traditional tactics. We’ve nurtured our strategy of connecting with this demographic, which is by far the most influential for purchasing decisions in the home
We’ll get you up to speed on why marketing to mums is crucial but nuanced, and share best practices that we’ve learned.
Before diving right into marketing, it is crucial to gain a comprehensive understanding of the modern mum and distinct characteristics. Today’s mums are digital natives or close to it. They’re empowered and can juggle multiple roles at once, combining many elements of modern femininity into an ever-evolving audience, which is truly crucial for any brand wanting to gain traction in the home.
Let’s be realistic, we can truly pedestalize the role of mums, and over the long-term, they absolutely deserve it. But the truth is, the authentic day-to-day for most mums is not always a glamorous endeavour or even a particularly thankful one. But that’s the key. Whilst every mum is doing something incredible, they might also be doing something utterly draining. And mums want to know that even in those tough moments there are others that relate and understand, far before they’ll consider taking in other messaging.
A great starting block of your strategy is to truly focus on authenticity. If your community has an ideal, ask yourself what reality might be and consider incorporating it into your messaging.
For example, if you’re an FMCG selling cleaning products, the ideal for your customer will be a spotless home that’s basking in a lemony freshness, but the reality might be that mums are tired, overworked and unable to catch up on the cleaning. By considering these realities you can create a great starting point for your brand to build authenticity. Maybe you could ask for before and after photos of your community’s homes, to show how truly messy real homes get, but also how your products help.
Mums are also arguably the busiest cohort. They don’t have time to be sat at their desktop, so optimising for mobile-first content is the easiest first step. But also, think about the timing of how they interact with media.
They’re unlikely to follow a typical schedule, with staggered and unpredictable free times, so don’t only engage them when you’re at your predictable 9-5 schedule. You can further bolster your messaging by optimising for audio content too, to allow more passive consumption by busy mums.
These are all small steps but will hopefully frame the way you can effectively communicate with parents across the board.
With so much conflicting information out there, the parenting puzzle is made easier by giving information and guides that are as relevant as possible to each parenting stage. When considering your brand, ask yourself what questions your customers might want to ask, and develop easy and interactive ways of disseminating that information.
It doesn’t have to be the standard FAQ section. You can serve up stats in engaging ways, with digital counters or interactive controls. If you’re that same cleaning product FMCG, you might have a calculator to see how many bottles of cleaning solution customers could save by switching to your brand.
When mums encounter roadblocks, they ask other mums answers. So augment your content to highlight what other members of your community are facing or simply to provide practical and grounded content that positions your website as the go-to resource for real information.
This strategy will drive organic traffic and bolster your SEO rankings, but also provide a real sense of authenticity to your communities.
But while mums connect best with other mums. Don’t think there’s not room for industry experts to come in and help. It might be more industry specific, but think about what your community could benefit from learning.
If it’s something relating to a pregnancy stage, why not bring on somebody to bring those FAQs and curiosities to life? We’ve recently had Water Babies bring their expertise to our community with great results.
There’s no silver bullet for all mums, but those steps are key pillars to meeting them. Take on board the idea of adapting your strategy to how they’ll actually engage with media and marketing messaging, rather than how you wish they would.
And the balance of both expert credibility and real mums with real opinions is a great mix to add authenticity into your marketing, which mums will connect with.
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.
