Random Thoughts on Marketing With Moms

As I travel the globe talking about moms and engaging with brands desperate to connect with these powerful consumers, I spot random examples of good marketing, bad marketing and trends. Often, they don’t warrant an entire blog post so this month I assembled these random thoughts here. If you would like a longer blog post about any of them or further information, feel free to leave a comment, and I will gladly address it in an upcoming month.

Mom ambassador or Mom advocate. Who do you want?

I come across brands that want to work with moms on a deeper, more engaging level. They have a desire to create a long-term conversation with them. However, there is some misunderstanding as to whether a brand wants an ambassador or an advocate. Here’s the simple distinction. An ambassador in the purest form is a mom who is a fan of the brand but is paid to engage with people in the marketplace. Brands such as Red Bull use college ambassadors. An advocate is a non-paid, super fan of your brand. They advocate for your product by sharing information, coupons and samples without pay. Brands such as Children’s Claritin and Coppertone Water Babies have large Mom Advocacy programs.

If a Mom wants to volunteer to help you market your product, find a way to use her. 

I received this email the other day. It’s such a good example of how not to communicate with mom bloggers that I just had to share it.

Greetings Blogger! (LACKS PERSONALIZATION) 

We were immediately overwhelmed with responses in regards to our (insert brand) Mom Blogger Promotion email. Because of this large response rate, we reached our participant threshold on 100 bloggers very quickly. Therefore, we are sorry to say that, if you are receiving this email, you were not one (1) of the first 100 bloggers to respond to the email with the completed materials necessary to be considered. For those bloggers who did not respond to the initial email, please be aware that we are no longer accepting the written legal statement and Blogger Information Form since we have reached our participant threshold of 100 bloggers.

I’m almost speechless. At the very least, this brand manager should have sent product to the overflow of bloggers (the product costs less than $20 retail) as a thank you for their time and effort. It would have been so unexpected that the brand probably would have been surprised at the buzz they earned from the nice gesture.  #MissedOpportunity

Videos should be a part of your holiday marketing plan. 

Moms are well engaged in holiday shopping. Don’t forget to include video in the reviews you are posting for your product. Millennial Moms are visual shoppers, and many of them search videos to find product reviews.

Google Hangouts might be the buzzword in new platforms, but Moms aren’t embracing it.

Yes, I know it’s Google, and I know, as a marketer, you keep hearing about Google Hangouts. However, Moms just aren’t adopting this platform yet. Sitting in a packed room at Type A Conference last month, only a handful of bloggers indicated that they use this social media meet-up technology.  Similar webcasts and meet-ups on MomTV.com can attract hundreds of Moms because it’s a community where they are currently playing.

As we approach the end of 2013, I’m working to assemble my Mom Marketing predictions for 2014. Stay tuned. It looks like it’s going to be a great year for the mom market.