Marketing to Moms (and Dads): The State of the American Mom 2013

The 2013 State of the American Mom report is out – and interestingly, they actually looked at opinions of both Moms and Dads.

Here are some of the results important for marketing to moms – and dads:

Men shop around too.  An equal amount of Moms and Dads, 78% and 76% respectively, shop at more than one grocery store weekly.  Most make the extra trip for the best sale prices.

Smartphones are the tool of choice.  Almost 60% of moms have a smartphone, compared to 44% in 2011.  It is certainly the primary organizer of life.  The report shows Moms are playing games (64%), looking up stores/locations (58%) and finding nearby restaurants (50%).

Baby wants a smartphone and a laptop too!  Of course, you know children won’t even know how to turn pages in a magazine or a book.  43% of Moms report their children start using a laptop or desktop at 3 – 6 years, and 25% of Moms say that’s when they start using a phone or tablet.

What are the trends behind these facts?

Multichannel Shopping.  Consumers are challenging retailers and brands to keep up with their multichannel shopping behaviors.  Two-thirds of all shoppers regularly use more than one channel to make purchases.  While the Mom report is talking about physical grocery stores, many are shopping online, warehouse stores, farmers markets, specialty stores and grocery stores to fill their pantries.  Some 70% still use bricks and mortar stores, but 47% are online.  And all research begins online before those “reality” shopping trips.

Life on a Smartphone.  We just feel smarter with a smartphone. Nielsen says in their 2013 Mobile Consumer Report that 61% of all adults have a smartphone and 94% have some type of mobile phone. Of course, we don’t actually talk on our phones.  We send and receive an average of 764 text messages versus 164 calls sent/received on our phones.  We use our phones for a variety of activities – email, music, shopping, location services and internet browsing.

Digital Children.  Hilary DeCesare, a cyberbullying expert and CEO of kids’ social networking site Everloop, thinks in an increasingly digital world, it’s important to expose children to different technologies early so that they are prepared to adapt and thrive in more advanced professional settings. The digital expert thinks kids as young as 2 can benefit from tablet use, as long as the parent “is monitoring what [the] child is watching.”

Marketing to Women: The Pope and Twitter?

I love Twitter.  I have always loved the way it seems like running headlines from the lives of people around the world.  Very business-like one minute and intimate or goofy the next.  Usually not the preferred social media for older folks.  But hold on - His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI just announced he was joining the throngs of Tweeters like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.  I can’t wait to see what the Pope has to say.

 And before the octogenarian has posted his first tweet, he already has 500,000 followers.  His handle is @pontifex.  His first tweet will be December 12 if you want to mark your calendar.

According to the New York Times, “Benedict’s posts will go out in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.  The messages will mostly feature the contents of the pope’s speeches at his weekly general audience and Sunday blessings, as well as homilies on major holidays and reaction to major world events, like natural disasters.”

Seems even the Vatican has embraced social media to get their message out to their flock.  The Pope will be successful because he already has a built-in audience, even if the younger ones are not as regular at mass anymore.  This new medium will allow him to reach that audience on their terms.  Oh, and in six years Twitter has amassed 500 million users, has an incredible immediacy of communication and is used in countries where free expression is not the norm.

The Pope is on to something.  The church is losing young people as they launch in life.  And Twitter is ripe with a 400% growth in Twitter usage by 18-24 year olds.  And since 53% of the users are women and they influence the religious habits of the family, it is a good gender choice..  

 The demographics tend to skew young as shown in this chart which also shows the amazing growth in the younger demo.

Marketing to Women: 81% Will Purchase Gift Cards

I bought a Kroger gift card this week for a Thanksgiving gift.  I bought a Visa gift card the week before for a baby shower gift and another as a wedding gift.   And as I think about it, I probably buy them more often that I realize.  Seems many others are buying them as well.

The National Retail Federation’s 2012 holiday consumer spending survey shows that 81.1% will purchase at least one gift card.  We will spend an average of $156.86 on gift cards, the highest in the past ten years of the survey.

We want to receive gift cards.  A growing number of us would rather have a gift card than a gift.  Six in ten (59.8%) say they would like to receive a gift card, up from 57.7% last year.

We want to give gift cards.  Of course, the reason that we give gift cards is the ability for the recipient to pick out a gift they like.  But let’s face it.  It’s about convenience too.  No wrapping, no guessing on sizes, no shipping problems. So if you haven’t started promoting gift cards, now is the time!  The average spend on a single card is $43.75.  And of course, this blog is about marketing to women, but men tend to spend more on gift cards than women do ($172.98 vs. women at $141.66.)

Where are we buying gift cards that will make it to our Christmas stockings?  

39.1 % Department Store Gift Cards

33.3% Restaurant Gift Cards

20.8% Book Stores

18.1 % Coffee Shops

12.6%  Grocery/Gasoline

11.2%  Online Merchants

14.2% Discount Stores

Maybe the purchase of gift cards allows us to control what we spend as well.  Spending will be up a bit this year but not overly exuberant.  The average holiday shopper will spend $749.51 on gifts, décor, greeting cards and more, up slightly from the $740.57 they actually spent last year. NRF is forecasting holiday sales will increase 4.1 percent to $586.1 billion.  “More than half of Americans this holiday season will feel the impact of the economy and will compensate by doing what they’ve been doing for several years – looking for ways to cut any corners, comparative shop online and in stores more often, and even planning to travel less or not at all,” stated NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay.

Marketing to Women: Is Facebook a Fad?

Some 900 million people worldwide use Facebook.  Yet, according to a new Associated Press/CNBC poll, half of Americans think Facebook is a fad.  And as a corollary to the IPO, half also say the social network’s expected asking price is too high.  Currently, some 40% of all Americans go online on Facebook at least once a week, so what’s up here?  Why the skepticism?

Young adults are the heavy users here.  Surely they don’t think it is a fad.  They represent 56% of American users –  two-thirds of Gen Xers and  81 percent of people 18-35.   Half of baby boomers — the parents of the young adults — use Facebook. And even one in five Seniors have a Facebook account.

But why would young adults be so fickle as to think Facebook is a fad?  They are constantly connected with the social network, with 55% of them going on Facebook everyday, and one out of three going on several times a day.  Heck, Facebook was built for them and they have taken it from college on into adulthood.

Fading Appeal

Despite the intensity of their use, a narrow majority of young adults predict Facebook’s appeal will fade down the road (51 percent), fewer think it will stick around as a service (44 percent).

The public overall is similarly divided on the company’s future. Just under half of adults (46 percent) predict a short timeline for Facebook, while 43 percent say it has staying power.

What’s the Next New Thing?

In today’s constantly changing times, young adults are the early adopters of new social media.  Some of us remember when My Space and Friendster were the big thing.  And now, Pinterest has grown so fast, it is the third largest social network behind Facebook and Twitter.  Our quest for the next big thing in the social media has vaulted new networks to heights quickly.

So are we just tired of reconnecting with our old high school and college friends?  Are are there other issues lurking.  Privacy seems to be one of the lingering issues with Facebook.  Only 13 percent of the people polled said they trust Facebook “completely” or “a lot” to keep their personal information private. More than half (59 percent) said they have little or no faith in the company to protect their privacy. And almost a quarter said they don’t even use Facebook because of privacy concerns.

But Facebook is still clearly dominant now – and can’t be overlooked for marketing to moms.  Earlier in March, Nielsen recorded that almost three in four mothers who went online visited Facebook.  But here again, 55% of younger moms show some dissatisfaction with Facebook saying they have de-friended companies on Facebook, citing too many messages and ads as their main reason.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/05/14/20120514poll-half-americans-call-facebook-fad.html#ixzz1uxguJRKI

Marketing to Digital Moms: 72.5% on Facebook

Can you hear them tapping away on their smartphones, laptops and tablets?  American moms are on social media incessantly with three out of four moms visiting Facebook during March 2012, according to Nielsen.  And those moms are very “like-ing” –  seems moms are 38 percent more likely to follow/like a brand online.

Blogging, anyone?

Moms visit blogs more often, and are 27 percent more likely to visit Blogger and 26 percent more likely to visit WordPress.com than the general online population. About one in three bloggers are moms, and 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 in their household.  Half of all bloggers are aged 18-34.  Moms who blog are more than twice as likely to follow brands and celebrities compared to the online average.

Stop and Shop

We digital women love to shop and are shopping online more than most Americans.  We do it to save time and money.  It is really the only way we can get it all done.   “Moms are 35 percent more likely to shop for clothes, 50 percent more likely to buy toys, 29 percent more likely to buy music, and 23 percent more likely to purchase e-books online within the past 30 days,” according to the Nielsen study.

We Heart Pinterest

I may have to post this to Pinterest to make sure you read it.  Seems online Moms are 61% more lively to visit Pinterest than average Americans.  We love Pinterest!  It was the most visited site by Moms in the month of March 2012, followed by Disney Online, iVillage network, WebMD and Everyday Health.

Marketing to Women on Smartphones: That’s 50.9% of us!

Smartphones have crossed the tipping point.  According to Nielsen, a majority (50.4%) of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones, up from 47.8 percent in December 2011.  And of course women over index the national stat - 50.9 percent of female mobile subscribers carried smartphones in March 2012, compared to 50.1 percent for men.

Shop till we drop our phone. So, is it any surprise that we are using those oh-so-smart mobile devices for shopping?  Of course not. Seventy-nine percent of us are using our smartphones for shopping.

Smartphones are really the mobile shoppers dream for  the following:  “Locating a store” (73% vs. 42% for tablets ), “using a shopping list while shopping” (42% vs. 16% for tablets) or “redeeming a mobile coupon” (36% vs. 11% for tablet owners).   However, tablet owners are much more likely to use their device for online shopping: 42 percent of tablet owners have “used their device to purchase an item,” compared to just 29 percent of smartphone owners.

For marketers, it is important to understand how our target is using a mobile device so we can tailor messages and design appropriate engagement opportunities.

Pay As You Go  Currently we are buying online, but Nielsen points out that soon we will become comfortable with using our smartphones to make payments for items.  I can’t wait. ” Just one less thing to worry about,” says Forrest Gump.

Marketing to Women: Who’s Wearing the Pants in the Family?

Here is a great infographic that illustrates the huge shifts going in women’s roles in society.  It seems that activism is not the primary force fueling these changes, but rather it is actual organic change.

Created by: EducationalLeadership.com

Marketing to Women: 10 Cool Ways to Use Pinterest

There is certainly a lot of buzz about Pinterest.  Of course, it’s popular, driving more visits than many hot social media sites.  It’s a women’s social medium – 70% women , most under the age of 45.  It’s fun, it commands users’ attention, but how as marketers do we use it to our advantage.  Here are some tips that might help you.

1.  Add a Pin It  or Follow Me button to your website and set up boards on your own Pinterest page.  Real Simple, the print magazine whose editorial embodies the Pinterest’s female-skewing demographic, has found huge referral traffic from Pinterest, beating out referrals from Facebook in the month of October 2011.”  Real Simple has 53 boards on Pinterest and 39,926 followers.  Nordstrom has 31 boards and 10,515 followers.  Pinterest is a top traffic driver for women’s magazines like marthastewartweddings.com, marthastewart.com, Cooking Light‘s website, Country Living and Style.

2.  Use Pinterest to promote a special offering.  Starting in February, Lands End is using Pinterest to promote their Canvas products.  The product site, www.landsendcanvas.com,will feature a “Pin It” button on product pages, providing shoppers a simple way to pin fashion finds directly onto their own Pinterest boards. Lands’ End Canvas recently launched a successful contest on the site. The Holiday Pin it to Win it contest asked Pinterest participants to create a virtual pin board featuring Lands’ End Canvas products for a chance to win one of ten $250 Lands’ End Canvas Gift Cards.

3.  Showcase interesting ideas and uses of your product.  Take the example of Kate, hair stylist and jewelry maker, who started her blog (thesmallthingsblog.com) only one year ago. For the first eight months, she had a grand total of seven readers.  But between August of 2011 and January 2012,  Kate has had over 10 million page views because of Pinterest. She pins photos of really attractive hair styles on Pinterest and directs them back to tutorials on her blog.   Kate has now gained 16,000 blog subscribers and 23600 Pinterest followers in just a few months.

4.  Use the Facebook connect to foster more social media interaction.  The site now connects with Facebook enabling users to automatically post new pins to their Facebook feed for others to see. This means more eyes from other channels get access to your pictures. However, for now, you still cannot connect Pinterest to your Facebook business page so you might want to have your brand ambassadors help you out.  You can also sign up through your business Twitter account, assuring that your pins are noticed on Twitter.

5.  Make your boards the best on a particular topic.  If you want to be known for a specific topic, you need to build the board with intent, curating great images or topics.  Make sure they follow your SEO strategy.  So your business is not a visual one, what to do?  Make sure your curate blogs around topics of interest to your target.  Maybe you have photos of your culture or projects or work styles.  What about infographics or data charts that support your premise?  What about great quotes or books that are pertinent to your business?  What about pictures of your customers, maybe enjoying your product.  You could encourage a guest gallery that others could pin to.  The Today Show has a special board with antics from their anchors to help develop personality.  Of course, they have an Oscars board posted today.

6.  Use Pinterest for research.  What a great place to be able to understand your customers likes.  It’s a delight to see what they pin and their “pins” might give you ideas for other product or service offerings.  See the infographic to see if your target audience is active on Pinterest.

7.  Celebrate with your followers.  Post a board that is specific to a holiday or an event.  Valentines ideas were all over Pinterest, but you could use a board to also support an upcoming conference or trade show.

8.  Link, Link, Link.  Don’t sell, but make sure that all of your relevant pins have descriptions that include a link back to your website, blog, landing page or video.  Also use hashtags that relate to boards you have developed.

9.  Non Profit Uses of Pinterest are huge.  Curate readling lists with books and blogs that are important to your cause.  Post photos that help support fundraising events.  Picture the many good things that you do on a page.  Use it to celebrate your important landmarks.

10.  Follow brands that you admire so you can learn from them.  We have mentioned several brands here that do a good job but there are many more.  Even Mashable has its own Pinterest page.  Etsy is doing an amazing job in curating ideas for their customers.  Whole Foods has a great page.  Who knows?  Maybe I will be talking about your Pinterest page soon.

Related articles

• 10 Most-Followed Users on Pinterest (gabrielcatalano.com)

Marketing to Women: Pinterest Rules!

Women are the social media experts and they have deemed Pinterest the new ruling site.  I confess, it’s pretty addictive.  It’s a social bulletin board where people can easily post visuals they’d like to save and share. It’s great because you can save any picture you see online and post it to a specific board of personal likes – travel, food, craft projects, clothes, home decor and more.

Women love inspirations – and Pinterest organizes all those wonderful idea-starters that we used to tear out of magazines and stuff into notebooks and drawers.  I got it immediately.  For every house we have built or remodeled, I had very detailed inspiration photos that helped shape our new homes.  It’s even better than our own because we get to see our friend’s inspirations as well!

Real Simple magazine recently reported that it drove more traffic to their website than Facebook.  Pretty incredible.  Big name brands are jumping in – folks like Nordstrom’s, Land’s End, Etsy and more.  Some people say “Pin it” is the new “Google it”.

Pinterest now has more than 7 million unique visits per month. Pinterest drives more referral traffic (3.6%) than YouTube (1.05%), Google+ (0.22%), and LinkedIn (0.2%) combined, according to Shareaholic’s January 2012 Referral Traffic Report.  Okay, so Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google and Twitter still do a pretty incredible job.  But here is some of the power of Pinterest.  Collecting images rules at Christmas. Pinterest grew 44% from 2.5% of referral traffic in December 2011, after owning just 0.17% of the traffic in July 2011.

It looks like Pinterest users are primarily women (70%) because it is a place to house all of their interests.  But men could find it useful for do it yourself or home projects.

How Should Business Use It

Business should make sure all of their content includes terrific visuals that lend themselves to be pinned.  Make sure you know how to use Pinterest and use it consistently so that you are visible.  You can curate your content on boards that make it easy to find things.

Happy Pinning!

Marketing to Moms: Childhood Obesity Number One Health Concern

One-third of children are overweight.  It’s a frightening statistic.  Childhood obesity has become parents’ number one health concern – ahead of smoking and drug abuse.  It’s disturbing because a combination of processed foods, advertising and a lack of activity is contributing to the problem.  Some 50% of overweight children become overweight adults.

In January, First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack unveiled new standards for school meals that will hopefully result in healthier meals for kids across the nation. The new meal requirements should improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs every school day.

Here’s a great infographic about children being targeted by media and advertisers. It was created by some smart folks at the University of Southern California at MAT@USC and Teach.com.