Marketing to Women: Power to the PANKs

On the eve of Mother’s Day, I thought it would be important to salute those amazing women who are influential in the lives of their nieces and nephews but have not given birth to a child.  I know lots of these important women who have been nicknamed PANKs, Professional Aunts No Kids.  They are actively involved in the lives of children around them.  In fact, one in five women is a PANK, or approximately 23 million Americans.  PANKs are roughly half of all the women who are not a mother or grandmother.  This group is actually growing as women are choosing to stay single or marry later.

PANKs spend $9 billion on toys and gifts for children annually, according to “The Power of the PANK”, a study by Savvy Auntie and public relations firm Weber Shandwich.  PANKs tend to have about the same income as the average woman, but they have more disposable income because they do not have children and are more likely to be single.  PANKs estimate that they spent an average of $387 on each child in their lives during the past year, with 76% having spent more than $500 per child.

Additionally, PANKs are younger. The average age of a PANK is 36 (vs. 46 years for overall women), a highly desirable age group for marketers because it suggests that PANKs potentially have a network of friends and family members with growing families. This important group of women are also mighty among social media influencers.  PANKs tend to spend more time on social media than women in general.

PANKs are great at sharing information about clothing, vacation/travel, websites/social networks sites, and products for digital devices.   They also index higher on traditionally “mom” categories, such as groceries/food and beverages, household appliances and home decorating goods, and knowledgeable about more male-dominated areas of expertise: electronics, automobiles/other vehicles, life and property insurance, and financial investments/services.

Some 43% of PANKs say advertising and marketing is not geared to them, and half of them say that society does not acknowledge them.  Imagine what would happen if advertisers acknowledged this group.  This important demographic would be extremely loyal to brands that reach out to them.

The Mother Lode: Mother’s Day 2013

Just wanting a gift of love from these two!

I love Mother’s Day.  Of course, I do.  I am a mother.  I love spending time with my son and daughter.  I love silly cards, I love sweet cards.  I love flowers.  I love handmade things. I love hugs and kisses.  Seems I am not too different from others.  A gift is good but love is best.

Market researcher NPD  found that of the more than 2,000 moms of kids 18 and younger it surveyed, a handmade gift from their child was on the top of the list, chosen by 14.6%. In the study commissioned by Child’s Play Communications, the second most popular gift was a day off entirely for herself (13.6%), closely followed by a spa day (12.9%).  Only 1.3% say they want breakfast in bed. 

Spending Trends

In a different study,  National Retail Federation’s Mother’s Day spending survey conducted by BIGinsight, consumers indicated they will spend an average of $168.94 on mom, up 11 percent from last year’s $152.52.  The survey found 14.1 percent of shoppers – the highest in the survey’s history – will spend more than $2.3 billion on electronics, treating Mom to a tablet or smartphone.  And more than one-third (34.4%) of gift givers will buy jewelry, spending a total of $4.2 billion.  That’s a lot of glitz!  Also setting a record is the fact that nearly three in 10 (28.5%) Americans will buy their gifts online, up from 25.6 percent last year.  Mother’s Day can mean purchasing gifts for their wife, daughter, grandmother, sister, mother or stepmother.  If you are marketing to women, don’t forget that many of these women are guiding or actually doing the purchasing of these items.

That Takes the Cake!  The History of Mother’s Day

Seems honoring Mother has long been a tradition.  In 16th century England a celebration called “Mothering Sunday” was held annually—a Sunday set aside for visiting one’s mother. The eldest son or daughter would bring a “mothering cake,” which would be cut and shared by the entire family. Family reunions were the order of the day, with sons and daughters assuming all household duties and preparing a special dinner in honor of their mother. Sometime during the day the mother would attend special church services with her family.

Here in the US, the day was first celebrated on May 10, 1908, when a special Mother’s Day service was held in a church in West Virginia, at the insistence of Anna Jarvis.  She campaigned heavily to have the day observed first in West Virginia, then finally the U.S.  In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill designating the second Sunday in May as a legal holiday to be called “Mother’s Day”—dedicated “to the best mother in the world, your mother.”

Marketing Travel to Women: Do Travelers Trust Online Reviews?

It’s the travel season.  I recently booked rooms in far-flung places where I had to rely on online reviews to steer my decisions. I looked for high ratings, seemingly honest guest reviews and photos that travelers had taken.

Do consumers trust online reviews for hotels?  Yes, of course they do, and they trust online reviews more than brand websites and ads.  TripAdvisor recently celebrated an impressive new statistic:  the travel review site reached 100 million reviews and opinions this month.  The reviews include more than 2.5 million accommodations, restaurants, attractions, and local businesses in more than 116,000 destinations.  Central Park in New York has more than 12,000 reviews!

 Here are some of the findings from Trip Adviser:

95% of travelers say reviews are trustworthy.

78% of travelers say reviews help them feel more confident in their booking decisions.

74 percent of travelers say that they write and post online reviews because they want to share a good experience with others.

53% of travelers won’t book a hotel that has no reviews.

35% of new reviews on TripAdviser are submitted by Facebook-connected travelers.

5% claim the hotel was not as good as the reviews implied, but 80% say the hotel met their expectations based on the reviews.

What signals a trustworthy review?  Travelers look for the number of reviews, pictures and images, and the quality and detail.  And all hotels should respond to hotel reviews.  I gave the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago high marks because they have an active social media presence and will respond to guests on social media.  It sets them apart. Almost 90 percent of hotel general managers agree that it’s critical for their staff to manage, respond to, and monitor hotel reviews on user review websites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google+ Local, and Travelocity.

To find out how to spot a fake review, check out the infographic from Olery.

Marketing Travel to Women: Get Smart About Apps

It is becoming hard to say travel without talking about mobile devices today.  By 2014, smartphones and tablets are on track to capture nearly one in five travel dollars. And those who are marketing travel to women should take note of some of the opportunities and challenges.

Travel Decisions Made by Women

Some 80% of all travel decisions are made by women and 40% of travel is planned using a mobile device.  The tablet is the preferred device for planning travel and the smartphone is the choice for booking trips while on the go.  In fact, three-quarters (76%) of us reach for the smartphone when booking travel on the go.

Poor Mobile Experiences

So you know the drill – you are traveling and something happens to cause you to change your airline reservations.  You go to your handy app.   But you have a hard time loading the information, it gets confusing and then, you just call the airlines or the hotel or the car rental or the restaurant because it was a hassle figuring it out on that handy app.  It’s happened to me before – and apparently, lots of others.  A ResearchNow study released by Mobiquity shows the top negatives:

• 60% of smartphone owners, 52% of tablet owners found mobile travel sites slow to load
• 51% of tablet owners rated search and selection options on travel apps as complicated
• 20% of tablet owners were disappointed the apps were not integrated with their loyalty programs

Poor mobile experiences can cause travelers to take an alternative course and could result in decreased revenue for travel brands.  More than a third (35%) of connected travelers would be less likely to book again with the travel brand after a slow, confusing of non-optimized experience when research or booking travel on a mobile device.  Some of the issues in addition to slow load time are  complicated search and selection, poor navigation, not linked to loyalty programs or not designed.

Top Mobile Travel Apps

The top mobile websites mostly include airlines and travel aggregators, such as TripAdvisor and Priceline.com.  Of the 8% of iPhone users that use travel apps, the top airline apps are:

United Airlines  (1.6%)
Southwest Airlines (1.5%)
Fly Delta (1.3%)
American Airlines (1.3%)
JetBlue (0.5%)

Some of the other popular apps for travel are included in the following infographic:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/198843/travelers-expect-more-from-mobile-on-the-road.html?edition=59193#ixzz2RWRst23x

Related articles

• Travel fragmentation is extending to mobile (tnooz.com)

Marketing to Women: Mobile Advertising Yet?

Smartphones now comprise 57% of the mobile market in the United States.  By next year, there will be more mobile devices than there are people in the world and more mobile phones than desktop PCs.

With all that mobile action, why then is mobile advertising not growing as fast as smartphone adoption?  According to IAB, some 53% of agencies say they don’t have experience in mobile advertising.  And 70% say they would purchase more if clients understood it better.  Translation:  Agencies and clients need to go to school on mobile.

The Google Factor

So here’s a tip for all the late adopters:  Mobile ads work!  Or at least that’s what Google says.  Mobile ads appear to be the most effective paid method of driving page likes, and Google reports that smartphone users are unusually responsive to advertising. Forty-two percent of users click on mobile ads they like, found the Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users survey. Of those, 49 percent go on to make a purchase, while 35 percent visit the advertiser’s site, and 27 percent call the business in question.  A lot of that clicking is on local sites;  95% of people look for local info on their smartphone.

All that smartphone usage leads to smartphone shopping. While strolling the aisles, 49% of us compare prices, 44 percent read reviews of stuff while we shop, and 34 percent are using their phones to check the store’s inventory.

Gender differences in shopping:  In a new study by Millennial Media and comScore, findings show men are more likely to use phones to check product availability, compare prices, find deals or make online purchases. Women are more likely than men to use phones in stores to text or call friends about products, send pictures of products, or research product features.

Mobile-Optimized Sites and Apps Necessary

Those that will win in mobile will have sites that are responsive and won’t have roadblocks like Flash.  I was working with a client recently, and I tried to view her website on my iPad.  Because her site was built in Flash, it was not at all accessible on any Apple devices.

Right now, people spend more time on apps than mobile websites.  Tablets seem to be the online shopping tool of choice.  Important features include side-by-side product comparison, 360-degree zoom, customer ratings, and an easy checkout process are most important to shoppers.

So let’s go mobile!

Marketing to Women: In 2016 44% of Retail Sales Impacted by Web

Whether we buy online or research online, all retail is going to be impacted by online activity.  Not ten years from now, but just a couple of years from now.  How can that be, you ask, when only 5.4% of retail sales were reported as e-commerce in the fourth quarter of 2012?

Well, here’s the news bulletin.  While online retail sales are a smaller portion, many of today’s sales are web-influenced.  In fact, 70% of consumers research online before they make an in-store purchase.  And the average shopper may be using 10.4 sources of information to make a purchase decision.   Social media and mobile continue to become important  influencers in this shopping behavior.

Moms continue to be the heavy shoppers and one-third of all moms own a connected device.  Moms spend 6.1 hours per day on average on their smartphones – that’s more than magazines, TV or radio.   62% use shopping apps and 46% took action after seeing a mobile ad.  Mobile usage is growing among moms.  It’s  40% higher today than in 2009 for these mobile moms.  The statistics for moms shopping on tablets are off the charts - 97% made a purchase using their tablet in the last month.  And 46% actually want to receive information while they are in a store.

Warning to Retailers:  many retailers have been shown to be slow to adapt, and are without tablet websites or iPad sites.  When you don’t keep up, you are giving the competition the edge and giving iPad shopping startups a shot, like Pickie or Fab.com or others.

For more statistics on shopping, read more here.

Marketing to Women: Women Still Dominate Retail Shopping

A new report from Nielsen confirms that women still control the spending power in the US.  Some people estimate that we control $5-15 trillion annually.  Now, I know that saying women still dominate retail shopping is like saying that it still snows at the North Pole, but there are some shifts going on that are interesting.

The report points out that men are taking a more active role in the shopping process than they have in the past. Woo-hoo!  Between 2004 and 2012, U.S. women reduced the number of trips they made across most retail channels, while men increased their visits to all outlets except grocery and drug stores.

However women are still spending more money per trip than men in all shopping channels.  Women drive the larger stock-up or planned trips and outspend males by $14.31 per trip in supercenters and by $10.32 per trip in grocery stores.

So basically, women are still doing the majority of shopping, but the data tends to suggest that men are beginning to assume more shopping duties beyond the trip to the convenience store for beer and chips.

Talking to the female shopper is more important than ever.  So those  at Nielsen are concerned, like we are, about the emotional and rational content of marketing and advertising messages.

Women remember more and differently than men do, so talk to both her emotional and rational sides and acknowledge her attention to detail. Layering emotional decision-making opportunities with rational information will increase purchase intent and will have strong “sticking” power. According to Nielsen NeuroFocus, the female brain is programmed to maintain social harmony, so messaging should be positive and not focus on negative comparisons or associations.

In other words, women form value opinions based on both emotional and rational reasons to buy.  That’s why the Darth Vader spot for Volkswagen was a game changer.  It spoke to both men and women about the special moments of family life yet focused on a buying feature of the car.  And yes, women are the buyers of most cars too.

Marketing to Women: Your Elevator Speech in 15 Seconds

I was cleaning up my office today (yes, that is my real office), and I came across a Forbes article and video that really impressed upon me the importance of cleaning up our brand pitch to market to women, or any customers.  Our messaging becomes a little bit like my office.  Crammed with things that were important at the time but have hung around too long.  Impossible to relate to anyone in less than minute.

I love the simplicity of being able to explain your business in one succinct phrase that differentiates you from your competition.  Clean, Compelling, Concise.

So in the spirit of cleaning up our brands, here are some steps to create your elevator speech:

Step One.  Create a Twitter-friendly headline that answers the question, “What is the single most important thing that I want my listener to know about my brand, product, service or idea?”  Now this is excellent advice because if you can’t explain it in 140 characters, I probably can’t absorb it in 15 seconds.  This exercise forces you to practice the art of sacrifice for the purpose of communication.  A great headline will also give voice to differentiation and end benefits.  Here are some great examples in addition to the video.

The USO lifts the spirits of America’s troops and their families.

Wal-Mart saves people money to they can live better.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Coca-Cola wants to refresh the world, inspire moments of optimism and happiness, and create value.

AT&T wants to to connect people with their world, everywhere they live and work, and do it better than anyone else.

Starbucks is out to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.

Tom’s says we’re transforming everyday purchases into a force for good around the world. One for One.®

Step Two.  Support the headline with three key benefits.  Three is the perfect number.  For some reason, our minds can remember three ideas, but struggles with more.  The Power of Three.  As a child, everything we learned seemed to be centered around three — A,B,C; 1,2,3; Three blind mice, Three musketeers, Trinity, and the three wise men.  Aristotle even knew the power of three and wrote about it in his book Rhetoric.  So what are the three most compelling support ideas for your brand.

Step Three.  Reinforce the three benefits with stories, statistics or examples.  These are the bullet points that more fully explain your benefits.  And yes, all of it should fit on a single page.

I use this type of process in getting to the core identity of brands for clients. When you look back at the examples I used in step one, you see that the USO doesn’t say it runs centers for troops, Wal-Mart doesn’t talk about physical stores, and Google doesn’t talk about search engines.  Your business must be explained in such a consumer beneficial manner that it allows you the bandwidth to provide that benefit in a variety of ways.  That’s why Starbucks doesn’t say it is a coffee shop; they have always explained themselves as the third place in your life – after home and work.

Try this exercise for your business.  Let me know how it goes.  And send my a picture of your messy office.  Maybe it will make me feel a little bit better.

Marketing to Moms: Four Things to Consider Before Developing an App

Considering an app to market to moms?  A recent study found that 97% of moms made a purchase on their tablet in the last month and they’re spending significantly more time on their tablets than laptops. There’s a huge opportunity for brands to provide value for moms on their tablets.

One way to make the most of moms on tablets is by developing an app for your brand. However, developing an app, especially for the first time, is not an easy task. It requires a big budget, skilled engineers, and dedicated marketers to build a useful, powerful app.

So before you begin, there are 4 key things to keep in mind when planning to develop a new app:

App functionality – In order to be truly effective, apps must be smart, innovative, and provide value to the customer. Know when your customers will be downloading the app and why they need it at that moment. Determine the use case scenario and keep it top of mind throughout all stages of development. Also know that you don’t have to include all potential features in the first release of the app. Prioritize the essential elements and add additional functionality in future releases.

Operating systems – You don’t need to develop an app for all platforms to be successful. Rather, understand the devices before choosing one or a few. First, narrow down your options by knowing which device your target audience uses. For example, about 51% of moms own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, compared to 52% of teenagers owning an Android. Second, understand the pros and cons of the various platforms. Windows is known for its flexibility and provides a great user experience. Apple has fewer models and screen sizes so testing is easier. However, a rejection from Apple’s App Store means more time and money to make improvements. With Android, though, it’s easier to get apps into the Google Play store. On the down side, there are many Android models and testing on all of them is nearly impossible. Finally, testing on various devices requires lots of Quality Assurance (QA), not only for the first release but also to maintain the app as devices update their operating systems. Don’t forget to budget for ongoing QA as you develop your plan.

Pricing model – Will the app support your core business or will it be the sole revenue stream? If your business has other revenue sources, you may offer the app for free because it builds mobile presence and authority for your brand. If this will be your main revenue source, the app itself might be free but perhaps it will generate revenue through an eCommerce engine or paid membership. While some paid apps are very successful, tablet users have been shown to prefer free apps with ads to paid apps. Paid apps accounted for only 23% of all tablet app downloads in 2012. Does your app offer something that customers will pay for or does it offer another value to your business?

Download strategies – Marketing your app and getting customers to download it provides a huge challenge. Make sure your app is searchable within the app store. You can do this by choosing the most relevant keywords. What will customers be looking for when you want them to find your app? Find out and use those keywords. Note, you are limited a specific number of characters for keywords. For Apple, keywords must be less than 100 characters. Another download strategy is through email marketing. Email your existing customers and include a direct link to the app store so they can download the app immediately. Make it easy for them to find and download. Also consider integrating a social sharing element into your app so users market the app for you.

Creating an app may or may not be worth it for your business, but after thinking through each of these topics you should have a better idea of your approach and strategy. For more insights on the habits of moms on tablets and how to build the best app strategy for your brand, download the white paper, “Tablets 101: A Primer for Mom-Focused Brands.”

This guest post is by Katie Petrillo. She is the B2B Marketing Manager at Punchbowl, where she writes about marketing to moms for the Punchbowl Trends blog. Follow her on Twitter @PunchbowlTrends and find her on Google+.

Marketing Travel to Women: Going Mobile

When looking at travel, women are the primary decision makers – making 80% of all decisions.  And we women are going mobile.  TripAdviser says some 40% of us use a mobile device to plan a trip.

A recently post on instant.ly identified two groups who are shaping mobile usage for tourism – Generation X and Digital Natives.    Gen X are the  ‘digital travellers’ making use of all  technologies in all stages of the customer journey  (mobile devices, tablets, desktop PCs etc.).  The  ‘digital natives’ (20th century kids) have grown up with technology and have interacted with digital technology from early stages in all lifetime situations.

According to Intrepid Travel, who booked over 100,00 US passengers for 2012,  63% were female (this is on par with the global figure of 64%).  The majority of  travellers were aged between 25 – 39 (46%).  So female travelers between the ages of 25 and 39 are their biggest market. Some 24 percent of American women have taken a girlfriend getaway in the past three years, and 39 percent of American women plan on taking one in the next three years.

Social Media, Location Based and Mobile (SoLoMo) Marketing

SoLoMo marketing is increasingly becoming a critical and pivotal tool for tourism marketing. It combines social media, location and context based marketing as well as mobile devices. Interactions are becoming digital real-time experiences at a physical location.

Top US Travel Apps / Sites

When looking at the top U.S. travel apps and sites, consumers seemingly prefer apps for guidance and the mobile Web for trip planning.  Seven out of the top 10 Travel apps during June 2012 featured a map/navigation function, while the top mobile websites mostly included airlines and travel aggregators, such as TripAdvisor and Priceline.com.  Interestingly, during a summer when gas prices were on the rise, GasBuddy, which lets users search for local gas prices, ranked as the number-two Travel app with nearly nine million users. Along with Google Maps, MapQuest and Southwest Airlines appeared on both lists but had more mobile Web users than app users.