MediaPost- Engage Moms

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We've all seen the commercials: the ones that playfully poke fun at dads and their bumbling incompetence around the house. The dad who diapers his baby backward. The dad who destroys a load of laundry. The dad whose world implodes when his wife leaves town. Good for a laugh? Sure. Good for business? Not so much. Big brands need to move beyond stale stereotypes to win the allegiance of today's dad.

Today's Dad is more involved than ever, a trend that will continue as Gen Y moves deeper into the parenting space. The 2012 State of the American Mom Report from the Marketing to Moms Coalition found that many dads see themselves as equally sharing in parenting responsibilities with moms. "This includes areas such as grocery shopping, making meals, household cleaning, childcare, taking children to sports and playing with children," says Michal Clements in a recent post for ChicagoNow.com.

As more and more brands turn to mom bloggers to support and generate social content on their behalf, it's important to understand the latest FTC guidelines. The FTC recently released an update for disclosures in digital advertising, which is really a guardrail, not an ultimatum. And if you have mom bloggers posting tweets, blog articles, Instagram photos and Facebook updates about your brand, they are digital advertisers and, as such, they need to be following the new guidelines.

When we talk about marketing to moms, the newborn and baby market are usually the focus, and with good reason. The global baby care market is expected to increase its total sales to $66 billion by 2017. Numbers I've seen vary from $7,000 to $12,000 that parents spend on products in baby's first year. However, there's another segment of the mom market that deserves attention, and pops up on the radar during the May and June high school graduation season - the college mom.

We know the presence of kids in a household is highly correlated with the acquisition of a variety of internet-enabled devices and services. So much so, the idea of today's mothers using internet-enabled technology to more effectively manage their consistently busy family lives has become almost clichd. However, questions remain about if, when and/or how moms are passing down those feelings and behaviors about digital tools and experiences to their children. Do kids learn about the benefits of the digital world from their moms?

Many of our clients are updating their brands. Whether through a full rebranding, a simple brand refresh/rejuvenation or the expansion/narrowing of their target audiences, their brand,identities and extensions are top of mind.

It is universally known that ensuring your child has a balanced and nutritious diet is one of the most important elements in their upbringing. Indeed, our Truth about Wellness study revealed a "balanced diet" was the number one factor when looking after the health needs of your children. On the flip side, the "availability of unhealthy food" was seen to be the single, biggest barrier to a child's wellness. The pressure to maintain balance in our consumption driven lives is becoming more and more difficult. However, it is not the only excess that parents are now becoming increasingly concerned about. The second barrier to a kid's wellness was the "increasing time spent with technology," with half of parents surveyed worried about the impact this had on their children.

It's hard to believe we are nearing the end of Q2, but here we are-half-way through our year and finding ourselves evaluating the goals we had set for 2013. How are things going for you? As you begin to look at your marketing-to-mom goals and strategies, here are some of the top reasons your brand may not be connecting with Mom and some possible ways your company may be able to overcome the challenge in the second half of this year.

Moms are an important demographic to almost every marketer. In the past 10 years, moms have been interacting with brands in ways they never have before. Indeed, in this day and age of social media, moms want to form connections - with other moms, brands, and products. Yet, not all brands are living up to moms' expectations. According to an Insights in Marketing survey, only 31% of moms feel that brands effectively market to women.

At a recent conference on email marketing in Florida, Amazon's Donald Parsons spoke about the importance of conversation in email marketing, as in talk about something the recipient wants to discuss. He gave an example of how he and his friends would spend hours talking about their hometown Boston Red Sox, but the conversation would be much shorter should, say, the Yankees come up.

We don't need research to tell us social media has exploded. From social music, games, and TV, to shopping and fitness regimens, we're now sharing everything. 73% of the population is on Facebook. 77% is on YouTube. 83% of Pinterest users are pinning once a week or more. But what I find remarkable is how much more intensely moms use social media than everybody else.

Who needs expensive gifts? The No. 1 present moms want for Mother's Day 2013 is something handmade from their child. But the second most-wanted? Skip the store-bought greeting cards and flowers: What makes mom happiest is a day off entirely for herself.

Companies, organizations and brands everywhere are looking for influencers. These influencers are typically a reflection of their target audience or a niche the brand wants to expand their reach and they will be leveraged for market research, ideation and the creation of content or the amplification of a brand's content. Everywhere you look there is the search for influencers.

May is the month for Moms. Between Mother's Day and National Mom's Nite Out, www.momsniteout.com, there's a lot of celebrating around motherhood. As marketers join in the celebration to connect with moms, I thought it would fun to take a look at some of the brands that are executing interesting marketing campaigns around mothers and where the opportunities are for companies who still want to jump into May with moms.

Next month, mothers in more than 80 countries around the world will be celebrated, and consumers in all of these markets will be in search of the right way to express their appreciation for mom. Pioneering brands and companies have a great deal to gain by facilitating that effort. In its 99-year history as an official holiday, Mother's Day has grown to become the fourth most lucrative holiday in the United States, with consumers spending $152 per person on mom, according to the NRF.

As marketers, we want to make sure moms can access our products and services when and where they want - from whatever device they want. A recent study found that tablets are the device of choice, with 22% of moms owning a tablet compared to just 16% of the general population.

Despite the irony that this post lacks graphic content, I'm hooked on the rightness of including visuals as a big part of any content marketing strategy. My fellow MediaPost contributor summed it up: The future of the social Web is all about pictures!

Moms may be pressed for time, but they still fit a lot of communication into their busy schedules. Not only are they sending plenty of bite-size texts and tweets throughout the day, they're writing and reading emails ... a lot!

Last week was the official start of the baseball season and with that comes a new opportunity for baseball teams big and small to begin building a deep relationship with one of their core customers: Moms. It is Mom who often puts the game on the family schedule, Mom who tries to find the best deal for tickets and Mom who makes sure her son gets the player jersey he really wants. How do baseball teams successfully win with Mom? Take a page from their playbook for your own brand strategies:

What does mom want? She wants to make purchase decisions that are smart and show she's done her homework. A purchase well made is cause for celebration. And the beauty of social media and technology is that it puts content on-demand to help her before, during and after a purchase. No wonder adoption is so high across Millennial, Gen X and even Boomer mothers. And with 7 out of 10 mothers now working, according to Pew Research, the path to purchase needs to be conveniently lined with content, content she needs to help her make an informed decision.

2013 State of the American Mom event sheds light on spending habits, outlook and more.

The heinous events that took place in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012, seemed to shake the country to its core. Whether a parent or not, virtually everyone felt an overwhelming sense of pain and profound sadness at the unspeakable loss that community endured. The President of the United States called it the worst day of his presidency.

Highlights from the State of The American Mom report were released just last week. Not a lot of surprises, but the report did contain one shift in behavior that we've been seeing for awhile and, honestly, I just didn't understand.

Moms and mobile: is there any topic more written about than this? Probably not, but there are good reasons for this. Mobile is important to moms but also brings about conflicted feelings, making mobile a source of tension for many moms. This tension was clear in the findings of our latest global study, "The Truth About Connected You." The majority of moms (83%) we surveyed said they think their mobile device has improved their family life, but 32% said they are also worried that sometimes their mobile distracts them from what matters most.

Moms are connected these days, and there's no question that cell phones - and smartphones, in particular - have changed modern motherhood. Moms can now rely on their smartphones to share photos of their kids, check their e-mail, coordinate play dates, and research and even make purchases.

The celebrations industry is estimated at more than $38 billion. People spend their budget on party supplies, decorations, groceries, and alcohol. In addition, party hosts spend money on household supplies and home improvements in preparation to welcome guests. And when it comes to celebrations, these hosts tend to buy larger quantities and buy on impulse. With all of the money spent on celebrations, don't let your brand miss the opportunity to market in this industry.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer started quite the debate a few weeks ago and also shined a spotlight on working moms everywhere. Today, more moms are in the workforce and, more than ever, moms are launching their own businesses. Yes, their own businesses, many of which are being started on kitchen tables or in small home offices--making the work-from-home Mom a vital part of the overall Mom demographic and a vital part of your overall marketing to mom strategy.

My friend Carolyn, mother of four, is a magician in the kitchen. She can pull dinner out of a hat, transform cranky kids into happy helpers, and make veggies disappear. But she doesn't have a magic wand. Like most moms, Carolyn just has some clever tricks up her sleeve.

At least once a year, my mailbox is flooded with social media moms asking the same question- "How do I get invited on brand-sponsored trips?" Of course, the question isn't worded exactly like this by every single mom, but this is essentially the question.

There are approximately 85 million mothers in the U.S of which 34 million are online. And this number is growing. The next generation of mothers is growing up digital. And mothers are using technology along with social media to mobilize and effect change. All over America, grassroots change is happening with women/mothers standing up to everything from a child's right to recess to lobbying for family leave policies, fair pay, health care, gun control and more. There are so many resources and organizations along Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums lending visibility and sharing of issues and challenges facing us today.

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