Parents are prime market targets. For companies to survive, you need loyal customers, and is there anyone more loyal than parents who found out your brand of itch cream works wonders for their kids? They will recommend your brand to their friends and other networks. They will talk about how amazing your product is to anyone who would listen. Simply put, they are the best word-of-mouth recommendation. Parents are better endorsers and brand ambassadors than anyone you can think of. Yes, including Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid.
Brands that cater to babies, toddlers, tweens, and teens need new customers consistently. These brands need people who are loyal to them. You cannot find a market more loyal than parents. Imagine parents bringing their kids to a pediatrician three towns away from where they live just because they trust that doctor more than they do anyone they’ve met in their area so far. If you are going to target the kids, you have to start with the parents because that’s where the money and loyalty are.
Advertisers Don’t Understand Mothers
Here’s a shocking truth: 73% of mothers say they feel that advertisers don’t know them. Ads don’t just get to them. They have to make their own research to find products and services they believe will be good for their kids. The ads don’t speak to them, so what are you doing wasting your time on an ad agency? Clearly, what you need are the right market research tools that will find out what your audience actually needs and wants. What message will resonate with parents that will make them want to buy from you for their kids?
There are a number of marketing strategies you can use to get a glimpse of your market’s consciousness. You can use surveys, focus group discussions, and one-on-one interviews. All of these intend to get to the bottom of the mystery: what are parents looking for in a brand?
Understand Generational Differences
Who are you marketing to? Parents, right? But what generation do they belong to? Are they Millennials or Generation Z? Remember, that these are two completely different generations. Millennials prefer experiences over products and they engage with brands that share their values. They are more brand-conscious than Generation Z, and they are pioneers of social media. They, however, prefer Facebook and Instagram more than the other platforms.
Generation Z parents are focused on saving money, so they are conscious about the price tags. They grew up breathing technology, so it is second nature to them. They prefer brands that they feel are authentic, and they hate pretensions. Generation Z popularized the cancel culture on social media, so you don’t want to get on their bad side. They prefer Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook, so try to focus on those two platforms.
Engage with Parents
Parents don’t want you to sell to them. Today’s parents will research for themselves. They’ll check out social media and online forums to get an idea about your products. What they want is for you to engage with them. You don’t need fancy jargon and branded statements. What your market simply wants is helpful advice on how your products will help their kids. They understand the features (even the technical ones), but your job is to make them see that these will benefit their kids.
Stop Following the Schedule
Marketing on social media has a preconceived schedule. Studies showed that the market is engaged early in the morning, then around lunchtime, then after dinner. They are also less engaged on weekends. This kind of schedule does not work for parents. Remember that these people are juggling careers and households. They sleep and eat when they can. They also browse the internet and social media once they have the time, even if it’s in the middle of the night when the baby wakes up to feed.
Any time of the day is a good time to target parents with your marketing techniques. Parenting is a full-time job, so you can find parents who are online in the middle of the night and browsing the children’s category of a retail store and you can find them online at dinnertime when they can browse their phones while feeding their kids.
Parents are a strange, important, evolving, and engaged market. The good thing about marketing to parents is once they start to trust your brand, it is only for you to break that trust. As long as your marketing and advertising stay true to them, they will stay true to you as well.