Top 5 tips for marketing to mums

With Mothers’ Day on the horizon we thought we’d put together our top five tips for marketing to mums.  The biggest issue we encounter when companies market to mums is that they don’t really seem to understand where mums are right now  - what is going on in their lives, what plays on their minds when it comes to making purchases, where budget would be best spent to get mums to buy. 

1. Know mums. That may sound an incredibly obvious statement but think about it for a minute. If you are a marketing manager and not a parent are you really sure you can relate to mums – do you understand their fears and worries? Do you shop in the same way they do? Do you know what they want from your product or service? Do your research – use focus groups, social media and surveys (on and offline) to dig into what mums want. 
2. Mums don’t always follow the rules. The common approach when it comes to research and marketing is to break down a target audience into segments – often working on the basis that they will purchase in a certain way based on socio-economic or geographic factors.  But it’s different for mums – we’re hard to segment.  Mums 'with money' can be penny pinchers who shop in charity shops because they don’t have their own income. Mums with little income will go without so their children can have the best.  It can be useful to look at targeting mums based on grouping such as having children of a similar age but segmenting might not always give you the best insight.
3. Be aware of where mums are. We’ve seen some statistics this year that have told us all mums are online, spending hours on facebook. This isn’t a true reflection of what’s happening out there.  Mums over 35 often don’t use social media at all. Think about where mums HAVE to be everyday – schoolgate, children’s clubs or in their own social circle.
4. Word of mouth still rules. Whether it’s face to face or amplifying through social media, word of mouth is still the most powerful and long lasting way to connect with mums.  That’s because mums trust other mums.
5. Give mums what they want. The easiest way to get mums to buy is by giving them what they need. You can identify gaps in the market by carrying out research and then sense checking concepts with mums. That way you’ll know you are on target to a good product.

If you’d like to know more about research or marketing to mums give us a call at MumPanel.

Forget Christmas, let’s book a holiday!

It’s only two months until Christmas and in every shop the shelves are packed with Christmas goodies. We asked our MumPanel what they’ll be spending their money on this Christmas and there were some surprising results. 

We wanted to know if mums are feeling the financial pinch this year – 30% said they would be spending less, 58% about the same, 12% more.  And even though today we’ve heard we’re finally out of recession mums are always canny shoppers – whether that’s because money is tighter because of redundancy or maternity leave or they just want to have enough left to pay for a holiday next year.  A strong message from the survey was that mums value family time most, spending almost takes a back seat with many prepared to spend a little less or a little more wisely at Christmas. 

So we know mums like to plan ahead (they are already thinking about next year’s summer holiday and cutting back on Xmas spending so they can afford a family break) and 10% of our mums had already bought food and drink by September. For many mums present shopping starts in January, allowing them to stagger the cost over the year. Our mums also showed us they are resourceful – hunting down deals, and using charity shops and ebay so they can still afford the gifts their children want. And lots of mums find out about these deals from other mums – money saving word of mouth. That’s worth remembering when you are planning how to communicate with mums in 2013. 

We asked mums what they would be buying for their children this year and we expected the list to be full of gadgets and technology. But that isn’t the case – we found kids really want a mix of heritage and traditional toys (bikes, Lego, jigsaws) that wouldn’t be out of place on a Christmas wish list from the 1970s.  We are seeing more tech led presents creeping in (especially for older children – the mums who are spending more this year tend to have older kids who want more expensive, gadget type gifts) but it does show that children still love playing and getting out and about. 

MumPanel Christmas Shopping survey 2012, over 350 respondents, mums with children 0-16 years

You only know what you know

If you want to target mums, you need to understand what they want. To understand what they want you need to ask questions. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But getting to the RIGHT questions can be a trickier process.  If you don’t ask the right questions then you never get the answers you need to truly connect with mums.

When we’re developing questions and doing insight work at MumPanel we use the mantra ‘you only know what you know’. We know questions are just as important as responses and the best insights come from the questions you might not have asked or didn’t think you should ask.  As mums we have a bit of a shortcut – there are things we understand because we have experienced them. Recently Asda trialled a new shopping trolley. Their existing trolleys (along with most supermarkets) were difficult to see over and control once you put a car seat on the top. This might seem an insignificant issue but the small changes they have made can boost brand loyalty (I’ll choose that supermarket because they accommodate my needs) and increase sales (I can see what I want and I’m less stressed so I’ll spend longer in the supermarket). What is important is that someone in their research team asked the right question – they thought to ask about trolleys and then to dig deeper and understand what the real issue was.

One of our big bugbears as mums is cordial fruit juice. Most of the products on the market are sugar free. We know at some point brands must have asked mums what they wanted and of course, they don’t want drinks full of sugar that rot their children’s teeth. So that market has become all about ‘NO ADDED SUGAR’ drinks. But what we’re hearing from mums is that they’d rather have natural sugar fruit juices or other alternatives over aspartame-filled drinks.  There’s been a missed opportunity to take the research full circle instead of using a linear approach that stopped at the first response.

Last week we were chatting with Julie from Child Seat Safety, they train retailers to fit car seats correctly, accrediting them to a scheme endorsed by Which? What came out of our conversation was that stores often focus on the quality of the product and forget to ask questions that really matter – is that car seat right for their car, their needs, and their child. This is partly because retailers haven’t been trained to ask the right kind of questions. Because safety is such a hot topic, it’s vital we identify the questions that NEED to be asked so that brands and retailers get it right.

Questions are ignored, we all so busy rushing to the response and it’s about time we put the brakes on. If you want to really start to understand mums then it’s time to start digging deeper, get involved in their day to day journey and have your ears open for when they drop those little nuggets of insight that can revolutise your brand. 

If you’d like more information on asking mums the right questions then drop us a line.

MumPanel - One Minute Insight

At MumPanel we're constantly asking our mums for their views and ideas. There's some fascinating insight that comes out of our research and conversations and we want to share it with you in a one minute snippet.

Mums Favourite Brands

We asked mums to name their favourite brands. The response was enlightening - there were two supermarkets (Tesco and Asda) in the Top 5. They were joined by three 'heritage' brands - Johnsons, Heinz and Fairy. Just over 5% of mums specifically mentioned 'own brands' as their favourites.

 
What does this mean?

Mums connect with those brands they see day in and day out. If you want your brand to appeal to mums, you have to be where they are and what they want - that's why we're seeing good value 'own brands' being recognised in their own right. *Insight snippet - MumPanel survey 2012, over 800 respondents, mums with children 0-16 years If you'd like to receive our One Minute Insight by email then drop a line to lynne@mumpanel.co.uk

Should you listen to your customers?

Last week I went along to The Talk of Manchester to meet up with other North West businesses. The day rounded off with a panel of successful business people including Jennie Johnson (Kids Allowed) and Tim Bacon (Living Ventures Group) taking questions from the floor. One of the questions directed to Tim was whether he listened to what his customers had to say about his business. His response was very interesting, in a nutshell he said that if he listened to what every single customer had to say he'd become completely bogged down in it and it would take up all his time. Instead, he prefers to watch what his customers do, rather than what they say to him. There were a few gasps from the audience but he has a valid point. He did qualify his statement by saying that he does customer research, and takes note of what they say but he was emphasising the older adage of  'actions speak louder than words'.

We work in lots of different ways when it comes to research, sometimes (for easy to answer questions) we might just do a survey of mums. But often we need to dig a little deeper and that might take the form of opinion pods or lab testing. That allows us to both listen to what mums are telling us but also observe their behaviour and actions. For example, we recently did some lab testing with children who play on immersive worlds such as Moshi Monsters. We consistently heard from mums that they were concerned about the safety of their children when playing online. Then we sat in lab testing and watched several children quickly find and use the chat facility on some games, an aspect some mums didn't even know was there.

So many things skew what comes out of our mouth - the expectations of others (so maybe what we as mums think we should be saying or doing), thoughts others have put in our heads (from media to next door neighbour) or the difference between perceived and actual reality. We have to be masters of behavioural observation to gain real insight, to understand everything that isn't being said as well as the words we are hearing and the actions we are seeing.

That doesn't mean we can stop listening, we can gain information from asking the right questions, we just have to know when to go digging for more.

By Lynne