It may be Mother’s Day soon, but it isn’t just grateful children whose spending habits need to be considered. Mum’s are actually a very powerful consumer force and make an extraordinarily valuable audience. Brands can’t afford to exclude mums in any way as they have such a huge impact on sales, but don’t just take our word for it…
According to SocialMediaToday:
- 93% of food purchases are made by women
- 92% of holiday planning is done by women
- 75% of women identify themselves as the primary household shopper
- 50% of products that are typically marketed to men are actually bought by women
Just like how ignoring your own mum can end very badly, a brand ignoring the demands and desires of mums can quickly earn itself a bad reputation.
What do mums want to see?
As with any audience, the message you’re putting across as a brand is the most important part. Many see being a mother as a privilege, not a job role. Being a mother is not the only thing that defines a woman and many mothers are choosing to boycott brands that portray this image. Not only this, but many mums are fed up of seeing brands inspiring women to become ‘the perfect mum’, as they believe there is no such thing.
How can brands effectively target mums?
Now we’re not saying the older, and more traditional methods of reaching mothers are no longer a thing, and it’s true that old habits die hard, but with the creation of new technologies it’s likely that mums will move to all-digital platforms soon enough. At the moment, mums aged 18-49 are still watching around 30 hours of TV in total however viewership of video-on-demand services, like YouTube, is on the rise with 72% of that same audience using it.
It doesn’t end there. In such a digital-heavy world, it comes as no surprise that the majority of mums now use digital channels in order to engage with brands. 59% of mums actually say that the internet is the most essential media in their life with 88% using social media. If your brand predominantly works online, targeting its audience through social media, and you’re choosing to exclude mums then you’re actually cutting out a huge chunk of your audience.
As with any audience, factors like wealth, class, education, and location should be considered first instead of segmenting them based on the fact that they have children. Brands need to take note fast, before one of their biggest global audiences switches off for good.
Here at BEAM we conduct research into many different industries, one of which is media. We can certainly expect to see changes within this industry in the future.
Get in touch with us today if you are looking into your next market research project.