• by Maria Bailey , Columnist, February 27, 2020

Even as Generation Z is entering motherhood, brands are still trying to understand and tap the spending of millennial moms.  Unfortunately, many are entrusting this daunting task to their agency, who may or may not understand the demographic themselves.  

Here’s five questions that can help brands steer their  marketing activities toward a higher return on investment.

1. Are we delivering a product message relevant to moms’ routines?  It’s not enough to garner millions of impressions online with your product message on social media or in digital advertising.  Millennial moms react to content, images and messages that are relevant to their busy lives.  

For example, Last month Entenmann’s focused on a common behavior, showing a mom sneaking a pack of Little Bites when she’s hungry and kids are away. Mom influencers posted their Mom Moment with Little Bites online, and thousands of other moms rewarded the relevance of the content with likes, shares and comments.   Millennial Moms want to feel an emotional attachment to your message.

2. Who are we using to deliver our brand message?  If the answer is, “the largest mom instagrammers” it’s likely the wrong answer.  

Word of mouth has always been the strongest form of marketing to moms, however. When a recommendation comes from a close friend, it’s stronger than when delivered from a cyber-celebrity. Research shows that millennial moms are 65% more likely to purchase a product from a nano- or micro- influencer than a macro-influencer.  The selection of influencers should be done carefully and purposefully to identify moms who are truly entrenched with her followers. 

3. If we are using influencers, how are we selecting them? Numbers matter — but engagement, authenticity and content creation matter more. Does your agency personally know the influencers, or are they spending your budget or time searching for relationships? Are they using the same influencers over and over again, hence losing authenticity along the way? 

Millennial moms recognize that brands pay their favorite bloggers. However, they are more likely to engage with paid posts if the content makes sense to the relationship they have with the blogger. If a fitness blogger suddenly posts about chocolate truffles, followers quickly scroll past her message, because it feels more like a paid commercial than an authentic conversation. 

4. What are we doing to keep the conversation about our product active offline?  Millennial moms may spend up to three hours a day on social media, but they also spend a lot of time offline as well.  They talk about products in the carpool line, at ballet lessons, and on the sideline of practice fields. Your brand should be a part of those influential conversations as well. 

BSM Media research shows that 80% of mom influencers also have influence offline, as well but less than 10% of brands leverage that opportunity. Dig out old marketing tactics such as sampling, brand ambassadors and special events to truly tap into the power of influence marketing. 

5. How are we measuring the results of our marketing campaigns? We saved the most important question for last. A successful campaign should generate not only online impressions but hundreds of pieces of great digital content, high engagement, sales and consumer insights that you can use to improve results on your next campaign.