6 Trends That Might Impact Marketing to Moms in 2015

business2community.com

With 2015 fast approaching, it’s time for marketers and brands to think about their game plan for the new year. However, this process is not only about new strategies and new budgets. Mom-focused marketers also need to stay on top of developing industry trends that will keep their brand relevant in a very crowded market.

A number of these trends have already emerged and we dug into six of them. Check out these 6 emerging digital marketing trends for 2015 that should be a top priority for mom-focused brands:

1. Mobile commerce: Moms expect more now from their smartphones than ever before, and 20% say they regularly use them to make a purchase. Mobile-based payments in the U.S. are expected to reach $142 billion by 2019, according to the New York Times. Remote mobile payment is the largest area of that growth, which includes purchases made through apps and mobile websites. To stand out among the rest, your brand must deliver cutting-edge capabilities that moms look for – especially mobile payment. For example, Amazon’s mobile app provides busy moms the ability to shop conveniently, regardless of device. In turn, the app gives Amazon an instant point-of-sale no matter where their customer may be.Content personalization: Today’s Millennial Mom doesn’t want to weed through endless amounts of content to get what she needs. To capture her attention, companies need to create personalized content tailored to a mom’s unique interests. Birchbox is a leading example of a brand that’s all about a personalized experience; customers receive beauty and lifestyle products targeted to fit their individual styles. Other mom-focused brands should look to deliver exactly what their customers want to be successful in the new year and beyond.
2. Seamless experience across devices: Throughout the day, moms constantly move from their smartphone to their tablet to their laptop and back again. To that point, 85% of millennial moms have a smartphone and 43% own a tablet – and they want to be able to access brand content regardless of device.Brands need to offer an experience that allows moms to make a seamless transition. Busy moms are likely to remember brands that integrate well across any devices they use, and 56% of moms say they’ll let others know about this experience. It’s important to recognize where your brand currently excels (and lacks) in multi-device performance as we head into 2015.
3. Social media advertising: The way in which brands interact with social media continues to evolve in big ways. The most popular platforms release new features and advertising opportunities more and more frequently. Facebook recently announced plans to increase controls on promotional content posted by Business Pages, which could force many brands to increase their advertising budgets in order to grow their Facebook presence. Moves like this should tip off marketers as to what may lie ahead, particularly on sites moms love, including Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Take time to reflect on the ways in which you currently utilize social media, your effective channels, and the growth potential each platform has before you dish out your advertising dollars.
4. Programmatic advertising: Programmatic has become more and more mainstream. Influential mom-focused brands like Kellogg and P&G have moved much of their online advertising to programmatic. It’s only a matter of time before the scale tips and more brands start to buy and sell advertising in this way. Kellogg is one of the first major brands to manage their programmatic buying exclusively in-house, and currently buys more than 50% of their digital ads this way. What does this mean for moms? Much more targeted messaging, as marketers have the ability to pinpoint specific consumer attributes, such as a mom’s specific life stage or interests.
5. Advanced analytics: Analytics are only as good as how well you understand what they mean for your brand marketing. Companies will need to rely heavily on analytics to move their strategies forward in 2015. With the success of image-based media such as Pinterest and Instagram, companies like Curalate focus on visual analytics driven by picture-recognition of brands. Analytic capabilities such as these help brands track an image’s overall impact. As more fine-tunded and in-depth analytics become available for use through social media platforms, brands will need to hone in on the specific type of analytics that makes the most sense for them.

Just as brands seek to engage moms with their content, moms look to simplify and streamline the information they receive each day. These trends have the potential to influence the way marketers successfully reach this impactful digital audience in the coming year.