Taking the time to understand this ever-important demographic and their preferences will make your email communications more effective and keep them coming back for more.

Twitter offers marketers a valuable opportunity to interact with moms in a fresh, informal way. The medium itself, with its 140-character limit, sets a friendly, casual tone, and moms are especially receptive to companies whose Twitter presence is personable and interactive.

As social media become more an integral part of marketing, and as bloggers play a greater role in that plan, developing and maintaining those databases become a greater part of the agency job -- an unexpected analytical addition to the PR toolbox.

Bottom line for marketers creating online content for kids: While Moms allow their children access to many popular social networking and gaming sites online, they retain tight control over their child's activities.

A great deal can be learned by looking back. Of course, there are many fashionable, parenting and philosophical changes that have occurred, but I have elected to focus on those that have impacted marketing. Consider this blog post a two-part series. I'll focus on the greatest changes I've seen in the past five years here and follow it up next month with part two, my predictions for the next five years.