• by Maria Bailey , Columnist, November 2, 2011

It’s easy to forget that as recently as 100 years ago; radio was a technological breakthrough and the biggest player in marketing to moms.  Most of us are too young to remember Proctor & Gamble’s radio soap operas but they served as their marketing initiative to the women in the home. Today, fewer marketers think of radio as a way to connect but in actuality radio retains its power and now includes a new, younger “cousin” called podcasts.

Based on our recent survey of 800 Mom Influencers, results illustrate how radio and podcasts can offer an affordable and effective communication with moms. The research study, "Beyond Blogging: The Social Media Mom Forecast," illustrates that moms and parents still listen to traditional radio programming while they listen to podcasts on demand, an important factor for busy parents.

Turn Up the Volume

Busy parents spend an average of two more hours each day in their cars, taxiing children to and from activities. With 85% listening to traditional radio stations, the message is clear that radio can offer a medium to deliver timely product and service information.  With 60% of moms not knowing what they are cooking for dinner at 4pm each day and most of them in their car from 4 to 6 p.m., radio offers a great way for a quick-food company to offer up their dinner solution. 

Online podcasting delivers your brand message in an uncluttered space.  With only about 43,000 established podcasts, this venue allows you to speak to a mom who is listening and allows your brand to be found in an unexpected place online.  What a pleasant surprise for a mom to find her favorite brand on iTunes talking about their recipes and dinner solutions.  Additional survey numbers offer compelling reasons why podcasts are effective:

• 23% of podcast listeners earn over $75,000 a year
• Podcast consumers are heavily involved with social networking
• More than 6 million American adults have listened to podcasts
• 48% of Moms listen to podcasts, with 93% listening in on one to five hours of content

Targeting moms and parents? Top-rated content categories are: kids and family, education, comedy and music. If producing your own podcast isn’t in the cards, there are plenty of great mom targeting shows such as www.manicmommies.com , Chatterbox on www.blogtalkradio.com and www.momtalkradio.com

Even more powerful is to combine the worlds of podcasts and radio together to give you the best of the online and offline world of moms.

Radio and Podcasts: Try the Blend

It’s easier than ever to incorporate traditional radio and podcasts to reach a broad audience. What makes radio important for its immediate reach makes podcasts just as important for their access: scheduled or on-demand. Through distribution channels like BlogTalkRadio and iTunes, a podcast allows your content to extend its shelf life by living online in archives.  For ever-green brand messages, this serves a marketer well. 

As 2012 approaches and we look to what’s next in marketing tools, I challenge marketers who want to connect to moms, not to forget to look back as well as forward.