• by Sara Arnell , January 27, 2012

Want to get something done? Ask a busy mom. This woman is a powerhouse. She works long and hard and gets very little time for herself. Often in addition to holding down a job, this woman tackles her household’s food and grocery shopping, monthly budget, family financial and banking decisions, child care and generally keeping the house in order. She cherishes those rare moments of “me” time and knows how to make the most of them.

With all that’s going on in her life, the last person she usually attends to is herself. If she is a new mom, add her new relationship to food, weight loss and body image to everything else she has to manage and has on her mind.

Unfortunately, busy moms don’t always think they’re as important as everything and everyone else in their lives. If the day gets crazy and something has to give, it is the mom that makes the sacrifice, canceling that precious “me” time—anything from a manicure to just sitting down and reading a magazine.

 In the home and even in the office, a woman often works so hard to fix everything around her without necessarily realizing she could actually be breaking the most valuable thing she owns: self-esteem. Moms deserve to feel beautiful and at their best, every day. And, there is one key thing marketers and brands can do to help her fit her into her busy schedule.

The most important thing anyone marketing to moms should provide is time. Time—more time, spare time, down time—is the busy mom’s greatest luxury. Product innovation is key to compressing time for moms. Money can also help, but moms are highly value oriented and will rarely spend to save time, choosing to sacrifice instead. So how do you become omnipotent and give busy moms more time, as your ultimate gift with purchase?

Replace Practicality with Utility: Products that multi-task and make chores or at-home activities easier are a great way to give moms more time. Utilitarian products are more advantageous than merely practical products and often can empower users, change behavior and help her tick things off her list quickly and efficiently. As Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a very good thing.”

Make It Easy: Ease of use is the pathway to ease of mind. Anything that makes life easier for these women will be joyfully embraced, be it a product, service or information. Technology must function as a liberator, not a time suck.

Help Her: There’s nothing like getting help to free up time. When thinking about products and services for busy moms, marketers should think in terms of helping them achieve more than one thing at a time. If one glass of a healthy fruit and vegetable drink can get her to at least 50% of her nutritional needs for the day, then you, literally, just took multiple things off her plate. Think in terms of ideal combinations of benefits. If one thing can do the job of two or three, then you just made her day.