• by Maria Bailey , Columnist, January 2, 2014

In the past, I’ve provided my annual list of trends in marketing to moms. Call it age. Blame it on Twitter or SnapChat. I feel the need to be short and sweet to get to the point; social media has trained me well. You want to connect to moms. Times are a-changin’ and marketing budgets aren’t growing. It’s important that you make the most of your resources and show a result for your efforts. In light of all this, I decided to drill down the trends I see for 2014 to tactics you can execute today.    

1. Leverage the new holidays Millennial moms have created to new marketing occasions.
Babymoons, gender reveal parties and ½ birthdays are all events created by Millennial moms. They enjoy being in the spotlight of friends and family and sharing it all on social media. Find a way to put your brand in the middle of the action either as a food item she serves, a gift she receives or the location she selects to host her event.

2. Get into video. Really. Get into video.
Maybe you have dabbled in video and uploaded a few YouTube videos, but you need to do more. And it’s not professionally produced videos that I’m talking about. Quick product commentary, mom video reviews and consumer-generated Vine videos are the types of videos that moms are watching.   

3. Host live events online.  
Last month, HP decided to take their in-store demonstrations to the Internet with live online demonstrations. They partnered with MomTV.com, and were able to demonstrate the HP Chromebook to hundreds of moms online and generated over nine million impressions for the product along the way.

4. Hang back on jumping into Google +  and Google Hangout.
Mom bloggers aren’t as excited about Google + as the media and Google + would like you to believe. Mom bloggers in particular have spent years establishing their communities, and, as mothers, they are just too busy to re-establish them on a new platform.

5. Meet moms in their living rooms.
Disney is doing it.  So is Morton, Leap Frog and Cadbury. This month alone over 5000 moms will be hosting a MommyParty on behalf of a brand. I like to call it social media meets book club on steroids. Moms with influence are recruited and screened to host a party themed around the sponsoring brand’s product. The outcome is a more personal engagement between moms and brands.

6. Engage with mom bloggers in a new way.
Moms are moving away from writing product reviews on their blogs. However, this doesn’t mean they are passé marketing. No, mom bloggers still provide a very effective relationship to maintain for marketers. Brands need to leverage a mom’s Instagram followers, Pinterest boards and Facebook friends in order to leverage their established level of influence rather than requesting a product review in return for a free piece of swag.

7. Recognize that the newest form of marketing hasn’t even been introduced yet.
Don’t believe that the marketing plan you set into place today will be fresh until my 2015 trend list is published. There are technologies and social media platforms that will spring up in the next 12 months that none of us can predict yet. Last year at this time, SnapChat wasn’t on my iPhone!

Thank you to MediaPost for another year of Engage:Moms. I wish everyone a successful 2014.

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