Marketing to mums requires more thought and creativity than ever.
Today’s mums are shopping savvy, turning to magazines, websites, and blogs to find the latest must-haves, compare prices, and read product reviews so they can make informed decisions on purchases for their most prized possessions – their kids.
In the UK, the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 has risen to more than £175,000, around 6% of which is spent on clothing. It is also important to note that women control around 85% of household purchases. So the question for children’s fashion brands is, “How do we market to mums so we can get part of that six percent?”
Children’s fashion brands need to know their consumers. Today’s mums are not cooking, cleaning, and watching soap operas while they wait for the breadwinners to walk back through their doors; they are running their households, juggling careers, surfing the web, and interacting on their smartphones – all while making most of the executive decisions about family purchases.
If you are looking for ways to ensure that your children’s fashion brand flies off the shelves and attains it-factor status among doting mums and their kids, we have put together some pointers to help you do just that:
1) Be sociable. Excellent in-store customer service and online social media marketing go a long way when marketing to mums. These consumers know what they want and expect a certain level of excellence when it comes to overall brand experience. Utilise your various properties in a way that caters to mums and the fashionable little people for whom they shop. Providing an outstanding social experience, both in person and online will drive brand loyalty, engagement, and sales.
2) Go to them. You have to know where mums are in order to market to them. More mums are on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram than ever, so be sure that you are putting great effort into these channels.
3) Be concise. Mums are busy, quickly moving targets, so you only have so much time to catch their attention and influence their purchasing decisions. Using high quality visuals and short, sweet, and to-the-point copy will help your mum consumers zero in on what they want and quickly make the purchase.
4) Be real. Mums can detect insincerity from a mile away. Your brand needs to communicate itself in an authentic way to gain the trust and dollars of mum shoppers. Mummy life is not a picture-perfect edition of Vogue, so while mums appreciate beautiful, quality things, they want them to come with a dose of reality. From material integrity to everyday styling tips, mums want to know the quick and dirty on how your children’s fashion brand can be incorporated into their kids’ lives.
5) Appeal to their emotions. Anyone familiar with mums knows that not every purchase they make is need-driven (a consumer behavioural trait which actually applies to all of us). So, it is important to convey why your products are the perfect addition to their little ones’ lives. Tug at their heartstrings or tap into that hot trend, and mums will likely pay attention.