Ink Inc. Media Relations/PR

Cindy West

Are you really reaching your “Target Mom”?

11.23.11

I came across this brilliant post on “Being a Cliche” aka a Target Mom.  It reminds me of the days when pop-up ads were the rage until they became so annoying, they became ineffective. Today’s hype at least in the consumer market, is about reaching the coveted “Target Mom” through  the channels we know they live on. But are we really reaching them and do we really understand their lifestyle?

According to Aimee Grove, PR Expert and aka  “Target Mom” we may be missing the boat.  Nothing like a dose of reality to set us straight. Right!??

“Our target market is really what we like to call a ‘Target Mom,’ you know? She’s probably in her 30s or 40s, married, has a couple school age children, middle to upper middle income …” If I had a dollar for every time I have heard this from a new business prospect or a client over the past eight years in consumer PR, I would be rolling in dough. Seems as if every consumer brand out there – from food products to travel web sites, hotels, restaurant guides and new consumer web sites – views the proverbial “Target Mom” (as in, she shops at Target) as the holy grail, or at least the center of their marketing bulls eye. This coveted customer, largely viewed as the primary shopper and purchasing decision maker of a family, is someone all of us marketers want to reach, sway and ultimately sell.” says Aimee.

She goes on to say that  marketers seem to think “mommy bloggers” are the perfect vehicle for broadcasting their message. And it’s understandable. Mommy blogs – even Womoments – seem to be low hanging fruit for consumer companies. Certainly there are tons of bloggers out there who live off the freebies companies send them under the guise of running reader contests. But here’s a dirty little secret that most marketers seem to not be interested in uncovering:  Few moms – at least working moms – are much interested in reading mommy blogs. Am I wrong? How many of you – past those horrid first few postpartum months – read on a daily or even weekly a mommy blog? For god sakes, I don’t even know how any of my best friends has time to read my blog. Oh, yeah, that’s right … they don’t. Even my best, best friend has only read my blog about once or twice in two years.

Is it starting to make sense?

I found her post enlightening in a world where we sometimes try to classify target demographics without much consideration to their actual lifestyles.  Now that is a dose of reality!!

You can read Aimee’s post in its entirety at WoMoments.

Categories: Behind the scenes, pr marketing, pr news, Social Media Marketing

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