360DigitalInfluence

From Day 2 at BlogHer Business…

Women, Moms especially are one of the hottest demographics to market to online. Not a week (or maybe a day…) goes by where this doesn’t come up in some discussion that I have with colleagues or clients.

This morning’s keynote, with Maria Bailey (BSM Media), Ellen Siminoff (founding executive of Yahoo!) and Robin Wolaner (Founder of Parenting Magazine, and TeeBeeDee) touched on the three silos that women – moms in particular - are continuously put into – Soccer Moms, Sex & The City Moms and Boomer Moms. Too often these women are marketed to (especially online I would argue) as a group – Moms. “Let’s pitch Mom bloggers!” “Let’s invite some Mom bloggers!” “Let’s blah blah blah Mom bloggers!” THIS APPROACH IS WRONG.

With 86% of moms living outside of a major city – women are customizing their lives based on the things and people that they know – this becomes their demographic. Online, women are not identifying as “Mom Bloggers” they are “Alpha Moms”, “Granola Moms”, “Crafter Moms”, “No Drama Mammas” and more. Women are already creating and living in intuitive, interactive, community-based ecosystems online – and engagement needs to respect these microdemographics and behaviors.

Online outreach/engagement to women in the “Momosphere” isn’t that complicated. If it’s backed up by sound research and a strategy that targets and engages the right kind of women for your program, chances are you’re going to be successful in building relationships with influencers. Yet, this entire conference has been riddled with stories from mom bloggers (like Liz from Mom101 and Cool Mom Picks, Anna from Mommy Poppins and Kathryn from Daring Young Mom) who have shared tales of totally impersonal and off-topic outreach that they have received from PR and Marketing professionals. As Kathryn stated, “You wouldn’t knock on my door and ask me to display a lawn sign for your company in my yard, right?” So why are these women still receiving spammy press releases? Requests to promote a product that’s totally irrelevant to them and their readers, that they may never have experienced themselves?

This keynote, and the people I have met at the BlogHer Business conference have really underscored the importance of using research and strategy to drive engagement and outreach to online influencers. As one panelist pointed out - blanket outreach to “Mom Bloggers”, as a group, is the online equivalent of using the same tactics to simultaneously market a product to Joan Lunden and Britney Spears. Hey, they’re both moms with young kids, right? Wrong.