Optism™

Note: Optism is republishing our five most popular blog posts of last year, this was number #3  for 2012 and was originally published on July 13, 2012.

Digital Moms in the US are an increasingly important demographic for marketers. Mothers are accumulating more wealth and making more shopping choices and using more technology than the average person. Digital moms are more likely to be owners of smartphones and more likely to consult others when making purchase decisions.

How should mobile marketers tap into this important segment?

Here are a number of mobile stats that can help marketers effectively market to digital moms.

Moms have money. An article from Asking Smarter Questions provides some key statistics about both women and mothers. Moms represent a $2.4 trillion market in the US. By 2028, the average American woman is expected to earn more than the average American male. Women are earning, spending, and influencing spending at a greater rate than ever before, accounting for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending in the US. Women are making more than 85% of all consumer purchases, including more than 50% of traditional male products, such as  cars, power tools and consumer electronics.

Moms are socially connected via mobile. In a study by NM Incite, at least half of moms use social media via mobile devices, compared to 37% of the online population. In an article from Asking Smarter Questions, 64% of moms ask other mothers for advice before they purchase a new product and 63% of all mothers surveyed consider other moms the most credible experts when they have questions. Additionally, 92% pass along information about deals or finds to others. Moms are using Facebook and Pinterest to share tips, product recommendations and shopping deals with their friends.

Moms are savvy and connected shoppers. Moms are 70% more likely to download online coupons from retail marketing websites and 65% more likely to download coupons from a manufacturer’s website than the average person. Additionally, 92% of moms pass along information about shopping deals or finds to others. 55% of moms who use social media daily said they made their purchase because of a recommendation from a personal review blog. Almost 20 million online moms will read blogs and 1 in 3 bloggers are moms. 77% of mom bloggers will only write about products or brands whose reputations they approve of, and another 14% will write about brands or products they boycott.

Moms are demanding mobile users. Nielsen says that some 54% of American moms are using smartphones: considering that the US population just tipped 50 percent for smartphone ownership that means mothers are more likely to be smart phone owners. Additionally, moms are about twice as likely to own either a smartphone or a tablet compared to other women.

Moms have a love/hate relationship with technology. In a Yahoo and Starcom MediaVest Group study, 71% of moms said that technology was part of family together time, while 52% said that technology was a distraction.

Not all digital moms are the same. Advertising Agency MWW surveyed 1,000 moms to better understand their use of digital and social media. They found five digital mom archetypes; Mobilizers (Younger, hyper-connected moms using mobile), Urban Originals (influential taste-makers), Practical Adopters (working moms who use technology to stay ahead), Casual Connectors (Older moms who use mobile technology to connect with their kids), Wallflowers (Younger moms who are consumers of media). Providing multiple means to connect with these subgroups is important.

Moms are more likely to shop online. Women account for 58% of all total online spending and 22% shop online at least once a day according to Asking Smarter Questions.

Moms are more likely to become a fan or follow a brand online. When using social media, moms are 38 percent more likely to become a fan of or follow a brand online, and moms who blog are more than twice as likely to follow brands and celebrities compared to the online average.

Conclusion

Digital Moms are mobile-equipped, multi-tasking, socially-connected, family-protecting, brand-loyal, savvy-shoppers. They are well informed consumers who share what they know with other mothers.  What are the keys to tapping into the digital mom juggernaut? Be relevant and authentic. Meet them online where they are. Provide moms with tools, lists and apps to help them manage their lives. Take the time to understand their needs, build their trust and deliver on your promises and you just might be lucky enough to have a new army of brand loyalists.

Note: Optism is republishing our five most popular blog posts of last year, this was number #4  for 2012 and was originally published on April 27, 2012.

Social Media’s influence across the ecommerce landscape has been profound. With so many choices and conflicting information about which products to choose, consumers are increasingly relying on their social networks both off-line and online to query their community about the right product and service choices. I’ve done it myself and asked my Facebook crew for recommendations on which gaming system to get for my kids. Why did I do it? Because it’s real-time feedback and it makes my life easier. In addition to listening, consumers are also broadcasting their recommended products out to their community. No matter whether they are listening or broadcasting, consumers have become more sophisticated and more careful about their shopping choices — using all available options.

Mobile has accelerated this trend by allowing retailers and other companies to easily reward this word-of-mouth behavior with non-currency rewards. One of the experts on this new trend is Liz Crawford who was recently interviewed by Mike Lewis of Business2Community in an article entitled, The Shopper Economy: 5 Questions with Liz Crawford. Crawford identifies a new dynamic where a shopper can actually earn value in exchange for one of four behaviors: paying attention (e.g. watching a video), participating (e.g. demoing a product), advocating (e.g. writing a review on Yelp), or committing (e.g. participating in brand-sponsored charity event). The rewards can be loyalty points, free mobile minutes, discounts, social recognition or free products like a phone.

Crawford says, “I thought it was fascinating that digital technology, especially mobile technology, was enabling new kinds of transactions between buyers and sellers.  In addition to shoppers purchasing brands, brands were purchasing shopper behavior. I believe this is a relatively new phenomenon.”

Crawford has a new book, The Shopper Economy: The New Way to Achieve Marketplace Success by Turning Behavior into Currency. In the book, Crawford provides detailed examples of Brands, like American Express, that understand consumers are evaluating many products. They know that if they can incentify people towards evaluating their products, they will have a better chance of selling it. Some of the companies helping brands provide behavioral currency include Foursquare, shopkick, SCVNGR and Checkpoint. shopkick gives you kickbucks just for entering the store without buying anything and then you can redeem these kickbucks for gifts like iTunes gift cards, movie tickets, store gift cards and even make donations to charities.

This is a fast-moving trend that will only grow as consumers increase their use of mobile. Crawford says, “Shoppers will become increasingly sophisticated in understanding the worth of their labor.  This means that they will evaluate transactions with brands and retailers with a sharper eye to their own advantage.” Marketers pay special attention to Crawford’s words as the consumer is smarter and has more power than ever before. On the opposite side of the equation, it makes you wonder if people will behave a certain way in order to get rewards thus creating artificial brand advocates.

What do you think about rewarding shopping behaviors? Is it something that you will do or have done? Let us know by leaving a comment or participating in our Facebook Poll. If you could earn something in exchange for sharing your shopping behaviors such as “paying attention” or “promoting” a brand’s product/service, which option would you be most likely to choose?

Note: Optism is republishing our five most popular blog posts of last year, this was number #5  for 2012 and was originally published on April 4, 2012.

Recently, I discussed that the wrong questions were being asked about the development of the mobile wallet – namely, that that there was not enough industry focus on the needs of the consumer. This week, I focus on the privacy of the consumer and how much personal information a consumer is willing to give up for convenience.

The practice of gathering Big Data by marketers will impact the consumer on two fronts; their privacy and the ability for brands and businesses to deliver a better shopping experience for them. Marketers have always had data on consumers, except the amount of data was not as big and it was fairly anonymous. The data was more about an average person’s behavior over a specific period of time within a certain demographic. For the most part, marketers could blast advertising messages and expect fairly consistent results.

Now that has all changed.

The internet, social media and mobile have changed the equation. We are not passive customers anymore. We validate product claims on Yelp, Consumer Reports and Facebook. We pose questions to others and get almost immediate feedback. We make “individual” decisions that can’t always be predicted or calculated. We are opting-out of traditional marketing and opting-in to programs from brands and businesses that are asking us for our permission and respecting our privacy choices.

In an article last week in Marketingland entitled Give It Up For Mobile Data, Rachel Pasqua of Organic discussed the battle over “big data” between consumers and marketers. She starts off by making an excellent point about the Myth of the Average Consumer.

• “So I’m actually not the average consumer. But then neither are you. No one is. The average consumer is an urban myth– which makes the traditional tactics we use to target them semi-effective, at best. They didn’t coin the phrase “banner blindness” for nothing. I block out a good 95% of the ads I see because they are meaningless to me.”

Pasqua dismisses the concept of the average consumer because privacy comes down to the decisions each individual makes and each decision is different. Every second, a consumer is faced with the choice of whether to give up their privacy in exchange for information. There are three values; the consumer’s desire to protect his or her privacy, the value of the offer and the level of trust the consumer has of the business. If the value of the offer is greater than the value of privacy and the level of trust does not impact the offer then the transaction is completed. If not, no deal.

Pasqua says that Google Maps is good example of this. The service has completed millions of these “privacy” transactions, as the value of not getting lost is more valuable than the desire to keep your location secret from Google. Now that the consumer is aware of the privacy equation, he or she can decide what information to provide, changing us from average, passive consumer to active, aware consumers making individual decisions.

Mobile takes this even farther because it increases the number of privacy transactions we are faced with every day. The weather app wants to know where I am. The travel app wants to know if I want to monitor flights to a certain city. The clothing retailer wants keep my shirt size and my kids’ size.

Brands, businesses and mobile apps have a responsibility to inform the consumer about the data they are collecting and how they are using it. And provide this privacy information in a way that consumers can truly understand – not pages and pages of small print and complex language.

At Optism, we call this behavior Thinking Human and we have outlined best practices about how being transparent with consumers pays off in the end. By being clear about the ramifications of the privacy decisions one makes, it lessens the chance that the consumer could become disappointed by the experience. Additionally, giving the user some control over their profile and how their information is being used improves the experience and customer relationship. This thinking helps to build trust, increasing the likelihood of additional transactions and fosters loyalty which ideally leads to more business.

Take our Facebook poll, What information are you willing to give to a company for making your life more convenient?