How to Advertise for Moms Online 2011

Different Moms  Are Using Search To Solve Problems

Moms have different versions of themselves every day, different needs every hour, they are using search to find answers, we need to understand their profiles and be everywhere our mom wants to be. Provided below is a list of 10 mom profiles

1. Pregnant Mom - what do i need to know when becoming a mom?

2. Meal time Mom - How to cook for kids?

3. Doctor Mom - his got a fever what can i do?

4. Cleaning Mom - what are safe cleaning products?

5. Tech Mom - what gadgets can improve our family

6. Education Mom - how can i give my child a head start?

7. Health Mom - what health & nutrition does my family need? 

8. Social Mom - how can i connect and share with other moms and friends?

9. Beauty Mom - how do i look and feel beautiful? 

10. Wife Mom - what does my family need most?

These 10 versions of moms 10 common questions they seek and answer everyday. Knowing this as marketers we have to provide options for her, its about her needs not ours.

How To Advertise For Moms Online In Under 1 hour 

In the steps below i wanted to create an example company, so you can better understand the process to advertise for moms online.

Industry: Bedding Retailer

Product: Beds, Mattress, Bedroom Furniture

Research & Analysis Phase

1. Undersand what types of mom would buy our products? In this example beds and mattress category would evoke the Pregnant, Health & Wife Mom. 3 mom types

2. Understand what are the key drivers to buying a bed for a mom, what are they questions they ask themselves?

• Pregnant Mom - We have an old mattress, im starting a family do i need a new bed?
• Health/Nutrion Mom - What is the best bed for my sore back?
• Wife Mom - Will my husband and i be able to sleep when we get up at night regularly?

3. Where are they going to seek answers?

• Preliminary search is done through search engines. The question is asked
• Search engines than provide results  - consisting of blogs, community portals, retailer websites. Many answers are provided and moms are now educated
• Social networks groups - moms ask friends, other mothers or experts on social network groups about the question, and deliberates answers. Moms are looking for recommendations, reviews and feedback on products to help resolve the question

Planning & Communicating

4. Identify the right products to solve the need.

We know what the questions are;

• We have an old mattress, im starting a family do i need a new bed?
• What is the best bed for my sore back?
• Will my husband and i be able to sleep when we get up at night regularly?

Do we have a product that answers those problems? In this example

• we have a mattress that is made for users with a bad back
• a product with minimal partner disturbance 

5. Develop the marketing communication & unique selling proposition

• We are marketing to the 21st century mom, we need to understand the voice of modern motherhood. Actively listen to the community, understand the hearts and minds of all the drivers, motivations, insights, her journey through motherhood. Having a baby triggers a series of purchases, and all these factors will affect the purchase. 
• Market our bed as mom endorsed. Create a digital badge that instills credibility in the product from recognised moms from all around the world. Take advantage of the digital age. 
• Communicate the need that when becoming a mom buying a new bed is just as important to you as it is to your child.

6. Select to Advertise On The Networks our Moms Are In

We have identified that moms use search to solve problems, seek answers from blog and community websites, use social networks to create dialogue and aim to seek a recommendation from a past user, friend or fellow mom. 

• Which search engine are they seeking answers on? Does this differ from country to country and ethnicities? Is Google better in the states whereas yahoo is better in asia?
• Which blog sites are providing answers? In this example just be the mom and ask google a question and see what sites your being directed to. 
• Which social networks are they seeking answers? Facebook, Twitter, Youtube. 

Execution, Participation & Delivery

7. Agile Marketing - Innovate, Be Flexible Define Resources Based On Outcomes

We know online search and social networking plays a big role, we need to identify how to participate in the social network without over retailing ourselves. Since 5 years ago there has been a 5 fold increase in mom users on social networks. There is no singular silver bullet technique to crack the social network game, however putting the needs of the moms first gives us a better chance on social networks. 

This customer is now moving into a new segment, they are actively searching for answers thus being more receptive to your communications. This transformation from prospect A to prospect Mom opens up your ability to create a new customer for life. They are in a need state now and you need to build a strong relationship with them through the tools that they are using.  

• Advertise on Google search for question, product, needs based keywords. Long & Short tail
• Setup ads to run when moms are online
• Setup Google display advertising on relevant themed websites
• Setup banner ads on relevant community & blog related websites
• Participate and answer questions as your brand on these websites however dont sell!!!
• Setup Facebook ads based on mom profiles & advertise your Facebok page
• Engage with popular youtube review videos and contact user to review your product
• Create an online video that encapsulates the needs of moms & your product. Again dont sell provide helpful contextual advice.
• Use social networks to educate and help them find answers, be neutral and offer honest opinions.
• Create a social competition that encourages moms to be moms   

To conclude,

Its 1990, your a toddler again, age 3 to be exact. You sit in your baby chair happily eating that pureed sweet potato, watching mum as she works. Mum is watching that infomercial channel again, she's on the phone to her sister complaining about her car whilst organising her banking, you spill that pureed sweet potato all over the floor, she pauses her conversation, gives you that naughty look and wipes it up and continues.

Fast forward 20 years and we are in the exact same scenario, only this time instead of the phone, shes on her laptop chatting to her sister on Facebook.com, researching buying a new family car on carsales.com furiously commenting on a thread in babycenter.com and doing her banking at scotia.com, oh and occasionally making sure you dont spill that sweet potato puree.

2011 Mom Online Search Behaviour
Thanks to OTX research, Google & Baby Center we have some profound statistics on moms.

• A new mom is born every 7 seconds
• Search doubles when a women become a mom
• Mums are the decision makers
• 3 in 4 moms feel like they have gotten better at searching
• Moms have become so good at search that more than 1/3 of them don’t even scroll down the page
• Modern moms are determined to find the best deals
• After searching for a  product online 55% of them purchase in store
• More than 2 in 3 mum considers search their back up brains

To be great advertisers we need to extensively research and understand the buying habits and key drivers of our audience. In this example we will be looking at moms, and identifying what messages of communication will engage with them and bring them to our point of view. Our message  must be relevant and provide value, evoke an emotional connection, our delivery must be convenient and execution targeted.

Canada vs Australia Online Marketing Statistics & Trends 2011

Canada / Australia Online Marketing Statistics 2011 
With the confidence in our global market being restored, the social media fad transitioning into an integral part of the marketing communication, businesses and advertisers have shifted their skepticism to realise the importance of investing a greater portion of their marketing  budgets online.  


I thought it would be interesting to compare the online landscapes of Canada against Australia, countries both with a similar culture in media consumption, both early adopters of new technologies and an insatiable consumption for social media.


Key Findings

1. Total Advertising Spend P/A over Total Online Revenue = Return On Marketing
   Canada: $2.4bn / $16bn = Every $1 in Advertising Returns $6.66 in sales
   Australia: $2.3bn  / $12bn = Every $1 in Advertising Returns $5.22 in sales
2. Canadians spend almost 3 times longer online than Australians
   Canada 44.9 hours p/m Australia 18.8 p/m hours
3. Social networks in both countries account for the largest spikes in Ad impression
4. The display ad market in Canada has matured where as the display advertising in Australia is still growing

Conclusions
Australia has an online display advertising lag compared to Canada, one of the reasons is the lack of relevant local case studies and our typical skepticism to ad impressions and return on investment.


Smart phone and tablet users are rapidly growing in both markets, paving a new medium for creative and interactive mobile marketing. These devices are constantly with users, they are portable and used predominately for local search. My prediction, local search based on users GPS location will create another marketing channel.
Holistic 2011 online marketing campaigns should include the following channels & networks

• Google Advertising
• Search & Local Search Advertising 
• Image & Interactive Display Advertising 
• Online Video Advertising
• Mobile Advertising
• Facebook Advertising
• Custom Facebook interactive landing page
• Social Competition 
• Interest Based Advertising
• Games Network Advertising
• Twitter Competitions
• Youtube Advertising
• Custom Channel 
• Youtube Competition 
• Encourage Customer Generated Content 
• Group Buying Website 
• Price Comparison Website
• App Store Market Place, Android Market Place 

Of course there are many other networks we can add to this list, however the above is a minimum of what agencies should provide their clients in order to claim "Best Practice" online marketing initiatives. 


Provided below is a list of aggregated data compiled from reliables sources online including but not limited to; Comscore, Ipsos Market Research, Google Public Data, ABS, IAB Australia, AIMIA 

Canada General Online Landscape Statistics 2011

• Population: 34 million  
• Internet Users: 26 million
• Internet Users Per 100 people: 78
• Mobile Celular Subscription per 100 people: 69
• Average Canadian spends 43.5 hours a month on the Web, almost twice the worldwide average of 23.1 hours
• The number of unique online visitors in Canada hovered at about 23 million users 

Canadian Online Spend Statistics

• In 2010 consumers in Canada spent $16 billion online for products and services (including travel)
• Online Advertising spend in 2010 $2.4 billion 
• Online ads are rapidly closing on newspaper ad revenues with Internet spots representing 13% of the combined $13.8 billion total spent on all mediums.

Canadian Online Users Behaviour 2010 

• "Silver Surfers" by far the fastest-growing demographic when it comes to Web usage in Canada is the 55-and-over crowd.
• Internet explorer continues to have the largest reach with more than 93%
• Google chrome has 24% reach however users have a larger of proportion of time spent
• The split among male and female Web users in Canada is almost exactly 50-50
• Out of 10 households nationwide, or 79 per cent, are connected to the Internet
• a desktop or laptop computer is still the most popular means of logging on, accounting for 71 per cent 
• one-third use some other wireless hand held device, and one-in-five surf the web through their video game console
• The major online video viewing demographic in Canada was 18-24-year-olds
• Canadian males spent the greatest amount of time on directory websites followed by humour, incentives and movie sites   
• Women were accessing, beauty/fashion/style and health sites
• In 2010 the top two advertisers online were Procter & Gamble followed by GMAC/Ally. Together they accounted for nearly 17billion display ad impressions in 2010.

Canadian Social Network Statistics 

• Canadian adults who have heard of or visited an online social network spend an average of 6 hours per week browsing and using online social networks.
• Facebook users spend the most time online using the site per week - an average of 6hours hours - among all online social network users in Canada.
• Canadian users watch on average 47 videos watched each month 
• Canadians on average will read 16 Wikipedia pages and make 217,000 edits a month, which ranks 8th among the most productive countries in the world.
• Q4 2010 amounted to some 8 billion video views across the board. Not too shabby for a country of only around 35 million.
• Canadians, on average, watched some 267 videos in Q4 and over 20 hours per mont
• An average of 15.5 hours of video consumption per viewer per month 
• Social network has had the largest spike in ad impressions accounting for more than 58 billion impressions in Q4 2010.

Australian Online Marketing Statistics 2011

• Population: 22 million 
• Internet Users: 16 million 
• Internet Users Per 100 people: 72
• Mobile Celular Subscription per 100 people: 111
• At the end of December 2010, there were 10.4 million active internet subscribers in Australia. This represents annual growth of 16.7% and an increase of 9.9% since the end of June 2010.
• Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the fastest growing internet access technology in actual numbers, increasing from 2.8 million in December 2009 to 4.2 million in December 2010

Australian Online Spend Statistics 2010

• Total consumer eCommerce expenditure in the 2010 calendar year, excluding online services such online ticketing and events, travel, music downloads and financial services, is forecast to reach A$12 billion
• Australian spend 18.8 hours a month online 
• This equates to per capita expenditure of approximately A$536 per year
• It is estimated that 40 per cent of Australian online shopping expenditure is now conducted on overseas sites.
• Total online advertising expenditure for 2010 was $A2.265bn
• IAB Australia says the market is on track to reach $3bn by 2012
• Search and directories advertising took the lion’s share of spend at 50 per cent of total expenditure for the year ($1.1bn)
• Followed by display advertising at ($0.3bn)  27 per cent%
• The total ad-spend for video advertising in 2010 was $A33.4m.

Australian Online User Behaviour 2010 

• Mobile internet penetration reaches 50% as Smartphones penetration 
• reaches 35% of online Australians 
• Tablets ownership already at 8% and expected to triple this year 
• 70% accessed audio or video content online in the past 12 months 
• Males 15 - 24 spend the most time online overall
• Women 35 + were spending more time online than males 35+
• Group buying sites have grown significantly in Australia in the past year with Cudo currently taking the lead in unique visitors. 
• 92% Want to use websites to compare prices
• 76% want to use webites to access and print coupons
• 75% want to use mobile phones to find out where the nearest store is located
• 70 percent want to see what goods are in stock before going into the store 

Australian Social Network Behaviour

• The latest statistics for February 2010 by Nielsen research show that Australians spent 6.5 hours on social networks
• 3 out of 4 Australians Visited a Social Networking Site in June
• Nearly 9 million Australians visited a social networking site in June
• More than half of all web users in Australia visited Youtube
• Average time on site for Australians on YOutube is 138 minutes

Mobile/Handset Data 

• At the end of December 2010, there were 8.2 million mobile handset subscribers in Australia. This represents an increase of 21% from June 2010.
• The volume of data downloaded via mobile handsets over the three months ended 31 December 2010 was 4,029 Terabytes
•  12% of respondents used their mobile phone to buy things for their mobile phone at least once on a monthly basis, compared to 10% last year.
•  12% of respondents used their mobile phone to buy things for their mobile phone at least once on a monthly basis, compared to 10% last year.