(Updated October 20, 2021)
Are you a digital marketer looking for tips on how to market to mums more effectively online through social media and other channels?
We understand. Mothers are mainly the decision-makers of the household and marketers find importance in that. As they are the top influencer of the products their family buys, they bring a lot of value to brands!
Let’s talk about how your brand can reach mothers online effectively. (Make sure to read ’til the bottom because we have some really interesting insights for you!)
Come up with a relevant data-driven, research-based strategy
Studies about the behaviour of different markets are done every now and then. Many are easily accessible online. In the parenting industry, the situation is no different. Hence, why making decisions based on data is no longer a hard choice for marketers and is something we do on a regular basis.
Why not? As you establish strategies that are supported by research, you lessen the need to experiment with many things that could or could not work for your brand. This way, you will be reaching more mothers while also making the most out of your available resources.
But, what if we can’t find existing research that involves the data that we need?
How do we find relevant insights that would fit the needs of our brand and the goals we want to reach?
We agree that you cannot simply rely on every data that you find similar to your market’s conditions. The most effective strategy you can come up with is backed by, not just any research, but relevant research that can give you insights on areas where you need them the most.
That’s where conducting your own research is going to be helpful because only your team knows which data you lack and which ones you need to come up with an effective strategy.
However, coming up with a market research in-house might not be an option for some brands. If that’s the case, or if you simply want experienced professionals to handle your research, commissioning agencies for a study could be your solution.
Contact us if you’re interested in theAsianparent Insight’s research services.
Understand mothers by joining parenting communities
Okay, I have gone through some market research now but I’m not yet confident about them. What else can I do?
Nothing would be more effective than observing mothers yourself if you’re looking to strengthen your knowledge about mothers further, for marketing purposes.
By observing their usual behaviour and finding out what they like to engage with, you get to understand your target market better. Surveys, interviews, polls, and focus groups from market research are strong sources of information but there are still going to be some new things you can discover when you observe mothers’ actions on your own!
How do I do this?
You can do this by joining parenting communities. There are plenty of parenting communities you can join online through social media groups or parenting apps.
How can we find these communities?
- Search for keywords such as “parenting” or “mothers (name of country)” and looking under the groups from the results.
- Go through parenting apps you can find in app stores as some of them have gathered a community and are functioning as a niche social media website.
What if I am too busy to join these communities and observe?
That’s the time when you can tap into experts that run parenting communities (like our team!) to give you a solution that would work for you.
Encourage user-generated content
If you are already familiar with the usual behaviour of mothers online, you’d know that they love interacting with mothers like themselves. They also love showing off their cute babies and children to other mothers through the form of pictures and videos.
To support this claim, we have found out in our latest Digital Mum Survey that in the past 3 months, the top action of mothers in all markets on social media is sharing pictures/videos.
Aside from sharing media content, many mothers also like searching for reviews of products/services before adding products to their carts.
This is why encouraging user-generated content is something that could do wonders for your digital marketing strategy. Mothers value reviews before spending money on products and services!
Aside from that, getting a UGC campaign to trend in the parenting/mother community is something that you can do easily with the right tactics because sharing their opinions with other mothers is something that they already love doing.
How UGCs can help your brand
I’m still not convinced. We now know UGCs would be something mothers would love to engage with. But how can UGCs help our brand?
According to Dataworks Group, 85% of consumers find UGC more influential than your regular brand content.
Retailers from all industries have reported an increase in conversion rates after incorporating UGC in their marketing strategies. They also mentioned that ads based on user-generated content have 4 times higher click-through rates on average but half the cost-per-click.
Consumers also dislike ads. This is one of the reasons why content marketing has become one of the most effective marketing strategies. They don’t like seeing ads, but they like viewing valuable content and being a part of the conversation.
UGCs are not only a great way to engage with mothers, but they also make them the centre of the conversation and make them feel like you really value their opinions. This could be effective in boosting brand loyalty.
On top of that, mothers don’t just search for reviews before purchasing products for the sake of looking them up. They look at reviews because they use them to decide whether to buy a product or not. This is something that mothers do a lot.
In the chart below, you can see that mothers from all six markets mostly look for UGC before making a purchase online.
Examples of UGC campaigns you can try
Okay, that was convincing enough. Do you have some ideas for UGC campaigns that we can take inspiration from?
Yes! And did you know that some of the best UGC campaigns are the simplest, too? We have listed down some examples of UGC campaigns you can take inspirations from:
- Encourage mothers who buy from your store to leave reviews with a reward system
- Start a hashtag on Facebook or Instagram that encourages your audience to post about how your brand was able to help them. The winner gets a valuable prize!
- When someone makes a purchase of your product, encourage them to post about it on social media in exchange for a coupon
- Boost an inspiring hashtag campaign using influencers to inspire other mothers to post their own inspirational stories
- Photo contests involving your products and the best photo gets exciting prizes
Chatbots and live chat in messaging apps
We’re going to start this section with a bunch of statistics.
According to Acquire, 1.4billion people use messaging apps and are willing to talk to chatbots. 40% of millennials also say that they talk to chatbots daily.
While SuperOffice says that up to 50% of customers expect live chat on your website and convince & convert found that 34% of people use chatbots to find human customer service agents.
It’s no doubt that both live chat and chatbots are essential for brands these days. What once was a “nice to have” feature is now something that many customers, including mums, expect from your brand. But the thing is, these kinds of software take a lot of effort to operate, too! Hence, the goal is to use them efficiently.
I’m interested! How can we best reach out to mums using our chat software while being able to use it efficiently?
Great question. Let’s talk about what we think is the best channel for these types of software in our situation: messaging apps.
Our reports show that mums in Southeast Asia spend an average of 3-5 hours a day socializing online. This includes their time spent on messaging apps.
55% of consumers are also willing to interact with a business via messaging apps (HubSpot).
But with the amount of messages businesses receive on a daily basis, being able to reply to every single one within a short amount of time would be impossible to do. Even smaller businesses that don’t receive a high volume of messages have a hard time doing this.
It wouldn’t be that bad if everyone is willing to wait a couple of minutes to a couple of hours for an answer to their question. However, not everyone’s interest is going to last this long. Especially for mothers who likely already have a lot of things in their minds as they take care of their children.
There’s a reason why bots and live chat are successful: it lessens the time of waiting for a response.
But we already have a chatbot on our website.
Let’s be honest, not everyone would be willing to go through the hassle of going to your website to ask a question either.
This is why we think that your chatbot software should be in messaging apps. Why not just go to the places where your customers are already comfortable? It’s convenient for your audience, in this case, convenient to mums, and offers you high-quality leads.
Choosing a messaging app for implementing your chatbot
This answers how you can be efficient when using chatbots.
Should your chatbot be in every single messaging app out there? The answer depends on your capabilities and how much effort you’re willing to put into this. Although, we’d say no. Why?
Chatbots might be automated but they still require maintenance and fees to operate. If you implement bots on every single messaging app, it’s not the most efficient thing to do. Especially if people are barely going to interact with it.
The best way to handle this is by doing some research on which messaging apps the mothers in your country use the most before deciding where to implement your chatbot. Luckily for you though, we already have this information! (at least, for Southeast Asian markets)
To view our full reports regarding this, you may visit the insights section in our website’s resources tab or just click this link. But here are some of the highlights for this topic in the reports:
Whatsapp and Telegram trend in half of the Southeast Asian markets
Whatsapp is the most used messaging apps of mums in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which isn’t very surprising as Whatsapp have been popular in these countries for many years.
But Telegram is something that is also gaining popularity for mums in these countries! Telegram is used by many for business purposes, to remain anonymous, or exchange sensitive information as it’s known to be a very secure messaging app that’s free from hackers. But it looks like people are using it for general messaging needs now!
Recently, Telegram finally added a video calling feature in their app after many years and will also be adding a video conferencing feature soon. Do you think this is the reason why Telegram is becoming more popular? Or is it because Whatsapp also recently updated its privacy permissions which is leading mums to look for a new Whatsapp alternative?
Facebook Messenger is dominating the Philippines’ messaging app market
In the Philippines, 96% of mothers use Facebook Messenger! Zoom is used by 34% of mothers which is most likely because of the pandemic situation. Viber is quite popular too, although its percentage of usage for Pinay mothers is nowhere near FB Messenger’s.
Fun fact: Viber’s popularity in the country has increased during the pandemic because it is being used as a channel for buying, selling, and trading! If your brand is looking to sell to mothers, this is the right messaging app for you.
Going back to Facebook.
Are you curious to know why Facebook Messenger is dominating the PH messaging app market? We have a theory.
About a decade ago, in an attempt to increase awareness about the use of mobile data, the leading telecom companies in the Philippines started rolling out “free Facebook” for everyone who uses their sim cards. This meant that everyone could access FB even without a prepaid or postpaid plan.
Because of this, everyone started using Facebook and messaging each other there.
This eventually became the norm in the country and using other messaging apps was quite pointless. Why use other messaging apps when everyone you know is on Facebook Messenger anyway?
Smart Telecom offered free Twitter, Waze, Foursquare, Google, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Path as well. However, these sites aren’t as universal (or relatable) as Facebook which is most likely why they didn’t become as popular as FB. With the exception of Google, of course.
Another possible reason behind this? Globe Telecom was able to sustain free Facebook for much longer and it might have given people more time to incorporate Facebook as a part of their daily lives.
If you’re familiar with this, what do you think could be the real reason behind FB Messenger’s massive popularity in PH?
Locally developed messaging app wins Vietnam mums: Zalo
Zalo is the top messaging app for mums in Vietnam. This app was originally thought of as the country’s answer to Whatsapp. Lo and behold, Whatsapp is not even in the top messaging apps that mums in VN use anymore.
Sure, Zalo and FB Messenger’s percentage of usage might be close to each other. It’s still worth noting that Vietnam is the only country among the Southeast Asian markets with a locally developed messaging app that’s as popular as this among mothers.
Historically, the Vietnamese are popular local patriots. They are very likely to support local products, hence, why we think Zalo is performing this well in the country. Another factor is, since Zalo is locally developed, they already know their people’s culture and what they’re going to like in a messaging app.
Any thoughts about Zalo?
TL;DR
Mothers have less time to themselves because of professional and household responsibilities. But mothers still love going online during their free time. It’s also the best place to reach them.
To effectively reach mothers, try exploring market research and things they like engaging with on social media. UGC-powered strategies and chatbots could also improve your marketing success.
