How To Market To Parents: 9 Tips

What is one way to effectively market to parents?

To help you market effectively to parents, we asked marketing professionals and business leaders this question for their best strategies. From considering the goals and objectives of parents to relating to their current pain points, there are several ideas that may help you effectively market your products to parents.

Here are nine ways to market to parents:

• Consider The Goals and Objectives of Parents
• Use Testimonials From Other Parents
• Empathize With Your Customers
• Advertise for Their Kids
• Embrace Directness
• Consider Parents’ Likes and Dislikes
• Communicate That The Product is Healthy for Children
• Leverage Word-of-Mouth Referrals
• Relate To Current Pain Points for Parents

Consider The Goals and Objectives of Parents

Parents today are less likely to be swayed by traditional marketing methods. For the most effective communication with parents, you will need to take into account their goals and objectives. For new parents, a goal might be to create a safe space for their children to play at home. Build a campaign for your products that shares how they help parents reach their goals. Get to know their background, financial circumstances, and demographics, and how that influences their decision-making.

Rod Cullum, Cullum Homes

Use Testimonials From Other Parents

Testimonials are by far the easiest way to win the hearts of your target audience, and if you can include reviews and testimonials of a similar demographic, you’re more likely to drive the point home. Seeing as how parents take researching brands very seriously, they’re always on the lookout for recommendations from a trusted source and will likely search for reviews of your product or service before making a purchase.

Harry Morton, Lower Street

Empathize With Your Customers

There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all strategy. If you think your target is every parent out there, you’re probably starting off on the wrong foot. Do some research, understand your real target and empathize with their needs. Your product may solve a parent’s problem but how you market it will vary from niche to niche.

Estrella Alvarado, Brafton

Advertise for Their Kids

One way to effectively market to parents is to advertise for their kids! Children nowadays are getting more and more immersed in the ever-expanding digital age that we’re in and are exposed to ads and video promotions daily when going through YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. To get the attention of parents, you should market safely, professionally, and creatively to kids on social media platforms and throughout the web! Come up with eye-catching content, advertisements, video ads, interactive content, and campaigns that will grab children’s attention and needs. Their interest, and occasionally seeing the ad again online, will gradually make them want to show their parents the product, service, brand, etc. and that will gain parents interests as well for future gifts and surprises!

Himanshu Agarwal, WorkBoard

Embrace Directness

Parents are concerned about what your product or offering will do to or for their children, and they don’t always have the time or energy to sort through a ton of marketing fluff. If you want to gain parents’ trust, get to the point. Embracing directness will create a more truthful image for your brand, because you’re showing the hard truth, no frills. A no-nonsense approach can help build rapport between your brand and parents who are looking for an offering that will benefit their children in some way.

Adam Shlomi, SoFlo Tutors

Consider Parents’ Likes and Dislikes

Millennial parents aren’t that different from earlier generations, but you do have to pay attention to their preferences. The advantage you have is they constantly talk about their preferences online. Go on social media, join parent groups, and see what they’re saying. By doing this, you can dive into their daily lives to examine what products would be helpful to them.?? When you consider their likes and dislikes, it will be much easier to effectively market your products to parents.

Michelle Conarty, Lily and Llama

Communicate That The Product is Healthy for Children

Parents should be presented with a story that ensures the safety and future development of their children. Parents want to buy products that are not only safe for their children, but that can provide additional benefits. It is the job of marketers to communicate this narrative to parents about products in an honest way. This means marketing a product for children so that parents can understand the legitimate benefits that the product presents for their child. It should be obvious from all marketing materials that the product is safe. Parents are persuaded to buy a product if they know that the purchase will help their child.

Liza Kirsh, DYMAPAK

Leverage Word-of-Mouth Referrals

One strategy to market to parents is to run referral programs that leverage word-of-mouth marketing to increase reach. Consumers, especially parents, are more likely to listen to the recommendations of their friends and family than to ads. Create a referral program that offers perks or discounts to customers that review and refer your products to their loved ones. Leverage the data you collect from the referral program to tweak your marketing strategy so that your campaigns’ branded content and messaging are laser-focused on your target audience. Ideally, these referrals act as a feedback loop for your product and help build a community around your brand.

Kevin Miller, kevinmiller.com

Relate To Current Pain Points for Parents

In the US especially, most companies lack paid parental leave and the cost of childcare is unsustainably high. Without the infrastructure in place to support working parents, raising a family becomes a highly stressful and isolating experience for a lot of families. 

In 2022, parents are completely burned out after two years of managing impossible pandemic schedules. The most effective marketing truly understands this and can speak to those pain points with humanity, humor, and empathy. Finding ways to be relatable, to champion working parents, and to position products as ways to ease stress instead of contributing to it are all techniques that can break through the noise and build brand awareness by helping parents feel seen.

Lauren Lang, Constructor

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