Mother’s Day is one of THE MOST celebrated holidays on earth. There are something like two billion moms around the world, 85 million of whom are in the United States. Most Americans (84 percent of them) are going to be celebrating their mothers in just a few weeks, so we crafted this post for marketers who are inevitably targeting the daughters, sons, hubbies, grandkids, and partners who will be making their way to stores between now and May 9th. Friend, it’s time for some Mother’s Day marketing… and right here is where you’re going to find some really legit strategies. But first...
Here Are the Mother’s Day Stats That Matter to Marketers
Mother’s Day is now the second biggest gift-giving holiday, after Christmas, and the third largest retail event of the year (Back-to-School shopping holds steady behind the winter holiday shopping season). At least as far as gift-giving goes, moms receive more honor than dads, and Mother’s Day shoppers consistently outspend Father’s Day shoppers, last year by an average of $60 per purchase.
According to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, 2020 Mother’s Day spending was the highest in the survey’s entire history! Consumers expected to spend more than $700 million on media (books/music/etc), $2.87 billion on greeting cards, and $1.5 billion on housewares and gardening tools.
The spending only increased from there: Twenty-six percent of those who bought Mother’s Day gifts splurged on personal services like massages, manicures and pedicures for a total of $2.1 billion. For tech-savvy moms, another $2.93 billion was spent on consumer electronics, no doubt in large part because of the lockdowns we experience last year. Fashionable moms received $2.5 billion in clothing while many honored the woman who has everything by grabbing gift cards. This amount totaled $2.87 billion.
Now, this last group of purchases is where the big bucks are generally spent (like, every year…). Jewelry, special outings, and flowers account for $5.27 billion, $4.07 billion, and $2.56 billion respectively. Fun fact: Mother’s Day is the day the most flowers are sold all year long.
Greeting cards also have been proven essential, as three in four Mother’s Day consumers bought greeting cards.
Mother’s Day Trends That Impact Your Marketing Efforts
With millions of consumers spending billions of dollars on Mom, it’s no wonder brands compete to get in front of ready buyers in the days and weeks leading up to Mother’s Day. Here are a few Mother’s Day trends that marketers have had to keep in mind.
No more last minute shopping… Historically, Mother’s Day shopping has mostly been a last-minute thing, but with COVID forcing everyone indoors, planning ahead has become a necessary part of the celebration. Half of Mother’s Day shoppers are using their smartphones to make purchases, and six in ten shoppers said they planned to shop for Mother’s Day gifts on Amazon.
Gen Z and Millennials… Gen Z and Millennials are still leading the charge as kids gift their moms for the big day. Ninety-four percent of shoppers between the ages of 18 and 34 are planning to celebrate Mother’s Day, and 94% of shopper ages 35 -44, which paves the way for some pretty cool influencer marketing opportunities this Mother’s Day.
Subscription services are still trending upward… We’ve all done our fair share of online shopping over the last 12 months. So, it’s no surprise that one in three shoppers say they have their eyes on subscription boxes and services.
Experiences are also still pretty popular, considering… Experiences? Really? Yep. One in four shoppers are planning to give Mom some sort of experience for Mother’s Day. Millennial and Gen Z gifters are more likely than older generations to share their gift ideas, shopping experience, and even the actual presentation of the Mother’s Day gift on social media (to Snapchat and Stories, of course). So, the gift - whatever it is - needs to be gram-worthy.
It’s not unusual to find it difficult to shop for Mom because Gen Xers and Boomers have typically accumulated more physical possessions. This makes it increasingly hard to shop for a Mom who may indeed have everything… at home and in storage.
Plus, Millennial and Gen Z shoppers tend to be more waste-conscious. You can expect them to be more thoughtful about the types of gifts they buy this year.
Mushy sentimentality is back… We said that a few years ago, but nearly 80 percent of celebrants last year said Mother’s Day and Father’ Day were even more important to celebrate with the pandemic raging because you never know.
Sentimental gifts are cool for young adults to give to the moms in their lives. They have greater emotional impact, and let’s face it… a blood-sweat-and-tears self-portrait from Grandma’s hard-working high school senior granddaughter isn’t going to end up in the donation bin like the riding boots we got her two years ago that she never really used. Especially if her exact words when she unboxed them were, “To ride what?”.
Social media is ultra-shoppable… Social media is a powerful, almost MATCHLESS sales tool for spring holidays like Mother’s Day. Not only is social constantly changing the ways in which consumers shop... social is also changing consumer expectations... and changing what they buy, how they buy, and why they buy.
What’s In This Particular Mother’s Day Marketing Post
We’re at a time in digital marketing when over 70 percent of the decision-making process is happening on phones and tablets, and half of all Mother’s Day shopping is being done on a smartphone.
That means being visible, searchable, and social just became the only way to get on anyone’s shopping list. So, we pulled together a list of social media and influencer marketing strategies that will help retailers craft Mother’s Day marketing campaigns designed specifically to boost traffic to your website and to your store.
Yeah, foot traffic. So, you need to give customers a compelling to spend their money on your site (or on0site), right?
Right.
To grab that attention, you’ll need to offer them more than just great ads. Storytelling is going to be HUGE for brands this Mother’s Day… as will creating customers experiences that help shoppers streamline and simplify the process of gifting Mom and Grandma something AWESOME.
The typical buyer is looking for something completely different than what they may have gifted in the past. The key to leveraging Mother’s Day gift giving as a marketing strategy is to create the supply of experiences, special gifts, and rare items that will meet the demand for something awesome that mom will love.
6 Strategies, 16 Tactics and a Couple of Cool Ideas to Help Your Mother’s Day Marketing Campaign Boost In-Store Traffic
Strategy 1: Video Marketing
Target Shopper: Gen Z and Millennials
There are lots of ways brands can use video in their Mother’s Day marketing strategies. Honestly, I think three of our most recent five posts had something to do with video marketing. There’s this one on YouTube user stats, this one on video marketing strategies, and video as a format converts better than images alone.
Zeroing in on Generation Z and Millennials shoppers with a video campaign is smart because Gen Zers - the 11 to 25 crowd - defers to YouTube for product recommendations and to help them make final purchasing decisions. More than half of Millennials (54 percent) check YouTube daily. Their content of choice includes things like product unboxings, hauls, tutorials, and content that’s quick, fun and entertaining.
SMART MARKETING TACTIC: Branded insider videos
To watch this video, it wouldn’t be immediately apparent what Blue Illusion is - the video isn’t at all about the stuff it sells. The only hint is that Nicole, daughter to Lisa and one of the company’s apparel buyers, was included in the video.
Self-proclaimed curators of personal style, French-Inspired Australian fashion boutique Blue Illusion is dedicated to selling clothes that showcase the modern woman’s spirit, pursuit of style, passion for life, and generosity of heart.
The company’s #EveryMum Mother’s Day campaign on YouTube was a sweet but candid look at mother/daughter relationship, and how valuable the family is to Blue Illusion’s company's culture by featuring employees who were mother and daughter.
These kinds of videos are often endearing and tug a bit on the heartstrings. More important, they immediately humanized your brand and give it a face… Actually, this video gave the brand eight faces… all of them believable and relatable.
There was dialogue in the videos between mother and daughter, where both mum and kid revealed interesting things… like Esther isn’t great at picking out clothes for her daughter Lexi.
Totally relatable.
SMART MARKETING TACTIC: Mother’s Day gift ideas and guides
Another effective way to use video marketing for Mother’s Day is to partner with influencers who can create great gift idea vlogs.
Now, YouTube videos will typically be one of the pricier options for an influencer campaign, especially if you’re partnering with a macro-influencer. Like, add-a-zero pricey. But these kinds of short, personal videos can get tons of eyes on your product and get ears listening to the good things about your product.
To reduce the cost of a sponsored YouTube video, consider including your product as part of a larger list of gift ideas rather than choosing to have an influencer make an entire video strictly about your product or products.
The challenge with sponsored videos is to partner with an influencer who can disclose that the video is sponsored without the whole thing seeming like a big, fat sponsored video. Here’s a GREAT example of an influencer who’s great at that.
Lifestyle vlogger Fleur de Force (on Instagram @fleurdeforce and here’s her YouTube channel) put together a Mother’s Day video that now has more than 61K views.
If you have never seen one of her videos, they are very well done. Fleur de Force is easy to understand, personable, refined, and gorgeous. What’s cool about the way she does gift idea videos - and this one in particular - is even though it’s a sponsored video partnership with L’Occitane (which she noted in the video description and the title), the video itself really is full of good Mother’s Day ideas that feature lots of other brands.
In addition to L’Occitane gift sets, she talked about jewelry and modeled some comfy pajamas. She also noted in her video that after polling the moms in her life, she discovered most of them just want some time off, time to themselves, which gave way to the idea of creating a relaxation basket for moms that include things like books, bath salts, nail polish, a scented candle (which was a collaboration between Cowshed x Scamp & Dude), and those pajamas... She talked a bit about subscription boxes as well.
Here’s the important part: L’Occitane was featured in the video, yes, but it wasn’t a L’Occitane commercial in the eyes of her viewers, and THAT’S what’s powerful about a video haul or gift idea video like this one.
SMART MARKETING TACTIC: Hauls
Mother’s Day gift hauls are entertaining to watch. These informal discovery videos come in all types and are done by bloggers from all over the world who have audiences of all sizes.
What makes hauls so valuable to brands is hauls provide prospects with an easy discovery method as they are already knee-deep in Mother’s Day gift research. This is great for holidays like Mother’s Day when shoppers are more deliberate and thoughtful about the kind of gifts they buy. Gift cards are more popular at Christmas time than they are for Mother’s Day, and that’s because Mother’s Day is an appreciation holiday the Moms 84 percent of people are setting aside time and funds to honor.
Another thing that’s cool about hauls is they come across as authentic because they’re usually loosely-scripted or completely unscripted. They’re not over-produced.
If you watched a bit of Fleur de Force’s video, you saw the lighting in her bedroom changed, probably affected by the cloud cover outside. That sorta thing doesn’t negatively impact haul videos.
Now, I’m not saying that production isn’t important at all. I’ve actually skipped haul videos that looked interesting because the vlogger’s messy bedroom in the background was distracting and I quickly realized that mess would influence my view of the products she found in her haul. What I am saying is no one’s winning an Oscar for a their holiday hauls.
I think the key element that makes hauls compelling is the same thing that drives Instagram videos to grab so much attention - it’s the opportunity to engage with the video’s creator and to engage with other viewers about THEIR experiences with the brand.
Another thing about haul videos is that timing is important. Mother’s Day in the UK is just a few weeks before Mother’s Day in the US, and there are lots of Mother’s Day videos from bloggers in all those countries (and Australia).
As we’re writing this in mid-March, most of the new content we see is from UK vloggers preparing for UK Mother’s Day on March 31st. Keep that in mind when planning your campaigns.
So, one of the more produced hauls we found was by a popular vlogger named Shopper Mandy (get her YouTube channel here and you can find her on Instagram @shoppermandy).
Okay, you’ll notice even from the screenshot below that Mandy’s video has been produced a bit. She puts the products featured in the haul in a little white box on-screen so viewers can see the actual color of the product, unaffected by her lighting and movements. Smart.
Shopper Mandy also includes in the description section beneath her video beauty and fashion affiliate links to the products in her posts.
Affiliate marketing and influencer marketing work well together. According to Rakuten, 80 percent of advertisers run affiliate programs, and you would be hard-pressed to find a micro- or macro-influencer who didn’t participate in affiliate programs.
For instance the link for the Yves Saint Laurent 'Volupté' Lip Gloss Trio goes to the Nordstrom product page for that set. It’s sold out.
Another way to do hauls is to sponsor an actual branded haul. Go Team Fam! is a family YouTube vlog channel from Kyle and Court Hale and their kids. Now, I don’t see any indication that this is actually a sponsored post, but… for Bath & Body Works fans, this would have been a legit win because of the Mother’s Day promotions that were going on in-store.
(Just an aside… Bath & Body Works is a BOSS at reaching customers where they are and driving traffic into the store, from their end-of-summer clearance sales (never miss ‘em) to their free holiday gifts, and those break-apart cards that come in direct mail promoting different time-sensitive offers for 30- and 60-day periods… this company knows how to drive foot traffic).
So, here’s what really grabbed me about this particular haul…
Smart Marketing Tactic: In-Store Mother’s Day Promotion
At the very beginning of the video, we find out that this haul video was compelled by a great in-store buy. Court went into the store and discovered there was also an in-store Mother’s Day promotion going on that allowed shoppers to get a large zippered navy or bronze tote in a chevron weave.
Smart Marketing Tactic: The Free Gift
Shoppers who spent $50 could get an additional box of products valued at $100+ for just another $30. It’s possible to buy for Mom and yourself, or buy for Mom and Mother-in-Law, or Mom and Grandma or your best friend who’s a new mother...
Smart Marketing Tactic: Digital Coupon went Out to Subscribers
There was also a coupon available (list-building opportunity) to Bath & Body Works email list that gave them another $5 off their purchase. So, Mother’s Day shoppers paid $75 and got $167 in product + a tote.
Smart Marketing Tactic: Easy Returns and Exchanges for Moms
FINALLY, scents (even those given as a gift) were eligible to be exchanged for other scents. That means Mom could get her gift and go back to the store to swap out her fragrance and be upsold by a perfume, spray, scrub, or lotion with the same scent for layer.
(Coincidentally, I went to their site immediately to be signed up for upcoming email offers… even though I know I got direct mail Bath & Body Works offers that also send me running to the stores.)
Strategy 1 recap
Video marketing is legit, especially if you’re incorporating influencers into your strategy. Video gift guides and hauls really can come in all shapes and sizes. But remember, YouTube videos can get really pricey, especially if you want the entire video to focus exclusively on your products.
If the price of a branded video is too steep, consider including your product as part of a larger haul that includes complementary products from other brands.
Last thing to think about is timing. The UK vloggers and US vloggers produce tons of Mother’s Day content, but Mother’s Day in the UK typically falls a few weeks earlier than in the US, so plan to publish and promote videos starting in March for the UK and April for the US.
Strategy 2: Create Experiences Outta Nowhere
Target: Adult children buying for Mom, adult children with families, free-spirited Gen Xers and Boomers (birds of a feather, you know…)
EXPERIENCES SELL. For social media users (which is literally half of all Internet users at this point), cool-looking experiences are Instagram fodder. Before COVID that meant Instagram pop-ups and interactive museums. These days, it’s a raised-bed garden in all its glory or a staycation backyard setup or documenting that all-important trip to At Home when it’s time to decorate a new house.
Not everyone’s ready to hit up the Museum of Ice Cream while cases are still spiking in hot spots around the world. And the pandemic accelerated the shift from the super-curated feed to the less perfect feed that was already happening on Instagram.
Smart Marketing TACTIC: Create Those In-Store Experiences
Creating in-store experiences isn’t a new strategy. But it’s one that has helped retailers like Bass Pro Shops grab mall foot traffic from shoppers who may have had no intention of visiting the store, but who go into the store simply because of the forest-themed spectacle.
Getting in a little Easter Bunny action. 📸 : @shawnaalward
Image Source: Instagram
The company’s retail locations are humongous stores full of outdoorsy things (totally a scientific term), equipped with a 25-cent shooting range (not real guns), a fishing pond, full-sized stuffed wildlife, and one of my kids’ personal favorites, the in-store mountainside stream (the stream part is really just a gigantic aquarium) that’s gotta be like 20feet high.
Bass Pro Shops does a great job at translating the wonder and majesty of nature into an awe-inspiring in-store experience for visitors. The store’s team members are knowledgeable and accessible, with younger and (thank goodness) older team members ready to be engaged when you need them (translation: they don’t stalk you around the store).
But BPS doesn’t skimp on seasonal photo opportunities either. And that’s perfect social media fodder in a world where Instagram backdrop culture and pop-ups have all but disappeared.
Another thing Bass Pro Shops does well is create opportunities offsite with special events to engage with customers. I screengrabbed this digital flyer that was on the company’s main website. This sorta segues into my next tactic, which is creating experiences that Moms can do with a small group of people who are in their bubbles in locations that naturally allow for social distancing (because who wants to be right near a woman firing off a bow and arrow?)
Smart Marketing TACTIC: Create experiences that Mom can do with her BFF, not her family (Referrals!!!)
One of the cool things about experiences is they pave the way for referrals. Fleur de Force mentioned in her video that many moms want some time to themselves for Mother’s Day. The flipside is, often moms who have adult children are game to do some activities either with their kids and grandkids for Mother’s Day, or share in experiences that allow her to still have a day off, but maybe spend it with whomever she chooses.
This is where things like gift certificates, paid reservations, open travel plane tickets, and accommodation / hospitality gifts can come in handy. These sorts of gifts compel Mother’s Day shoppers to buy “in pairs” so Mom has someone with whom she can share the experience.
Here’s the thing though: It’s smart to create experiences that she will want to share with a friend instead of a family member. I came across an interesting factoid in Mention-Me.com’s Referral Success for Luxury Brands report.
Strategy 2 recap
Think about creating Instagrammable experiences that kids can share with Mom like Museum of Ice Cream, create in-store experiences that drive people to want to come inside like Bass Pro Shops, and create referral-worthy buddy experiences that Mom will want to do with her own friends.
Strategy 3: Go Narrower; Find the Outliers
Target: Gen Z teens, kids of 30-something moms, friends of Millennial moms
Smart Marketing TACTIC: TAP INTO MOM'S UNIQUENESS
(“It’s a vegan, cruelty-free, no-waste, upcycled, circular movement naked cupcake. Proceeds go to save the Whatevers…” Right? Is that your mom, or a mom you know?
Different generations of women look completely different from one another… until they have kids. That’s when the youngest generation of parents start to adopt (and finally “get”) the principles and values their parents and grandparents were working so hard to instill. There are still marked differences in parenting styles from generation to generation, but it’s not oranges-to-apples differences… they’re green-apples-to-red-apples differences.
As parents start to deal with the very unsnowflake-like moments that come with having kids (temper tantrums, remote learning, iPads that work attached to school district virtual dashboards that are ALWAYS on the fritz, being captured yelling at your kids when you don’t know their mic is on, moody teens, weird things happening with grades, dating, crashing the car, missing curfew, dirty bedrooms, messy closets…), parents all start to sort of blend together.
Long gone are those early years when Mom still had enough energy to kick butt AND take all those names. But every mom want's to be reminded of what a doll, boss, beast, maven, genius, Creative she was before kids came and tried to make her seem dumb.
Is there anyone out there who remembers when their mom had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do (mine did)? Or seen the footage of your mom raunchy and commanding as she fronted a pretty sick grunge band in the 90s?
Reminding Mom of all the things about her - unrelated to kids - that make her awesome is a great way to help her celebrate Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day gift choices that reflect her uniqueness, fire and strength are always winners.
Lush Cosmetics is known for its vibrant, beautiful, vegetarian cosmetics line. The company prides itself on living by six principles: the freshest cosmeticas, 100% vegetarian products, ethical buying, homemade, naked (unpackaged), and the charge to fight against animal testing. During its Mother’s Day campaign, Lush offered special gifts for the SuperMom.
What’s cool about Lush is the company has a very strong social media presence, and there are multiple Lush accounts on Instagram alone. The one below is for the Australia / New Zealand Lush stores.
Here’s another thing you probably didn’t know - Lush has naked stores.
Yeah... naked.
Smart Marketing Tactic: Be Unapologetically (Something)
The next tactic is about going all in on some fringe thing. Maybe your new company memo isn’t going to force people to come to work naked. Lush’s Naked stores aren’t really about being helped by naked sales associates. These are actually the company’s packaging-free stores. The naked workers thing just sort of drives the point home (and the traffic in).
Think that drives in-store traffic?
Okay. Okay. Maybe now’s not the time to do a naked store. But Lush also does the R&R-for-mom thing pretty nicely, too.
Source: On Instagram
Lush has been around since the 1980s, but it remains a staple for young, environmentally-conscious adults, regardless of their defined generation.
Strategy 3 recap
Help kids and friends find ways to remind Mom of who she was before motherhood consumed her (it’s totally an all-consuming type of thing…). Remember the movie Avatar… and how audiences made a big deal of the way they greeted one another? Well, instead of saying, “Hey, how are you?”, they greeted each other, “I see you.” Help kids see their moms again.
Bold, tongue-in-cheek, quirky products can grab the attention of shoppers and help them align the intention behind your product with their mom’s personality. And having marketing collateral that aligns with Mom’s sense of humor, her college days, her fearlessness, or her time as a singer/songwriter can trigger the connection for shoppers.
Strategy #4: Target Non-Mom Moms (because everyone is a mother of something)
Target: Friends of older Millennials, friends of Gen Xers
Fun fact: Moms are liable to get gifts from just about anyone. Mother’s Day shoppers don’t just buy for the woman they call “Mom”, they buy for moms in general - significant others, daughters, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, other family members, and friends.
But there are non-traditional moms out there who also get Mother’s Day love.
Okay. This didn’t drive traffic into a store, but it was a great idea from BarkBox to kinda loop non-moms (and her friends and family) into the Mother’s Day shopping.
The web-based subscription took Facebook by storm as it dared to redefine the traditional idea of motherhood. #DogAnthem didn’t target all moms, just dog moms. As the two performers rap about the popularity of their fur babies, it’s almost impossible not to get this tune stuck on your head: “If you’re a dog mom, put your hands up. This song’s for all the ladies who provide for their pup. When you’re a dog mom, it’s just what you do. ‘Cause they say you’re not my baby but I know it ain't true!”
Strategy 4 recap
Widen your market by not taking yourself (and Mother’s Day) so seriously. If you don’t have traditional Mother’s Day stuff to sell, create a message that will resonate with non-mom moms.
Strategy #5: Take the Straight-Laced Out of Luxury Gifts
Target: Significant other, adult children
We came across a pretty neat little Mother’s Day haul video from popular luxury YouTuber Sonal Maherali (you can check out her channel here). Now, the set up of this haul is that Sonal is opening Mother’s Day gifts that she received from her husband, who was traveling on Mother’s Day.
(FYI: We didn’t include this video at the top with the other haul because this one targets a different buyer).
Smart Marketing TACTIC: The Gift-Opening Haul
The video opens with Sonal sitting next to a set of black Chanel gift bags and a fourth big bag in the back. The first gift she opens is a genuine leather passport holder with a super-cool illustration on the front, featuring leopard print Christian Louboutins.
Other than that AMAZING passport holder, here’s what’s cool about this video - as she proceeds to open the rest of the gifts, there are times when she doesn’t know the name of a shoe and other times when she does... and she’s seen the shoe before online... but has never actually touched it.
She’s trying to describe each item as she sees it, instead of having scripted keywords that she had to use for the video. She comes across as really sincere, and the gift haul seems authentic.
It’s sort of a backdoor into a haul video that would make for great, low-key product placement.
Another thing that’s sort of clever about this particular type of haul is that for the products she doesn’t know well, that could have been a great opportunity to follow up the video with a blog post of her modeling the shoes and reviewing the products.
She didn’t do that, but what did happen in the days, weeks, and months that followed was that as people watched the video, other users chimed in with information about the products and their experiences with those and similar products.
It’s the gift that keeps on giving. And here it is two years later and we’re checking out this Mother’s Day haul as well.
PS. Sonal is extremely likable.
Strategy 5 recap
Gift-Opening hauls are a great way to foster YouTube engagement from viewers - solid engagement like comments and sharing experiences, and talking candidly about your brand and your products. It’s also a great way to source insights about the level of knowledge her followers have about your brand. And, of course, it presents a great opportunity for your team members to chime in organically about your products.
Strategy #6: Teach a Man to Fish...
Targeting: Husbands and sons, brothers, dads and kids, daughters only
Our final strategy caters to the sentiment motivator for picking gifts and that’s DIY tutorials on or around Mother’s Day. Of course, there are tons of cool DIY and handmade videos, Pinterest boards, and blogs from everyday users.
Smart Marketing Tactic: Handmade Gifts Anyone Can Do
If You Want It D.I.Y released a Mother’s Day Gift Ideas video that provided step-by-step instructions for four different DIY gift ideas in under 10 minutes. Brilliant.
The video is detailed enough for viewers to follow along and see the types of products being used. But it’s edited in a way that speeds up the video so it’s easy to follow but doesn’t take a lot of time to initially digest all four ideas.
Now, my original thought with the DIY angle was for a brand like The Home Depot or the local hardware store to create a series of detailed step-by-step tutorials targeting dads and sons who could work together on an outdoor DIY project for Mom in the days leading up to Mother’s Day. A tutorial.
Smart Marketing TACTIC: DIY Big Project Tutorial FOR Mom
Why a Tutorial? Believe it or not, How-to videos and tutorials are what followers want to see most from the influencers they follow.
Well, tutorials are crucial for the YouTuber. In our post on YouTube user stats (this one), one of the things we talked about was how Gen Zers and Boomers use YouTube as a learning channel. Baby Boomers are big on watching tutorials to decode tech-related stuff. And, of course, who fixes cars anymore without having their phone nearby to reference the tutorial that’s walking them through the task they’re doing? Nobody. That’s who.
Tutorials and DIY videos are powerful marketing tools for brands because most viewers will try to adhere to the tutorial as much as possible to recreate the results they saw in the video. So, this provides a good opportunity for brands to partner with DIY influencers for natural-looking product placements.
It doesn’t have to be a video though. Pinterest is a HAVEN for this kinda stuff, a virtual library of beautiful backyard projects from super-simple stuff to more complex large backyard projects. Plus, Pinterest is great for SEO, showing up in search results, and especially Google Image search results, which means shoppers don’t have to be pinning fanatics to find your tutorials on Pinterest… they only have to be using a search engine.
In the screenshot below, the content on the far right is sponsored by TimberTech, and the one below it is sponsored by The Home Depot.
We penned a post at the end of last year (this one) on how HUGE Pinterest is for home decor and DIY brands. Let me just recap one piece of that info here:
In summer 2017, Pinterest reported there were 11 billion home decor pins on the platform and 2.3 billion home decor searches and saves per year. Pinterest alone reaches 40 percent of the people who have made home furnishing purchases within the last six months, and users say Pinterest is THE MOST influential platform for home decor and home design inspiration.
User-wise, Pinterest doesn’t have as many monthly active users as Facebook or Instagram. At the end of September 2018, the platform had 250 million monthly active users. But unlike Facebook and Instagram, 93% of Pinners use the platform to plan for or make purchases. Sixty percent of Pinners have used Pinterest to actually MAKE purchasing decisions for home decor.
Home decor is one of the three most popular search categories on Pinterest as well as one of the top shopping categories that lead to purchases.
Now, a large DIY project (like building something in the backyard) is probably going to require a longer campaign to get the attention of dads, sons, and daughters, AND give them time to mentally plan how they would do it without Mom finding out, AND to buy materials, AND to do the work.
The key is getting them to finally DECIDE to do the project… which retargeting ads can help with nudging them toward a commitment to do the project and the subsequent purchases required to do it right.
So, the process could go this way - YouTube pre-roll ads for Mother’s Day targeting different shoppers. The brand grabs viewers’ attention in those precious first five seconds with an on-screen message. Here’s what I’m thinking as far as targeting goes…
To Mom from All of Us
To: Mom… Love, the boys
To: Mom… Love, Your Favorite Son
Here’s a Mother’s Day Project for Kick-Ass Daughters (I imagine this one in an Alec Baldwin / Will Arnett type of voice)
Smart Marketing TACTIC: DIY Project to Do 👉🏼 WITH 👈🏼 Mom (hear us roar)
Darbin Orvar created a step-by-step video for building a small, low-cost gazebo in her dad’s garden that is actually targeting people who aren’t carpenters… or may not be great with their hands. She uses hand tools in the video - not HGTV-grade super tools that need their own area of the yard to operate. Just something simple.
The video includes a trip to the local Lowe’s Store. She also talks about her hammering skills (great opportunity to teach, share techniques, recommend gloves, hammers, and maybe even something to combat the calluses that will inevitably result from spending one day as a construction worker).
Take a look at this video because it also has a sponsor mentioned in the beginning, GAF, the company that provided the shingles for the roof of the gazebo.
The Smoaks Vlogs (they’re just so darned charming!)
Okay. I think this may be as unscripted as it gets. But, this video is a great example because The Smoaks Vlogs are laid back but really captivating.
In this particular Mother’s Day video, it’s Mom who wanted to clean out the barn and build a new kennel for the pups (looks like they have 7 or 8 dogs), so they head out to the stores and pick up supplies.
What’s cool about this video is actually Shawn Smoaks’s narration. The couple goes to The Home Depot and Tractor Supply Co and loads the flatbed of their pickup with supplies. Another easy way to incorporate products.
Strategy 6 recap
Like HAULS, DIY videos and tutorials can provide a natural product placement opportunity. I think the primary difference is it’s a little easier to zero in on grabbing men with DIY videos, compared to hauls.
One thing I didn’t mention is a lot of these home improvement project videos have natural spots in them for objective product reviews… like this drill works on this, but not on that. You may have heard Shawn Smoaks talking about the capabilities and limitations of his Milwaukee drill in his Mother’s Day video. Those types of objective reviews resonate with men and Baby Boomers who would much rather have the facts and make their own decisions about the product than an editorial. Just an FYI…
For larger projects, give your campaign more lead time because there’s a good chance you will need to incorporate retargeting as well as sponsored posts across multiple platforms (like, reaching Boomer husbands on Facebook, targeting sons on YouTube and Snapchat, getting to Millennial husbands on Facebook and through retargeting and emails).
Wrapping This Up with a Pretty, Pink Ribbon
It’s vital to get your product in front of the right people. And with Mother’s Day right around the corner, it’s really time to pull those campaigns together. If this post provided you with your game plan, awesome. We see you.
If it made your blood pressure shoot up and you had to take a Honey Bun break, you probably need our help. Don’t sweat. We’re cool, we’re creative, and we stay on top of trends and tactics that convert. Call us to set up a call with one of our strategists.
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