Memo to local business owners, multi-national corporate executives and everyone in between:
You want - strike that - you need the mom market. Your business's bottom line relies on the consumer choices being made every day by "the decider" in every home in America. And that "decider," as statistics show, is the mom.
You've tried changing your ad campaign. You've tried changing your marketing tactics. You've shifted the entire focus of your business in an effort to lure moms to try, or stick with, your brand.
However, I suggest you start looking outside your own offices and products for ways to increase your mom market share, by instead focusing on ways you can actually make real change, a concrete difference, in the lives of moms.
Set yourself apart from your competitors by NOT spending millions on a package redesign, and instead invest that money in grant programs, corporate sponsorships, or meaningful cash donations to the 26,000 PTAs across the country struggling to provide pencils, papers and books for their kids.
In these economically challenging times, as states like California ponder cutting school budgets by billions ($5.6 billion in CA to be exact), the consumers you rely on are too worried about how to keep their kids schools afloat to even give a hoot about your new ad campaign. They need help - now - at the local level.
Your decision to reroute millions of advertising and marketing dollars into public school fund raising campaigns will not only inspire moms by the millions to buy your products --- but it also might inspire other businesses to do the same.
Imagine the difference you could actually make in the lives of American families - who would reward your generosity with some real brand loyalty...something that doesn't really exist anymore in this Land of Too Many Choices.
If you are a local merchant scrapping for business as recession looms -- rethink all those requests you get to donate to numerous school auctions. Donate a dinner for two, some tickets, some merchandise or a gift card, and I guarantee you that grateful parents will thank you with their business.
If you are a major player in the food industry like - say - General Mills, pick a division like Cheerios, pick a needy cause like childhood literacy, and as part of your efforts provide $50,000 to a new national program at the Library of Congress aimed at inspiring young people to read. (For real! You can read about the Cheerios program in this NYTimes Book Review article).
Then there's Yahoo's Internet search engine called GoodSearch.com, which donates about a penny for every web search to the school (or other charity) of the users choice. Or Target's "Take Charge of Education" program (although Target and Yahoo could undoubtedly afford giving back more than they're giving now).
I'm sure there are plenty of examples of this kind of "charitable marketing," but I really don't have time to look for them. I'm too busy trying to twist the arms of local merchants and national corporations to donate something - anything - to the upcoming auction that provides the bulk of funding for the PTA at my kid's school.
Moms - still the chief fund raisers at schools nationwide - are tired and frustrated. Volunteerism and PTA membership is down nationally due to parental burn-out, lack of time, and the feeling that the job is just too overwhelming. You can read proof of this in recent entries of the Washington Post's OnBalance ("PTA Do-Gooders") and OnParenting ("It Was Nice Knowing You, PTA") blogs.
Take it from me. I'm one of the six million members of a local PTA. And believe me, what used to be considered a coffee clatch is now a determined, sometimes divisive, group of parents bewildered by the lack of interest and funding of public education.
We could really use your help. And in exchange, you'd get our business, and the satisfaction that the money you're spending on "advertising" is working in ways you never dreamed of.
Thanks for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
MJ Call
Exhausted parent, household "decider" and Auction Co-Chair