Katrina McCarter is an author, speaker & marketing strategist, as well as the founder and CEO of Marketing to Mums. Through her business, Katrina coaches brands in understanding how to sell more effectively to Australia’s biggest consumer market, mums. Katrina is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to marketing. Sharing her insights through her books, keynote speeches and workshops. I’m really excited to have Katrina on the show this week, to have her share valuable information with our listeners.
Marketing to the Australia’s Largest Consumer Group
After taking a maternity break from her sales & marketing career, Katrina launched her own business. Katrina explains that this is becoming an increasing trend in Australia, where women are going into business at a rate of three times that of men. This movement is driven by mums with a desire to re-entre the workforce, but struggle to find meaningful work with flexible hours.
Katrina grew her first business to include a community of over a hundred and fifty thousand people. What Katrina noticed was that mums were really vocal about how brands communicated with them. To Katrina, it was obvious that there was a massive disconnect, which resulted in businesses missing out on sales. This led Katrina to launch her second business, Marketing to Mums. Katrina shares some incredible stats about the impact mums have as consumers. Pointing out that mums are responsible for 80-85% of spending within Australia. If mums were an industry, they would be the largest contributor to the GPD, both nationally and internationally. Katrina explains that 63% of mums feel like brands don’t understand them, resulting in a massive gap between what mums want and what they receive. Katrina shares valuable tips on how businesses in any industry can grow, by marketing more effectively to mums.
Inter-Generational Travel
At the same time that we are seeing an increase in mums re-entering the workforce, we are seeing a growth in inter-generational travel. This consists of either skip-gen travel, where grandparents travel with their grandkids, without the parents. Or holidays whereby grandparents accompany both their children and their grandchildren. Many grandparents are motivated by the need to have an impact on their grandchildren’s upbringing. Seeing it as their responsibility to show their grandkids the big, wide world, as well as teach them the history it holds. Katrina explains that this ever-increasing target audience needs to be marketed to differently. Explaining also, how every business needs a ‘grandma strategy,’ which focuses on effective marketing to grandmas, of all products and services, not just travel.
The Power of Testimonials
A survey of over eighteen hundred Australian mothers on consumer habits, conducted by Marketing to Mums, yielded some surprising results. Previous to the survey, Katrina thought that mum to mum recommendations would have the most significant influence within this market segment. The research showed however, that it is actually testimonials that are the biggest motivator behind mums purchasing a product or service. Katrina repeated the research six months ago, and received the same results. Surprisingly, mums don’t even need to know the person who wrote the testimonial, they just need to be able to identify with them.
Online reviews are an important channel for businesses to gather testimonials from consumers. Katrina urges business owners to never delete or remove a negative review, but instead use it as an opportunity to show potential customers an ability to problem solve and provide exceptional customer service. This are two important qualities mums seek from brands. Katrina also warns that mums have an uncanny ability to sniff out a fake testimonial. Research shows that if a business has glowing 5-star reviews exclusively, mums become wary. However, if a product or service has varying reviews, consumers feel like they can rely on the reviews as a fair representation of what a business offers.
Also, in this week’s podcast
In this episode Katrina and I discuss:
- Katrina’s books ‘Marketing to Mums’ & ‘The Mother of all Opportunities’
- Mums as researchers and decision makers
- Creating an army of advocates for your business
- The increase in a child’s buying power
- Grandparents changing role in family support
- Tips for marketing to the pregnant mums, first-time mums and women in business markets
- Secrets to a successful business partnership
- Smart speaker and the future of voice search
- Meccaland paving the way in experiential marketing
- The importance of providing an exceptional customer experience and being consumer centric