I have a confession to make. Since my days as the editor of PC World Canada I have adored iMoms. Perhaps it’s the Alan Alda coming out in me, but I just love the way the web and social media are empowering women and especially mothers.
I’m generalizing, but women do seem to understand networking and are more likely to share information than us guys. I know I see it here at home as my wife uses the web to gain and share knowledge regarding parenting and many other areas of interest.
Today I was reading a post at eMarketer about how moms are using smartphones more and more for a variety of tasks. eMarketer estimates that 31% of the US mobile market alone will have a smartphone this year and I don’t think anyone is making the assumption that this growth will only be in the business sector.
I can’t think of a handier device for the typical on the go mom than a smartphone. It’s the family equivalent of a Tricorder from Star Trek! This could be the biggest thing to happen to parents in general since the mini-van and I believe moms will lead the charge when it comes to applying the technology.
Again, I’m generalizing, but I do believe that iMoms (based on my experience) are more practical about how they use technology. They aren’t so taken with bells and whistles and focus more on what they can do with the technology than on what does. At the most basic level, if you can find a way to leverage smartphones to simplify the complex world of being a mom (or parents for that matter), you’ve got a winner.
Maybe you can score some great points just by getting the message across that you understand being a mom isn’t easy and you’d like to help. That help may not always be only about you and your products or services. Maybe it’s just some value added info about how to handle bored kids in the summer and so on.
Mothers have smartphones to make their very busy lives easier. What easy things can you do in your mobile email marketing to help them do that and make them love you for it?
Are you thinking like an iMom? You’ve got them in your company, right? Have you asked the moms who work with you what they would find valuable? That would be the best place to start.
QR code is short for Quick Response code and is basically a kind of barcode which many camera phones can read. The code was invented way back in 1994 by a subsidiary of Toyota. Denso-Wave came up with the idea to track parts in vehicle manufacturing. These codes can accommodate much higher data capacity than the standard UPC bar codes and that makes them pretty powerful as a mobile marketing tool.