In this guest post, David Willey (pictured below), director and founder of Growth Tank and the Marketing to Mums Conference, shares his top tips on how brands can connect with the modern-day Millennial mum.

Millennial mums are continually misunderstood by brands. They are lumped into one market segment and often fail to relate to marketing that is supposedly aimed at mothers. In fact, 42 per cent believe that most advertising does not focus on women like them.

In Australia, mums make up 6.2 million of the population. They are also responsible for spending $132 billion every year. Combine this with the fact that one in four Millennials are parents today, it has never been more crucial for brands to connect with the ever-evolving Millennial mum.

They are very different to previous generations of mothers, and marketers need to recognise the changes in parenting and buying habits. They can no longer be merged together as one target audience of simply ‘mums’. Brands need to connect with them on an emotional level if they want to fully engage with this diverse audience of big-spenders.

“We have to think much more about how we influence consumers through communities rather than the traditional approach of ‘target audiences’,” says marketing director Sarah Lawrence, who believes marketers need to re-evaluate the way they communicate with potential customers.

“Consumers now interact and engage with products and services through multichannel, multi-platform searches and ‘real’ influencers.”

As Millennial mums were born into the technological era, they have grown up digitally-savvy and heavily dependent on social media. A recent survey by Crowdtap revealed that 82 per cent of Millennial mums find social media ‘very’ to ‘extremely’ helpful to their parenting. With an average of 3.4 social media accounts, Millennial mums spend an average of 17 hours a week social networking. Marketers not actively using social sites are missing a trick if they want to build lasting relationships with Millennial mums.

When utilising social media, brands need to have a deep understanding of Millennial mums as consumers and understand how to communicate with them. Jeff Fromm, president of Millennial marketing consultancy Futureproof, believes that in order to achieve this, brands must adjust their traditional advertising techniques and adopt a more personalised approach.

“As this group is highly active online, brands have an opportunity to provide resources to help [millennial parents] achieve their goals and ease the friction and anxieties that come with being a parent” he says.

To effectively catch the attention of Millennial mums, brand messages should provide useful advice to make their lives easier. If a brand conveys authenticity and transparency, they are more likely to be rewarded with brand loyalty – an important value when competing with a variety of similar products and services pursued by parents.

Perhaps the most beneficial way to understand Millennial mums is to hear what they have to say. Social listening or social media monitoring will allow you to use this knowledge to construct meaningful and authentic messages. The experience will feel personal to the mums as they will truly believe the brand understands their lifestyle and parenting needs.

Millennial mums are highly influential individuals with huge spending power. Brands have the capacity to engage with them like never before, building consumer loyalty and fulfilling their parenting needs in a socially fuelled environment. Marketers need to adapt to parenting changes compared to previous generations and connect with Millennium mums on an emotional, social and most importantly, personal level.