News
Audience Behavior, in Focus: What Millennials and Moms Are Doing
July 21, 2014
General trends in audience behavior provide valuable insights for your content marketing approach—but it’s also helpful to try and drill down to specific facets of the population—to focus our tactics to engage specific readers and groups.
Let’s look at Millennials and Moms, to start. 
Millennials
For a lot of us, we may still think of millennials as that young, undefinable generation—the one that isn’t part of our audience. But, many millennials are now professionals in our workforce and consumers with discretionary income, so it’s important to know what they’re up to.
According to recent research from Crowdtap, millennials are:
- Spending 18 hours a day consuming media. But, what’s perhaps more telling is that they are racking up those hours by consuming it from different sources, at the same time.
Response: Undoubtedly, it comes back to the question of how we capture their attention, when it is already divided between Facebook and our website, or Apple TV and Twitter. Again, quality, targeted content tied to a social strategy is key.
- Enjoying content created by their peers—30% of them, in fact. What’s more, more than half of millennials surveyed say that user-generated content (UGC) influences purchase decisions.
Response: Start by doing a bit of social listening and follow a few simple rules for using UGC.
- Browsing, more than anything. Millennials say they spend 20% of their media time browsing the Internet, 18% of it on social sites, 13% on live TV and 10% on pre-recorded TV.
Response: Look at how millennials are searching and what causes them to pause—in relation to your content. Leverage that data to turn the browsing into engagement, by presenting contextually relevant content.
- Loving (and sharing) Video. 64% of 25-34 year olds in the US share video online. Drop down to the younger half of the millennial population and you’re at ¾ of the population.
Response: Video, of course. Adding video into your content quiver is not simply a matter of making a few quick videos and posting them, however. But, it’s not rocket science either. Just take the time to do it right.
Moms
Okay, you are probably thinking, “What, now we need to become mommy bloggers?” It’s true, we tend to not think in terms of marketing specifically to moms, either because “mom content” is not what we specialize in, or BtoC businesses are better-suited to their needs.
However:
- There are 82.5 million moms in the US.
- Women make up nearly half the US labor force.
- 40% of US households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are the sole or primary source of income.
As a BtoB publisher, chances are, moms comprise a good portion of your readership. It’s not necessarily that you need to tailor your content to the mom in them—it’s that you need to understand how being a mom makes them behave online:
- Moms spend an average of 6.2 hours per day consuming media—and more than half that time is on a mobile device (an average of nearly 2.3 hours per day, to be exact).
Response: Responsive design and a variety of media channels will ensure they are spending time with you.
- 65% of moms worldwide, multitask while watching TV.This often involves dual screen involvement—with social, searching, music and shopping.
Response: Responsive design and multichannel distribution win again. Your brand must send a cohesive message across devices—one that pervades short attention spans.
- Mobile eCommerce is rising among moms. 84% of moms surveyed plan to conduct mobile commerce in the next year. It makes sense, when you think about it—saving a trip to the store or running an errand while watching the kids play soccer saves time.
Response: Invest in a responsive eCommerce platform to ensure that your audience can purchase from your site, safely and seamlessly, wherever they are.
Of course, sometimes, moms and millennials are one in the same. But, it’s useful to consider how the behavior of one or two groups can influence our overall publishing strategies.