iVillage Evolves Strategy to Catch "Mobile Moms"

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009410&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4 

I thought the article “iVillage Meets Socializing Moms on Mobile” provided a unique perspective on a segment of consumers I hadn’t thought about in detail - moms. From their website, “iVillage is the largest content-driven community for women online reaching 30 + million unique visitors per month (comScore). With over four million plus conversations annually and thousands of specific brands talked about weekly, iVillage is at the center of her digital routine.”  Content topics can include parenting, home, beauty and entertainment.

Of their 30 million+ monthly visitors, a majority are moms.  Catherine Balsam-Schwaber, Senior Vice President of Marketing at iVillage, commented on the increasing mobile access of their site from the mom segment given their over-indexing on mobile/social usage.  It has become challenging for iVillage to provide content to moms who are continually pressed for time.  At one point, site visitors would spend ample time perusing different topics, however, iVillage has had to adapt their strategy for reaching the mom segment in order to align more with this consumer demographic’s lifestyle.  This isn’t just true for iVillage and moms but for other companies trying to reach niche segments as well.  Take airlines for example – in an earlier post, I talked about the increasing need for airlines to push relevant content / flight information to their passengers who are also typically in a time crunch.  Airlines have had to evolve to provide more mobile functionalities to flyers – flight status updates, check-ins, mobile boarding passes, etc.  Another example is retail – retailers are focused on creating “omnichannel” experiences for their shoppers to present a united brand to the consumer regardless of which mobile device or tablet a consumer is accessing their brand from.  As companies and marketers learn more about their consumers’ channel preferences, they will need to evolve their marketing strategies to match their consumers’ needs, which could mean additional investment and innovative marketing strategies to fulfill newly created channels.