Millennial moms – born between 1978 and 1994 – are easy to spot. Their smartphones are never far from reach, they’re adept at multitasking, and were the earliest adopters of email, online banking and original social sites like Myspace and AOL messenger. They’re also becoming a growing part of your customer base as both patients and responsible parties.

Nearly nine million strong, one in five moms is a millennial. Having come of age with the internet, it’s no surprise that she’s highly connected. With an average of four social accounts: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are most popular; followed by Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. While her time is spread thin between household and career responsibilities, it’s estimated that she still allocates roughly seventeen hours each week to social media. Considerably more than moms of other age brackets.

Much of her screen time is on a smartphone, though research shows that that her purchasing journey can vary from device-to-device going from mobile, desktop, landline and tablet. That said, your desire to convert and keep her as a practice advocate means your marketing efforts and brand presence need to be multi-faceted, social, creative, and more integrated with her preferences.

How to Play a Key Role in Decision Making for Millennial Moms

Given they consume and provide frequent advice by ‘liking’, ‘re-tweeting’ and ‘re-pinning’ it behooves brands to align incentives with these types of activities. Once aligned, research shows that 73% of millennial moms answer polls/surveys, 50% visit a brand's Facebook page, 44% “like” content, and 40% leave a review. An estimated 90% of millennial moms share information about purchases made and services used. Discussions are happening about everything from career and travel advice to consumers products and health care providers. Her voice is influential as she shares both the good and the bad.

As you tailor your marketing efforts to reach millennial moms ask yourself these key questions to help determine areas to focus on. What do you currently do to keep engagement beyond the time they spend in your office? Have you made promoting your practice systematic, easy, and with her desired social outlets in mind? How do you recognize her loyalty? Importantly, have you educated your staff on the role they play in accomplishing all of this?

Understanding millennial moms and the way they communicate, make purchasing decisions, and share information is a vital component of winning her business and advocacy. Coupled with great treatment and having the right methods and engagement tools in place, this digital influencer will openly share her experiences with her social communities and help grow your practice.

Brenda Ashwell: Product Manager Patient Rewards Hub

Having worked with thousands of orthodontic practices globally, Brenda has first-hand knowledge of the challenges practices face day-to-day when balancing time constraints and resource allocation between clinical, operational and practice growth initiatives. When coupled with her deep-roots in managing technology platforms, this provides keen-insight into the creation and utilization of automated tools for making marketing and patient relationship systems as manageable operationally as they are economically effective. bashwell@practicegenius.com