How to Craft Sticky Brand Messaging that Resonates with Parents
How do you get a busy parent’s attention?
Between packing lunches, scheduling pediatrician appointments, coordinating playdates, and keeping track of the seemingly endless theme days at school, parents are busier than ever.
The truth? Parents are also more stressed out than ever before. The Surgeon General even declared parental mental health as a public health issue, to the surprise of…close to nobody.
Every day, parents contend with financial stressors, economic instability, time demands, isolation, loneliness, and cultural pressures around every single move they make.
Each household is different. Your Millennial parents might have a different approach than your Gen Z parents. Stay-at-home parents have different priorities than parents with out-of-the-house careers. Dual-income parents might be balancing half a dozen schedules every day.
Every parent has a few things in common. When making choices for their family, they value trust, safety, and convenience.
If your brand can’t hit those notes, you’ll be lost in the mix of ParentTech startups.
Unlike other consumers, parents can be challenging to pin down.
What Does Sticky Brand Messaging Mean?
Sticky is a word that every parent is familiar with, for better or worse.
Parents regularly deal with sticky hands, gummy faces, and tacky surfaces covered in unknowable substances. In fact, parents are in a constant battle against stickiness.
As a founder of a ParentTech brand, you want to be stickier than a toddler covered in cotton candy residue (IYKYK). But what does it mean to be sticky?
A "sticky brand" leaves a lasting impression on its audience by consistently engaging and resonating with customers in a meaningful way.
Here’s what the stickiest brands have in common:
Emotional Bond: Sticky brands bond with their customers by tapping into their pain points, desires, and experiences in a way that feels deeply personal and authentic.
Simple Messaging: Sticky brands keep it simple, clear, and relatable.
Reliability: Consistency is critical to a sticky brand. The stickiest brands find opportunities to reliably and authentically deliver their message across platforms, packaging, marketing, advertising, and customer service.
Vision: The stickiest brands aren’t limited to selling a product or a service. Instead, they sell a vision, solution, and community they want to be a part of.
While these sticky elements are relevant to any brand strategy for startups, parents are a challenging group. How can your brand stick when your target audience is always ready with that 100-pack of baby wipes?
How to Understand the Parent Market
There’s a good news/bad news scenario regarding marketing to busy parents.
Let’s start with the bad news. Parents are busy. They are juggling dozens of responsibilities, making it challenging to grab their attention.
However, the good news is really good. Parents love a brand they can trust—and they are more than willing to gush about it. If you capture your parents, they will likely become lifelong users and evangelists for your product or service. If your brand achieves some word of mouth in a Mommy Facebook Group or amongst the parents at school, you’re well on your way.
Before you can even think of speaking to parents, you’ve got to understand them. You can’t fake it. Do the work to get to know parents’ pain points, aspirations, and all the roadblocks in between.
Solutions offering convenience, safety, education, or health benefits for their families will outshine any competition.
Here’s how you can get started:
Conduct audience research – Leverage surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gain insights into parents’ daily challenges.
Identify emotional triggers – Are parents worried about their children’s safety? Are they overwhelmed by daily routines? Understanding these emotions will help shape your message.
Understand what motivates parents – Parents are often motivated by a desire to provide the best for their children. Whether it’s health, education, or convenience, your message needs to reflect how your product or service helps them achieve this.
Keep Your Brand Messaging Simple
Through social media and marketing, parents are constantly being told what to do, how to do it, what to avoid, and other rules they are meant to follow.
If you want to create (and keep) a sticky brand, stay out of the comment section. Keep your brand messaging simple, clear, and (for the love of Sam) non-judgmental.
To start crafting your brand message, there is an easy question to ask. What do you do? Obsess over this answer. Wordsmith it, edit it, and cut out the jargon. You might be surprised how many brands can’t give a straightforward answer to this question.
Real brand example:
One brand that nails its core brand messaging is The Wonderful Company, home of the favorite healthy and naturally-packaged snack, Halos. Halos are “sweet, seedless, & easy to peel.”
Even the busiest parents can provide a sweet, yummy, and healthy snack. What more would you need to know?
Know What Not to Do
To create effective messaging for parents, knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do. Let’s go over some essential don’ts.
Parents don’t need another login or password to memorize.
Parents don’t want another item on their list to take care of.
Parents don’t want a product or service whose benefit is muddled
Parents aren’t interested in brands that understand their unique problems
Parents don’t necessarily want a brand that offers a solution for a short amount of time. *Unless it’s a brand that can help them get more sleep. Sleep is power.
Real brand example
Let’s have a moment of reverence for a brand that has brought millions of hours of sleep back to parents. Yes, we’re talking about the beloved Snoo from Happiest Baby.
At first glance, there are tons of opportunities for “don’ts” here. Bassinets are typically not a long-term item. Most babies transition out of a bassinet between 3-6 months. Additionally, this “short-term” item has a very high sticker price of almost $2,000. Yikes.
Happiest Baby does a few things right to win over the love and trust of parents.
They prioritize safety. Happiest Baby ensures every parent knows how safe the Snoo is. Any parent can relate to that first night at home and the sheer terror of infanthood. Happiest Baby leads with safety, which makes the next part of their brand even more genius.
They tackle the biggest pain point. Sleep is gold. Another huge element of SNOO’s branding is the promise of sleep. Tell an exhausted parent that “most SNOO babies sleep 9 hours or more” and they are whipping out the plastic. But that’s not all.
They offer rentals. Happiest Baby has an unbeatable product that they know parents want. It’s an expensive product, and one that eliminates a huge part of the market. However, Happiest Baby offers rental options, which allows many parents to “rent” their sleep.
Make Your Brand Irresistibly Relevant
If you’re building a brand in the ParentTech or Famtech vertical, staying relevant and informed is crucial—especially regarding breaking news, studies, and research on parents.
Mastering this part of brand messaging is the key to trust and loyalty. If a major piece of legislation affecting parents passes, your leaders should be talking about it. If customer input results in a change in the product, communicate that story. If you make a wayward move or mess up, own it and course correct.
When it comes to parenting, the adage “It takes a village” often rings true. A great parenting brand will become an integral part of that village.
The stickiest brands don’t just win the trust of their customers. They do everything in their power to keep it.
Real brand example
Bobbie, an infant formula company founded in 2018, hit the market just in time for a major formula crisis in the US. However, the roads were not smooth. Responding to a shortage that left shelves frightfully empty, Bobbie also had trouble keeping their cans of formula in stock at Target.
It might have been easy for Bobbie to shrug and say, “Welp! It is a crisis, after all, folks.”
Instead, Bobbie halted their expansion to ensure their existing subscribers’ orders would always be filled. For in-store customers, Bobbie kept communication lines open. Instead of ignoring the crisis, Bobbie leaned into their brand message of support and vigilance.
Weave in Your Story
Not to make assumptions, but if we were to attach a percentage to it, we’d surmise that parents start 99% of parent-forward brands.
These founders found a problem, a gap, or an opportunity for improvement—and they created a solution that they wish had existed.
Founders who start from personal experience have an advantage in understanding fears, desires, and needs. Take it a step further by ensuring your brand can speak to other parents with similar—but not identical—pain points.
Real brand example
Tinybeans, a family photo-sharing app, created a brand message that centers on capturing memories and staying connected with family. This small brand works to protect and keep family memories with a dedication to privacy and security.
Since Tinybeans is a brand that could stick with a family long-term, they have developed a content library overflowing with bright, colorful guides on anything from pregnancy to having uncomfortable (but essential) conversations with teenagers.
Repeat, Learn, Improve
Envisioning and creating a brand is an exciting time. However, branding is more than the sum of its visual parts. Your brand is more than a logo, a few fonts, and a tagline. You've only scratched the surface once you’ve crafted your brand message. Now, it’s time to live it.
Your brand is how you show up for your audience over time. Your brand is creating meaningful content that resonates with your audience. Your brand is listening and learning from mistakes, input, and personal experience.
Any startup looking to achieve meaningful growth will use their target audience’s feedback and suggestions to aim for improvement.
Real brand example:
Frida started as NoseFrida, a snotsucker (this is actually what it’s called) designed by a Swedish pediatrician. Over time, NoseFrida became Frida, Frida Baby, Frida Mom, and Frida Fertility.
Their mission? “Preparing parents for the unfiltered realities of parenthood with simple-yet-genius solutions that get the job done.”
From the absolute GOAT Upside Down Peri Bottle to Windi (for baby gas), Frida has tackled some of the gnarliest, phlegmiest, stinkiest pain points parents experience—and they’ve done so with the most adorable branding ever?
As the kids say, we stan.
How Carter House Copy Can Help You Craft the Stickiest Brand Messaging
If you’re a startup founder in the ParentTech or FamTech space, we see you, we salute you, we appreciate you, and we love working with you.
At CHC, we specialize in helping startups develop strategies that connect with their target market.
Reaching a target audience of parents is not just about being memorable. It’s about creating a brand that is impossible to forget. Let’s work together to refine your brand message and make it unforgettable.
For more insight on brand strategy, take a moment to check out Carter House Copy’s marketing strategy offerings for startups.
