Does anyone come to mind?

When I sold radio advertising, I took lots of classes, sat through lots of meetings and endured a lot of training. When I worked for a country music station, believe it or not, I learned the average country music listener is the most influential and possibly affluent demographic. Hard to believe, but true.



The best advice I was given by far was to target my commercial that I wrote to the "38 yr old soccer mom." I looked at the station manager as if he had just lost his mind when he told me that. Then we went into a lot of discussion and a lot of studies to find out why that particular person was the primo target person for advertising. Not just radio advertising, ALL advertising.



Here is a basic recap of the "buying power" and overall decision making process a "38 year old soccer mom" has.



1. She is a mom, a lot of marketing is targeted to kids, the kids want what they want when they want it, but mom decides if it is practical, reasonable or even in the budget.



2. She may be married and working a full time job, juggling the household budget and chores.



3. She may be single and working full time or even more and juggling the household budget and chores.



4. Either of the two scenarios listed above, she is making major spending decisions.



5. She might be a stay at home mom handling the budget of the household.



6. Her husband or someone else may handle the budget, but her voice is heard on how to handle it. ;)



7. Her kids may be older, high school or even college and she is guiding them and helping with their first job and how to handle money and trying to bestow words of wisdom on these kids.



8. She may have elderly parents or relatives that she is helping care for. Maybe shopping for them or helping them with healthcare decisions.

The point I am trying to make here is not necessarily financial, but more along the lines of do not discount a woman because she is a "soccer mom." I believe women as a whole look at life a lot differently than men, and we look at all sides and how everyone will be affected by whatever decision is made.

I do believe a woman is more likely to ask a question like "Just exactly what is the bottom line dollar amount of this project?" And a woman is not afraid to ask and not afraid to say no if it is out of the budget.

There are many other scenarios, but as you can see, the "38 year old soccer mom" is a very diverse individual. She is living life in full color one day at a time caring for her children, loved ones and herself. She is learning things one step at a time and figuring out how to best handle situations as they come at her. We all know life is messy and the "38 year old soccer mom" cleans it up.



Do any of these points remind you of anyone? Maybe 44 years old and perhaps a "hockey mom"? These are just some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head as of late and I thought I would share them with you.