Many American parents are seeking out promotions through a variety of avenues more often this year than last, according to [pdf] a poll conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Placecast. For example, 33% of parents said they are looking more for promotion codes or discounts when shopping this year, compared to 26% of respondents without children.
Parents are also more likely to have increased activities such as clipping and redeeming coupons, whether from an insert in a newspaper (31% vs. 21%) or from those that arrived at their homes (31% vs. 23%).
Parents Also Looking Online for Discounts
Interestingly, parents are slightly more likely to be looking more often to traditional promotional channels than online ones. Even so, they aren’t only receiving and redeeming more coupons through traditional media avenues. They are also increasingly using online and mobile methods, including: redeeming promotional and discount offers received via email from retailers (30% of parents increasing this activity vs. 19% of consumers without children); signing up to receive coupons online (29% vs. 18%); subscribing to receive promotional and discount offers via email from retailers (23% vs. 18%); and signing up to receive text alerts from retailers and merchants (14% vs. 7%).
Parents More Likely To Shop Using Mobile Phones
Details from the Placecast survey indicate that parents are far more likely to be using their mobile phones for commerce-related activities than are consumers without children. Among a list of activities identified, some key areas in which parents are more likely to have used their mobile phones in the past year include: accessing the websites of merchants at which they typically shop (32% vs. 22% of consumers without children); using an app from merchants at which they typically shop (27% vs. 13%); making an online purchase (27% vs. 17%); using a barcode scanning application to comparison shop (19% vs. 9%); and making a purchase due to email marketing (14% vs. 10%).
Much of this can be tied back to familiarity with these devices. According to June 2012 survey results from Ipsos, parents with children aged 6-12 show strong levels of adoption of internet-enabled mobile phones, tablets, and e-readers. And details from an InMobi report released in August indicate that among mobile users who are routine users of mobile media, an impressive 77% of mothers use their device in retail stores.
Text Ad Receptiveness Higher Among Newer Parents
When Harris Interactive and Placecast asked what types of products, sales and/or promotions would interest parents enough to receive text alerts, 50% of parents with children under 6 years old reported being at least somewhat interested in receiving text alerts about coffee and beverage promotions, compared to 34% of parents with children aged 6-12. The numbers skewed higher in receptiveness for all types of offers among parents of younger children, including for beauty and fashion promotions (38% vs. 34%), travel services and promotions (35% vs. 26%), bar and nightclub promotions (31% vs. 20%), and health-related offers (24% vs. 20%).
About The Data: The data comes from the third wave of a poll commissioned by Placecast and conducted online by Harris Interactive among 2,262 US adults ages 18 and older earlier this year.
