Dear Target Marketing,
First let me say, “Thank you.” Thank you for the Starbucks, diaper, and clothes coupons. Thank you for being the clean place with great looking stores where new moms can come to just get out- to be in touch with the outside world.
Thank you for having friendly and fun team members who dote on our kids and give them endless amounts of stickers of Spot buckled up for safety.
And thank you for trying to always be in-stock of whatever we are looking to buy. Lord knows, we came to Target to avoid making two stops in the first place.
But I am here to suggest you could do more.
This may sound like a crazy idea, but hear me out before you dismiss the possibility. I used to work at a store in Minnesota (T-1 actually) and a group of older adults would gather often in the Food Avenue area for what looked like social time. It was always in the mornings, usually a weekday, when the store was slow. I’m not sure if their accompanying purchases comprised a large amount of sales for the store, but they did do something else that may be even more important to your mission in today’s climate. They made Target a place for community- a part of the community.
What if Target did this for moms? Incentivized this “Target community” for moms (Nielsen says we are worth the investment and are looking for community!)?
We are all at Target already anyway! I passed and gave the “knowing” smile to five other moms at my store this morning in San Diego. It would be great to get to know other moms who call this “their” Target too.
I suggest an early-in-the-day, weekday morning “play date” at Target for moms with very young kids. Target provides a free small coffee to moms who show up (I’m not even saying it has to be Starbucks, but bonus points if it is!) and encourages moms to get to know one another by offering the food avenue space for an hour or half hour. You could even create a topic of the month that would encourage us to buy a certain product (think: corporate sponsorships for highlighting their product). Moms don’t mind being sold something we might actually use, especially if you give us free coffee or a coupon.
It couldn’t be hard to find us- you already know who we are. We are the “Target Baby” coupon moms that you have stalked our purchases to target us with coupons (thanks by the way!).
I imagine it couldn’t hurt to pilot something this simple, maybe even at T-1. Shoot, throw the older people and the moms together! Is there anything more joyful than an old person and a baby giggling at one another?
And I don’t have all the details worked out (You pay people with more spare brain power than my tired momma self to do that [Although I do have a lot of thoughts on potential implementation that I would love to share]), but here is what I do know:
Moms need coffee.
Moms need community.
Give us coffee & a space to create community, and we may never leave. We may also spend our third child’s college fund while we are there.
Sincerely,
Target Mom Seeking Others
Career of Choice 