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How to Market a Product Kids Will Love and Parents Will Buy

Advertising, Marketing & PR

When it comes to marketing products to kids, you must strike a delicate balance between appealing to what children want and to what parents are willing to purchase. By appealing to both in your marketing messaging—whatever product you're selling—your small business will be more likely to find success.

If a company that produces products for children can maintain the equilibrium between the product user, the kid, and the product purchaser (most often the parent), it can gain a stronger market presence than a competitor who ignores either side of the equation.

Marketing skin care products successfully to kids

One California-based lifestyle company that launched a new all-natural skin care company for kids has done a remarkable job attaining this critical balance, winning national awards with parenting forums within its first year and making a splash with the kids who use its products. Exploring what the company did can provide some insight into how to market your own kid-oriented products and services.

This business has a good niche product geared to a relatively new market with few competitors. And to give its product greater appeal, the company put the product’s dual market, both the kids and the parents, at the centerpiece of its marketing efforts.

For the product messaging, the company chose a kid-centric approach. It created inviting, kid-friendly names for the products that children could relate to, a smart direction for kid-oriented companies to follow. The company speaks on a kid-appropriate level by using “fun” adjectives such as “friendly,” “sunny,” “happy,” and “funny” to describe the products, another important trait for attracting kids and one worth incorporating into your specific product development and marketing campaigns.

The company further appeals to children’s sensibilities by packaging the products in bright colors and kid-attracting designs, using iconic symbols, colors, and patterns to identify their usage. The company also seeks feedback from kid testers by asking them to complete comment cards, ultimately ditching some products or tweaking them until the kids are satisfied. Finally, the company decided to add entertainment value to the product line and created a CD with silly rhymes and songs to serve as mnemonic devices for developing good skin care habits.

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Marketing products for kids successfully to parents

But the company didn’t by any means ignore the parents, the ultimate purchasers of the product and the money-spending decision-makers. For example, the product is priced at a relatively affordable rate because price is often a top concern for adult consumers. Additionally, the company seeks opinions from parents on comment cards, incorporating their recommendations into product development and marketing decisions.

The company further legitimizes its product by affixing a quality-assurance label and backing it up by listing the ingredients in easy-to-understand words rather than confusing scientific jargon. To appeal more to today’s health-conscious consumer, the company plays up the natural and chemical-free components of its skin care products.

To further distinguish the product, the company established an online forum for learning more about the ingredients, including the “toxic bad guys” found in everyday products. The website also promotes the company’s mission and philosophy and contains information related to skin care, including printable checklists for kids to earn stars for performing their skin care regimen.

A smart marketing model for your business to follow

All small businesses could learn from this company’s approach, particularly when it comes to adding a learning or educational component to kids’ products. More important, what this company cleverly managed to do was to create an online marketing platform that dovetails nicely with its product—a smart tactic worth imitating.

But the real lesson to remember here is that considering both parents and kids is crucial when marketing to children, so for a stronger share of the market, smart businesses can’t ignore either one and must keep both in mind when rolling out their marketing strategy.

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