If you want new moms to buy your prod­ucts, then your brand needs to be vis­i­ble at the key moments when dig­i­tal inter­ac­tions occur. Online reviews are a mas­sive oppor­tu­ni­ty to reach and influ­ence these new moms as they research and eval­u­ate their pur­chas­es – and hope­ful­ly dri­ve their pur­chase deci­sions.

For new moms, online reviews mat­ter. A lot.

Six­ty-one per­cent of upper-income mil­len­ni­al moms are influ­enced by online rec­om­men­da­tions when research­ing which baby prod­ucts to pur­chase, accord­ing to a Baby­Cen­ter sur­vey of 905 new and soon-to-be moms.

In an inter­view with Adweek, Baby­Cen­ter’s VP of Sales Julie Michael­son said that “new moms are ready to make all their reg­istry deci­sions online, using all the infor­ma­tion sources they find there to ensure that their new baby is safe, hap­py and com­fort­able through­out the day.”

Reviews From Parents & Experts Influence Moms

Preg­nant women in high­er income house­holds, those bring­ing in over $100,00 per month, are the most like­ly group of moth­ers to be influ­enced by online reviews, accord­ing to the sur­vey.

How do online reviews influ­ence the pur­chas­ing deci­sions of moth­ers at dif­fer­ent house­hold income lev­els?

Well, online reviews by oth­er par­ents influ­ence:

• 62 per­cent of par­ents earn­ing house­hold incomes of over $100,000.
• 61 per­cent of par­ents earn­ing house­hold incomes of $50,000 to $100,000.
• 48 per­cent of par­ents earn­ing house­hold incomes of less than $50,000.

And online reviews by edi­to­r­i­al experts influ­ence:

• 48 per­cent of par­ents earn­ing house­hold incomes of over $100,000.
• 44 per­cent of par­ents earn­ing house­hold incomes of $50,000 to $100,000.
• 31 per­cent of par­ents earn­ing house­hold incomes of less than $50,000.

In addi­tion, 27 per­cent of the moms who earn six-fig­ures annu­al­ly were influ­enced to pur­chase strollers by in-store sales peo­ple, where­as only 17 per­cent of moms in the two low­er brack­ets report­ed the same.

Online Reviews Drive Purchase Decisions

Clear­ly, expert and peer rec­om­men­da­tions in online reviews are the most influ­en­tial dri­ver for pur­chas­ing deci­sions, espe­cial­ly in high­er income brack­ets, accord­ing to the sur­vey.

Peer rec­om­men­da­tions have always been impor­tant in the moth­er-and-baby mar­ket and online reviews from oth­er par­ents pro­vide the kind of reas­sur­ance for moth­ers look­ing for hon­est and gen­uine reviews of the prod­ucts they are inter­est­ed in buy­ing.

So if you want more moms to buy from you, then it’s mis­sion crit­i­cal to encour­age your cus­tomers to leave reviews of your prod­ucts or ser­vices.

Online reviews are essen­tial for many con­sumers who research their pur­chas­es online. Are you doing all you can to encour­age your cus­tomers to leave reviews of your brand or busi­ness?