There are 70 million grandparents in the U.S. today and many of them have very deep pockets. Not only are many still working, but they are a goldmine if your brand sells things for kids — from the practical to the gift-able.

These points were brought home to me recently when I met with Donne Davis, Founder of The GaGa Sisterhood, a social network for enthusiastic grandmothers. Founded in Menlo Park, CA in 2003 after the birth of Donne’s first grandchild, The GaGa Sisterhood enables grandmothers to share the joys and challenges of having grandkids.

“We have discussed everything from co-sleeping to home-schooling to child discipline and our ranks just keep growing,” says Davis. The group meets bi-monthly in members’ homes and has grown in number (38 attended the last meeting). Their online community numbers far more. Guest speakers are lined up for the majority of the meetings and, even when “experts” are absent, the two resident therapist grandmas ensure there is never a shortage of deep conversation.

Founded “way before Lady Gaga,” the GaGa Sisterhood has many lessons to teach us mom marketers:

1). The line between “mom” and “grandma” is fuzzy. The average age for becoming a first-time grandma in this country is 47. 47! Yet there are also first-time moms at the very same age. This makes it tricky for marketers to find the right imagery to depict the right market. Perhaps they don’t need to. Moms and grandmas care about kids equally. Show women and kids together in a natural setting and you win. Even better, show Dads or granddads with their family and oftentimes that can be even more touching to a woman.

2). Multi-generational living is on the rise. The GaGa Sisterhood had a recent speaker address this new phenomenon. Several of their members live with their children and grandchildren, either out of necessity or desire. Realtors claim that in many cities this is one of the few growth niches in an otherwise stale market.

3). Grandmas are not in rocking chairs. Look at Donne’s picture. She’s hip. In fact, not only did she remind me of Diane Keaton at our meeting, but she had just come from her Zumba class. “Grandmas are busy,” she tells me. “We’re not sitting in rocking chairs — we’re more likely building them. We recently ran a popular post titled ‘Who’s busier: Moms or Grandmas?’”

4). Grandmas are tech-savvy. Donne credits Skype as the best invention ever for grandparents. And she claims her crowd embraces any technology which makes their busy lives easier or more connected. So if you market a tech solution, don’t assume the 20-something crowd will be your early adopters.

How could your brand expand to include this growing marketplace? Could you create a dedicated newsletter or offering just for grandparents? Or could you solicit feedback from grandmas when planning new products? Heck, could you just acknowledge grandparents as an important force in kids’ lives when blogging or marketing?

And for those of you who might like to reach out to Donne for grandma feedback, be our guest. Just be aware that between running The GaGa Sisterhood and being a grandma to Juliet and Amelia, she’s also working on a book tentatively titled “When Being a Grandma Isn’t So Grand.” Like we said, these grandmas are rocking!

Uncommon Moms is a recurring feature of Maternal Journal. Each month, we interview one mom whose life isn’t cookie-cutter or predictable. Why? Part of our work at Maternal Instinct is to help clients unlearn beliefs they hold about motherhood. And with the Census Bureau now reporting that only 4% of households fit the June Cleaver blueprint (working father, SAHM, and kids under 18), it’s never been more critical to widen your view about moms. In truth, all moms are uncommon — there’s no such thing as a common mom anymore.

How many kids do you have and what are their ages?

I’ve got three great teenagers, 18, 16 and 14.  They’re at the perfect age for child labor and I employ them often.

I can walk on water.  That’s right, I’m a barefoot water skier and I took up competition at the age of 45. And I’m deaf. In fact, I went from hard of hearing to deaf when I tripped over a wake while barefooting as a teenager.  I got married, stopped barefooting and started popping out babies.  My two oldest kids were born via cesarean and my youngest was born at home after 14 hours of memorable labor. All three of them are deaf/hard of hearing. I’ve been the occasional doula and had the honor of attending two homebirths as well as hospital births. Along the way, I taught classes at two local community colleges and eventually found my passion in writing.  I worked for a writing company for a while, but now I freelance. I also work in early intervention, mentoring families with deaf and hard of hearing kids and I serve on the board of Hands & Voices.  I’m also a Senior Distributor at SendOutCards.  All of this has earned me the nickname, Skippy. I juggle a lot of spinning plates.

I got back on the water in March, 2010, after seeing a Today Show segment featuring 66-year-old Judy Myers, the world’s oldest female competitive barefooter. She sent me down to the World Barefoot Center in Florida, where I met two-time World Barefoot Champion, Keith St. Onge. The next thing I knew, Keith taught me to barefoot backwards and Judy became my best friend.

Well, occasionally I remember to feed the kids. (It’s a good thing I taught them to fend for themselves.) We do sit down to family dinners just like the ones that I grew up on, except with a little less butter. After my first kid was born, I quit my job just two months after going back to work (so what if I had a master’s degree?) because I discovered I really wanted to be an at-home mom.  No regrets on that one. I expect my kids to live by the Golden Rule and to treat everyone with kindness. Sometimes they forget, like when they want me to do extra sit ups and they tell me to “suck it up, Mom!”

A company that has a real upbeat marketing campaign on their Facebook site is the Life is Good company.  They know how to reach out and touch a heart.  They spread optimism with everything they do. And heck, their products are just darn cute.

Thanks for talking with us, Karen. I’m sure many Maternal Journal readers will keep up with your latest at your blog or via Twitter (@deafmom). And readers: if you know an Uncommon Mom we should feature in an upcoming Maternal Journal, let us know in the Comments section.

I hope the basics we cover here about marketing to women — the honesty and respect and reality — have become so ingrained in you that you regularly call BS on ads you see out in the world.

Like this one.

Oooh, it’s so bad, it’s good.

A shirtless JFK Jr lookalike nuzzles his mother — no, wait — it’s his wife!

She gets her four E’s every day: exercise, eat right, eb5… and Eddie.

They forgot one: embarrassment!

Don’t get me wrong. I believe moms who read Ladies’ Home Journal, where this ad appeared, want to look younger. But not so they can cougar themselves silly.

We’re far too busy running companies and raising kids who will hopefully save our planet and otherwise “living our age” to be bothered with robbing cradles. Yes, we salute the Susan Sarandons and Demi Moores out there who pull it off for a while — but it’s not an aspiration of everyday women to chase much, much younger men.

We’re got much, much bigger plans for our wrinkle-free selves, thankyouverymuch.

1) That if mothers are having a hard time balancing the demands of work (or just staying afloat financially) and taking care of their families, they’re not alone.

2) That it’s probably not their fault if they feel overwhelmed, because, without paid leave, good flexible work options, and decent affordable childcare, most mothers in this country wind up struggling in one way or another.

3) That we can’t solve these problems alone. Just as they’re the result of decisions about national policy, the solutions will also come from there, too.

Your book also addresses the war between moms, revealing the real cause of the supposed rift between employed and stay-at-home mothers. Tell us more about that.

I think women in the two camps into which we’re supposed to be divided – working and stay-at-home – have way more in common than we often think. In fact, most stay-at-home moms are, at other points, working mothers. There’s lots of back-and-forth, and most of us share the same struggles – primarily to find enough time to care for our families while earning money, too.

I love how you show that in the “mommy wars” debate, the real enemy is not other women, but a nationwide indifference to what it’s really like for parents and families to survive today. Folks are so desperate to find the flexibility that employers just aren’t providing that work-from-home scams are on the rise. How can women tell the difference between real opportunities and phony ones?

Scams are most incredibly prevalent on-line, with the “bogus”-to-legit ratio being 54:1, last I checked. For starters, if you have to put money down to find out about or gain access to the job opportunity, it’s probably a scam.

One chapter in your book is titled: ’Til Dishes Do Us Part: The Problem with Blaming Men. Where do men factor in to this struggle?

Men also struggle with increasing work hours and decreasing wages, so many of the struggles around time emerge because both partners in a couple are facing similar demands in the workplace. No one has enough time, which really stresses a family.

What can we, as citizens, do to demand more accountability around these issues from our government?

The first, and I think the biggest, step is to recognize that these problems are external and start on the policy level. As I said, I think that’s where they’ll be solved, too. That means to highlight, celebrate and try to replicate our successes (paid leave on the state level, for instance). It also means getting angry and making noise about our failures. Everyone should know that we’re one of tiny handful of countries in the world without paid leave, so we can gain momentum to change it.

Yes! At the screening of “Miss Representation” I was shocked to learn that the U.S is one of only four countries that doesn’t offer paid leave to new mothers — the others being Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Lesotho. You’re right that it’s time to get angry and do some rabble-rousing. Thanks for helping get this very important dialogue going, Sharon!

Now this is a good ad. It connects a product feature most folks don’t give a second thought to — battery life — to everyday experiences we all can relate to.

The reason I single this ad out for excellence in marketing to women? First, that it clearly gets that women buy cars. According to Road and Travel magazine, women account for 65% of new car purchases, 53% of used cars, and influence 95% of all auto purchases.

Yet automotive continues to be one of the biggest offenders, industry-wise, when it comes to marketing to women. Tune in February 5 to the Super Bowl and watch the macho-a-thon of car ads to see what I mean. So many ads shot at high speeds none of us will ever reach driven on stretches of road unfamiliar to our GPS.

Truth is, cars are all about being inside them. How functional is the space, how thoughtfully is it appointed? We care less about how sleek a car looks to an outsider, or how it can eat up pavement, but rather how the experience of owning it and riding it will be, especially in the company of small children.

So kudos to Hyundai for elevating a small feature of its car to one less thing busy moms will have to think about.

How many kids do you have and what are their ages?

I have two boys, ages 9 and 6.

What makes you an uncommon mom?

I’ve chosen a career in law enforcement, which is still uncommon for moms. I’m hoping that this changes in the future! I’m a Supervising Investigator and work for the State of California. I perform the duties of a regular policeman/policewoman, just wear a suit and a gun, handcuffs, and pepper spray every day instead of a uniform. (Note: due to the sensitive nature of Andrea’s job, we have protected her identity in this interview.)

I also am part of a computer forensic team that retrieves electronic data for evidence. In many ways, I confront the same challenges of all working mothers with school age children – scheduling play dates, class workdays, field trips, pick up and drop off times, etc. But instead of running out of a meeting, I’m leaving a search warrant, field operation, or running to and from court in time for pick up. In some ways, it’s isolating, because it’s hard to shift gears from a warrant to the playground and there aren’t many, if any, other moms standing on the playground who do what I do.

And in what ways are you a traditional mom?

I want what all moms want for their children – that they grow up to be happy, confident, well-adjusted people. I still come home and make dinner (OK, not every night and it doesn’t always include all the food groups), do homework, sign permission slips, make lunches, give baths, bake cookies for school, attend field trips, go to baseball and soccer games, and chauffeur.

Can you think of an ad or marketing campaign you’ve seen recently that either “got” you or “missed” you?

I recently flipped through a popular woman’s magazine and was really disappointed to see the number of ads where there was a woman, with a lot of makeup, sitting very suggestively, and promoting everything from a car, to perfume, to watches, jewelery, and clothing! I always “got” the Nike woman ads and felt so empowered after reading them.

Thanks for talking with us, Andrea. And readers: if you know an Uncommon Mom we should feature in an upcoming Maternal Journal, let us know in the Comments section.

Allow me to set the record straight. Twitter is perhaps the most valuable tool, bar none, in a marketer’s tool box. Especially a marketer who targets women.

Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

So let me quickly address common complaints, offer a link to a fun primer for newbies, and then close with a great story about a recent Twitter conversion.

Complaint #1: “I don’t have time to tweet.”

Cool. Then don’t. You need to be “on” Twitter to use it. Yes, in order to tweet you need to set up an account. But you can benefit from Twitter without doing so. How? Use it as a real-time search engine. Search.Twitter.com is the fastest way to get a read on what people are thinking about absolutely anything — a brand, a news story, a holiday, a disaster – whatever. When I recently felt my office chair shimmy in a strange way, I tentatively typed the word “Earthquake” into Twitter search and  saw dozens of posts from the previous ten seconds appear on my screen. It was my lifeline to what was happening in my corner of the world at that moment.

Complaint #2: “My friends aren’t on Twitter.”

It’s not about your friends. Unlike Facebook, which is about connecting with people you know or used to know, Twitter’s about making new connections. It’s about finding kindred spirits, regardless of geography, so you can share what you know and introduce each other to more folks in your sphere of influence.

Complaint #3: “It doesn’t help my ROI.”

As my new friend Ted Rubin says, “Twitter isn’t a selling platform. It’s a seeding platform.” You may not be able to put an exact value on the experimenting, networking, and listening you do on Twitter, but few can dispute the resulting gains.

Last week I tweeted that I wished TaskRabbit had telepathic errand runners that knew when you needed chocolate. Within the hour, a TaskRabbit employee knocked at my door and presented me with a big box of truffles. I tweeted, Facebooked (and now blogged) the heck out of that experience. I don’t think I’ll ever stop telling that story. TaskRabbit was listening and they will benefit from my brand ambassadorship long after those chocolates are gone.  

 Complaint #4: “My blog’s the only thing I can find time to write.”

If you write a blog or manage a Facebook page, Twitter is a goldmine of inspiration. When speaking at a recent conference, I showed the attendees how in five minutes of sleuthing on Twitter, I came up with five juicy subjects for their industry to write about that day. How? By searching keywords and seeing what their customers were talking about that very moment. What could be better than looking like you have ESP about your marketplace?

Convinced? Hope so. And if you need a little hand-holding to get started, I love this mini-site called “Mom, this is how Twitter works.”

In closing, one last story about the serendipity of Twitter. While working on this post, I attempted to connect with a reporter from Inc. magazine via Twitter, only to realize he had a Twitter account he wasn’t using. I emailed him my thoughts about a business writer so clearly missing the benefits of such a great business tool and he wrote an article about it. Proof, yet again, of the power of Twitter.

Pinterest.

Just saying it makes me swoon. What is it about this amazingly beautiful new social site that is so dizzyingly addictive?

 Not just one thing, but five.

#1 It’s all dopamine, all the time.

War-torn countries. Freeway pile-ups. Hurricane aftermaths. We see so many disturbing images every day. What a relief to surrender ourselves to image upon image of delicious eye-candy.

#2 It’s silent.

Women – especially those with kids – have a lot of noise in their lives. Most social networks add to the cacophony – with video sharing, podcasts, and music sharing. Even sites without sound have chaos built in. Twitter moves at the clip of Class VI river rapids. Blink and you might miss something.

Yet Pinterest is soundless. Something about the sumptuousness of the imagery, combined with the hush of its presentation, creates a deeply zen experience. I feel younger after every visit.

#3 It allows every woman a fantasy life.

Now that Martha Stewart’s daughter has penned a tell-all, blowing the cover on domestic divahood, women everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief. We don’t have to be superwomen after all!

Odd as it may seem, being freed from the expectation that we will live a gracious life frees us to imagine what that unattainable life might have looked like. We pin castles in Scotland we’d like to inhabit, complex confections we’d like to bake, Hollywood leading men we’d like to seduce.  We know we won’t, but we like pretending that we could.

#4 It gets others to weigh in on stuff.

Here’s an experiment: Ask a man the following:

“Honey, what style of drapes do you want for the living room?”

Prepare for stumped silence.

Now try this instead: “Honey, which of these drapes do you prefer?” posed alongside page upon page of box pleats, swag, valance, roman shades — in every hue of the rainbow with every imaginable style of tie-back and trim.

Suddenly, it becomes a rapid-fire yes/no game that yields a winner quickly.

Now imagine substituting almost any word in for the noun there.

Halloween treat

Bathroom tile

Cape Cod bed and breakfast

Bridesmaid shoes

Suddenly you’re getting emphatic feedback from kids, contractors, mothers-in-law, clients – anyone.

Pinterest helps expand the field of choice visually, then narrow it methodically. For busy women, this decisiveness tool is a godsend.

#5 It champions the underdog.

Women care deeply about where their shopping dollars go. And we love to support women-owned businesses. Pinterest creates a level playing field where small-time Etsy shop owners go head-to-head with the Anthropologies of the world.  We discover beautiful one-of-a-kind items without polluting the world with glossy catalogs.  And if we’re unsure which scarf/earrings/blanket we like the most, see #4.

If you’ve not yet explored Pinterest, get cracking. Any marketer targeting the female consumer must have Pinterest on their radar. Better yet, in their marketing mix. 

But nooooooooooo.

Not only is everything about their branding and messaging crafted from a male sensibility, but they’ve now decided that making fun of women is a good marketing tactic.

Feast your eyes on the ads the company launched this month.

They make my job so, so easy. Therefore, I’ll be brief.

- Know your audience. If you need to attract more women to your site, don’t insult them in exchange for a quick laugh.

- Know what you’re selling. Ashley Madison claims they “call it as you see it.” Yet they’re not a “hot or not” site. They’re a matchmaking service that claims to be discrete. This mean-spirited campaign wipes out any trust they may have built up in the minds of both men and women. Women feel discounted. And men uncomfortably wait for the “bald” campaign Ashley Madison may launch as an enticement to women.

- Work from a grain of truth. Studies show that men who cheat overwhelmingly rate their wives/partners as MORE attractive as those they cheat with, not less. So this cheap prank doesn’t even operate from reality.

I’m done. Really done. These are the last pixels we will devote to such an unworthy cause. Too many folks sent these ads to us to not address them. So we did. Now let’s move on, shall we?

Need some inspiration?

Look no further than The KidDictionary, the brilliant musings of Eric Ruhalter, a New Jersey dad who coins funny words parents need, but don’t have. After chuckling at many of Eric’s tweets, I reached out for a quick interview.

What is The KidDictionary and where did you get the idea for it?

The KidDictionary is a book of funny new words that parents can use to describe their kids.

Having kids makes for a hugely profound change in one’s life. It’s like getting hit with a brick the size of a bus. But once you have kids and everything’s changed, you still just have the same old crummy words to use to try to describe the new situations and ideas going on around you. And one’s powers of description aren’t in peak form after they’re hit by a bus-sized brick. So I’m trying to help out and make it easier for parents to describe the ridiculous and outrageous situations, actions, traits and ideals that are in their midst now that they have kids.

Not to mention that parents could use a good laugh. Anyone who has kids or knows kids or knows someone who has a kid or used to be a kid knows that they are the most unwittingly funny beings on the planet. Even more so than monkeys. Kids are hysterical. And when you record a little observation of a specific feat of ridiculousness perpetrated by your kid and give it a name, and someone else recognizes that scenario all too well — they get a kick out of it. And with all due humility, people really do think it’s funny and laugh out loud (or LOL if you’re so inclined). And that is music to my ears.

I know you’re active on Twitter and Facebook. Do you get inspiration for new words from things you read there about parenthood?

I’m on Twitter and Facebook in the company of many, many parents and other people with kids in their lives, and that sometimes inspires new words and ideas by providing affirmation. Someone will say some quirky thing their kid does or a habit he or she displays or the way he or she sees things in the world and I’ll think – I know EXACTLY what that person is talking about. Mine does that too, and there should be a word for it. And I’ll make one up.

What are some words that moms love the most?

Some of our most popular kidisms include:

WISHJACK
(WISH-jack) v :
To blow out the candles on another child’s birthday cake.

TOYPHOON
(toy-FOON) n :
Routine recreational activities of children that leave the inside of your house looking as if it were obliterated by a hurricane.

DETASTE
(dee-TAYST) v :
To harbor a deep hatred and disgust for a food you have never eaten.

CRYDENTITY CRISIS
(cry-DENT-ity CRY-sis) n :
The silence that falls over a group of parents at a play-date when a cry is heard from the next room and they are all trying to determine if the crying child is theirs.

MADDRESS
(mahd-DRESS) v :
To refer to a child by his first and middle name in a stern voice, denoting that he’s about to get in trouble.

POODINI
(poo-DEE-nee) n :
A baby who has learned how to escape from their crib.

STOCKTEASE
(STAHK-teez) n :
A child who lets you buy large quantities of their favorite food and then suddenly decides that they don’t like it anymore.

These are awesome, Eric. Keep ‘em coming. And for those of you wanting more, you can buy Eric’s self-published book at Amazon.com or you can wait until March 2012 for Sourcebooks to publish a new edition. Plus be sure to watch the funny “vocabulary” videos on YouTube. Lastly, follow Eric on Twitter @KidDictionary.