What you should know before getting into women marketing
Ah, women! What do women want? You can either ask Mel Gibson or you can learn from this.
How do you market to women? If you are really that observant, you are probably aware of the fact that some companies are ‘getting’ into women more effectively while others have not been very successful. The more successful ones are re-designing their processes to make it more ‘women-friendly.’ The unsuccessful ones do as little as use photos of women on their sites and call it a day.
Let me enumerate some mistakes that you must avoid if ever you consider venturing in something that would catch the fancy of these fair creatures. These tips are meant to serve as a quick checklist to follow as you design a new campaign. Read on:
1. Assumption: Thinking that women are just a "niche".
Fact: Women are the primary consumers in the United States.
Women are not just a niche. They in fact, represent an economic powerhouse, making over 85% of the consumer purchases (in the United States) and influencing over 95% of total goods and services. Women also purchase 50% or better of traditional "male" categories like automobiles, consumer electronics, and PCs.
2. Assumption: Thinking that the female consumer marketing opportunity
requires less funding.
Fact: Women are economic powerhouse so reaching them should be a budget
priority.
As a consumer group, women are a force to contend with. Efforts to connect with your women consumers overall should have a fully dedicated source of funds behind them.
3. Assumption: More men are on-line than women.
Fact: Women are increasingly becoming the majority of Web users and do
the most on-line shopping in the US.
In 2000, women became a slight majority of Web users in the United States for the first time in history (51% female/49% male). More importantly, women make up almost half of first-time Web buyers.
4. Assumption: Women like to be entertained with on-line shopping (like
they do at malls).
Fact: Women prefer to be well-informed and focused while purchasing
on-line.
If you truly know how a woman makes a purchase, all your efforts would focus on making them an informed decision-maker. This may include site navigation, archives, and customer service. Surprisingly, women are actually different from what are being projected – meandering and social ‘mall cruising’ lots.
The above facts have been culled from studies about how women make purchases. These should help you save significant time and money whether you are examining your current marketing strategy, or building a new initiative, or even coming up with a new plan for your commercial color
printing ad.
What does a woman want? Well, you have to find out. Reaching women more effectively isn’t rocket science, but it is still a little bit complicated, don’t you think?
