Marketing toward women is a hot topic in today’s marketplace. Failing to market to women at all means missing a massive opportunity. According to a study done by Insights In Marketing only 9% of women feel they are being marketed to correctly. Choosing to market to women in the wrong way can have disastrous results.
As women continue to dominate purchasing power and decisions, marketing towards women will continue to gain importance for small businesses. These tips and facts offer important considerations to any business owner looking to break into this competitive market.
Why Marketing towards Women is Crucial
- Women Control the Purchasing Power of Households: According to She-conomy, women account for an average of 85-percent of all consumer purchasing. In many markets, including food and vacations, women exceed 90-percent. This means that if you are not considering the impact of your marketing within women audiences, you are missing a huge opportunity.
- Women Actively Seek Connections with Brands: TheNextWeb found that 76-percent of women want to part of a select panel or special group to help optimize products, services and marketing. From social media to email lists, this represents an opportunity to grow your following, build your brand and solidify your platform.
- Women Are More Likely to Share Information with Others: An estimated 92-percent of women are likely to recommend their favorite products and services to others. More than half of all moms ask other mothers for advice and consider them the most credible experts when in regards to making purchasing decisions. When it comes to growing a small business and maximizing marketing efficiency, word of mouth is hard to beat. Gaining a loyal female following for your business can result in big gains.
- Women Are Adopting Technology Faster than Men: Women have outnumbered men online for over a decade. Nearly one-quarter of women shop online at least once a day. Those that are not shopping are likely researching products and services with an estimated 78-percent of women using online research to make purchase decisions. With the availability of social media, blogging and other web-based marketing formats, reaching out to this audience is easy.
Best Practices for Marketing to Women
- Avoid Stereotypes: There is no better way to alienate or infuriate an audience than stereotypes. Best-case scenario, your marketing is dismissed and ignored completely. Worst-case, you create a public relations nightmare that undoes years of progress for your business. Avoid the supermom, the meek and frail homemaker and other common stereotypes.
- Be Authentic: Women want marketing that addresses their concerns and addresses their interests. Offer value and speak directly to women in your marketing for improved results. However, this does not mean to exclude men from your marketing approach entirely or to divide your marketing approach by gender. Create an experience, appeal to emotions and be relatable and you will likely see a positive response.
- Express Value and Create Solutions: Despite stereotypes, the majority of women are not impulse shoppers. Most women search out product information before purchasing on the Internet. One-third of women research products and services online before making an offline purchase. Providing obvious value and creating solutions based on problems that women face ensures that important elements about your products and services are being seen and considered.
- Utilize Web 2.0 Technologies and New Media: An estimated 18.3 million moms read blogs at least once a month. This is expected to grow to nearly 21 million by 2014. Pew Internet states that 74-percent of women in their latest study utilize social networking sites. If you are marketing toward women, a website and social media presence is not an option—it is a necessity.
- Interact and Engage: Nine out of ten women say that advertisers do not understand them. Over 75-percent express interest in becoming part of a select panel or special opinion group. When it comes to marketing and research, one of the largest available demographics is asking to be questioned and involved in the process. Reach out on social media, utilize your mailing lists and speak with your customers. The insights that you gain could revolutionize your business.
Marketing toward women is a critical consideration for any business owner. These statistics and best practices provide a solid foundation for tapping into this exploding market to help expand your business. Women are not a niche market. They are a driving force in the global economy. For additional information on how to optimize your marketing toward women check out this post.
About the Author: Willie Pena is a writer who enjoys writing about marketing to different demographics along with marketing research. Connect with him on Google+, LinkedIn.