The Other Woman: Your Business’ Target Market

Equal treatment for all business owners, men and women alike! Right? Perhaps not – gasp!

Now before we make a collective mad dash to our garages to dig out our picket signs about all-things-fairness, (because, truth be told, that’s how I felt when I first starting researching this topic!) let’s explore some considerations to see if there are in fact, instances where gender dictates approach, specifically as it relates to marketing.

If you're an entrepreneur who offers a product or service aimed primarily at women, should your marketing approach be different than that of a company whose product reaches both men and women?

Odds are, since women make up more than 80% of all consumer purchasing decisions, your market is woman-focused, even when your product or service is not!  Is that news to you?  Well, there’s more! For starters, check out She-conomy.com’s Quick Facts on Marketing to Women.

Pocketbook Power is real, and as the big companies who can afford to spend big bucks on market research analyses will confirm, women’s perspective on a product or service can make (or break) a brand.  Women not only trust each other’s opinions, they also utilize social media and person-to-person communication to share their opinions.  Brand loyalty—defined by Wikipedia as “a consumer's commitment to repurchase or otherwise continue using the brand and can be demonstrated by repeated buying of a product or service or other positive behaviors such as word of mouth advocacy,” is strongly perpetuated by groups in constant communication with masses, a great example of which are mom bloggers.

Successful groups such as TwitterMoms and MomTV.com offer women the opportunity to pick, choose, and refuse from a variety of brands, including heavy hitters such as Walmart, Huggies, Alamo Rent-A-Car, and a bevy of others.  Networks like TwitterMoms give brands an “in” with the group most likely to influence a potential new customer’s decision to buy – a fellow mom they trust.  Through the use of blog posts, forum conversations, and giveaways through Twitter Parties and Facebook Fan promotions, they get instant and constant access to the ones with the buying power!

But it does get tricky for marketers, because on the one hand, the word on the street is that women don’t want to be “marketed to.” Yet women still respond differently than men to certain marketing efforts. So what is the “right” way to get it done?  Research shows that marketing to women is not about making a version of your product “For Women,” but more about the overall approach, including, for example, the design of your web site and the way your store is set up.

Fortunately, researchers have identified effective methods. These include transparent marketing, visible marketing, and more.  For more info, check out this excellent video on marketing methods.

Want to learn about some of the key considerations when marketing to women?  Check out these speaker platforms for insight on primary areas of study as it relates to female buying power.

Feeling enlightened about female buying power? Share this post on Twitter!

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