Seven Key Insights for Marketing To Women

1) There is no “women’s market” there’s “your women’s market”
Imagine you have a financial services company. In evaluating your offering, would you assume that a single 25-year-old a couple of years into her career and 45-year-old divorcee who’s owned her own business since 1993 would have the same needs or concerns? Are both of them really your customer? Understand which segments of the women’s market will benefit the most from your products or services and craft your message to appeal to them.

2) “Brand Lite” isn’t the answer
Many companies make the mistake of thinking they need to create a separate brand to reach women, one that is softer and more accessible. And, let’s be honest, they’re also afraid that feminizing the core brand will alienate the guys. The reality is that marketing to women is just smarter marketing, grounded in making a commitment to understanding what she values and communicating how your product or service can best address her needs. Women’s shopping standards tend to be the very highest so those companies who create products, messaging and retail experiences that appeal most to women will not only attract more female customers, they’ll gain more customers overall.

3) Communicate value instead of listing features
Sounds simple but many organizations develop and market products without ever asking their potential women customers what they’re looking for, what features they think are most important and why. In product development it’s easy to get stuck on some piece of whiz-bang technology and want to share it with the world but if it’s unclear how it will benefit the end user what’s the point? She’s too busy to waste time connecting the dots. Make your product advantages clear from the outset.

4) Understand that she’s always watching
Women are great at detecting inconsistencies. If your marketing message doesn’t match up with your product performance and your retail experience, you’ve lost her trust and she won’t buy from you. Women remember everything. Even little details, especially little details. Be true to your message and your brand.

5) Respect her
You’d think we’d have gotten past this by now and in many ways we’ve come a long way (baby) but there are still many industries and organizations who either treat women as if they are invisible or go so over the top in making a pink, girly statement that women feel stereotyped, unseen for who they are. Once you’ve identified your segment(s) of the women’s market, open a dialogue, determine their needs and the things they hold most important in their lives. Find the common ground in your brand values and reflect those shared ideals in your messaging.

6) Embrace high standards
Women are suckers for quality. This doesn’t mean over engineering a product or adding unnecessary bells and whistles. It does mean building products that last and live up to her expectations, answering her questions and anticipating her needs. It also means having knowledgeable sales people, a pleasant retail environment and online tools that make it easy for her to research your product or service and understand how it will fit into her life and, most importantly, make it better.

7) Be willing to commit
There it is, the dreaded “c” word. The reason? It goes both ways. This isn’t a market you can just dip your toes into. Make a concerted long-term effort to serve your segment of the women’s market and she will not only reward you with her loyalty, she’ll also tell all her friends, giving you a very profitable ROI that will only increase over time.