Marketing to women { small business marketing series }

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Originally published in Small Business Charleston, October 2008
By Tiffany Jonas

Did you know that women are responsible for 83% of consumer purchases, including 94% of home furnishings purchases and 92% of vacation purchases? Their influence extends to services, even those traditionally considered in the realm of the other half: for instance, women choose bank accounts 89% of the time and make 80% of healthcare decisions.* If women are a substantial part of your target market (and given these statistics, they should be) but you feel they haven't been giving your bottom line its due, take an honest look at your marketing.

All things (and men and women) being equal, there are well documented differences between the genders. We don't have space here to consider the full range of ideas that marketing to women encompasses, but here are four key tips:

1 } Ask real women what they think. Show your ad concept to several women before running with it. You may find that in your attempt to show sympathy for a woman's busy schedule or her key role in her family's life, you've actually ended up annoying your target market. Consider the current TV commercial showing a man and little boy exclaiming over a spill on the floor and discussing how many paper towels it will take to clean it up, at which point a wife/mother swoops in and cheerfully soaks up the spill with a single paper towel. I'm guessing that in reality such a woman would have some words of instruction to the menfolk as to cleaning that spill up themselves! The ad flatters no one and potentially annoys its own target market.

2 } Most women appreciate detail. In today's overloaded society, you would do very well to distill each of your ads down to one idea and communicate it simply, powerfully, and succinctly. On the other hand, if that idea appeals to a woman she'll want to know more, and if you skimp on the specifics or make the details hard to find, you'll lose her more quickly than you might think. How can you do both? First, don't ask her to call for more information (evoking the dread of automated phone trees and interminable hold times) or dig around your website trying to find some relevant information. Instead, supply a direct link to the details (e.g. www.yoursite.com/product-benefits) or get creative with your advertising dollar: run your ad in a smaller space than you'd planned, and with the money you save on the smaller ad space, buy more space below it or on the next page and place the details there.

3 } Most women appreciate design. From advertising to websites to packaging, women are attracted to pleasant visuals, textures, and sounds. Some manufacturers have found success building in "touch here" openings in their packaging of products as utilitarian as gel wrist rests, for instance… and woe to the company that leaves its web design solely in the hands of (often male) tech wizards. They can ensure your website operates brilliantly, but how it looks can be an entirely different story. Choose a graphic designer to handle the visual design of your website or marketing project—but as with #1 above, before you make your final selection, show his or her design portfolio to some of the women in your target market, and see what they say.

4 } Most women appreciate relationships. Financial ads showing a single person paddling down a river in a top-of-the-line kayak might instantly represent desirable independence to many men … and loneliness and isolation to many women. Women are individuals too, but it still might not be a bad idea to find ways to tie your product or service benefits into key relationships in women's lives. Depending on the life stages and demographics of your target market, that might be families, husbands, children, grandchildren, best friends, groups of girlfriends, or even friendly coworkers. (The latter three represent low-hanging fruit, since so far, relatively few companies have cottoned on to the concept of a woman outside the family.)

Here's to increasing your gender appeal… and profits! 

* Note: the statistics in the first paragraph and some of the information in this article comes from the excellent book Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market by Marti Barletta. Highly recommended.

About the author

Aio Design founder Tiffany Jonas graduated magna cum laude from the Missouri School of Journalism, a top journalism school, with a degree in advertising. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and has taken coursework toward an MBA. She is a member of Mensa, an organization for those who have tested in the top 2% of the population on a standardized intelligence test, and is also a member of the American Marketing Association and the eMarketing Association. She has been the two-time recipient of an 11-state award for design, honored at the Chicago Book and Media Show, and the New York Times called one of her book designs "well-produced and elegant." In 2008 she was named one of the Charleston Regional Business Journal's Forty Under 40, an honor recognizing individuals who have achieved professional success while contributing to the Charleston community.

What would you like to know next?

• For other articles on small business marketing online (and off), go to our list of available articles
• To learn about web design for affluent women consumers, visit our affluent web design article
• If you’d like to find out more about Aio Design or our pricing, start with our about Aio Design page
• If you’re looking for ways to find the right web design company for you, order our free report
• If affluent women are your target market, visit our marketing to women page
• If you’re a woman entrepreneur, visit our page for women business owners