According to BusinessWeek magazine, 80% of consumer purchasing decisions are made by women.

The problem with most marketing campaigns is that they do not appeal directly with women, or at least are not targeted towards women. If 80% of the buying power is held by women, why would you try to appeal to both men and women? You will lose. Target women and you’ll have enough customers to last you a life-time.

First things first. Who is your target customer? Get out a pen and paper and write this down:

1. Who is she? (education, marital, lifestyle situation)

2. What is her name? (make one up…it will help you talk about her more vividly)

3. What is her problem she’s trying to solve?

4. Why does she have this problem?

5. What would a solution to this problem mean to her?

6. How has she tried to solve this problem before?

Once you gone through this exercise, you can begin to ask yourselves the questions that other people start with but can never really answer fully:

1. Does my product or service actually help my customer?

2. What does my customer need to know about my product or service in order to make a good buying decision?

3. How can I communicate this information to my customer? What words can I use? What should my site look like?

What you may discover is that the marketing techniques that you are using now may appeal more to men and are falling on deaf ears.

Here are some solutions for changing your techniques to appeal to women:

• Changing everything to pink will not convince a woman that your product or service is superior. In fact, it will probably make them think it is inferior.

• By and large, women’s lives are busier than most men would assume. Your marketing should demonstrate convenience. Tell her a story about how your product or service can do these things:
               o Can you save her time for cooking dinner?
               o Can you save her time for studying? (college student, of course)
               o Can you save her commuting time?

• Men are genetically disposed to communicating about facts, while women tend to communicate to build relationships. How does your marketing emphasize relationship building?

• Women want a perfect solution to their problems. You have to arm them with information that allows them to reach the conclusion that your product is the perfect solution, or that your service is the perfect answer. Use FAQ pages; blog posts filled with stories; testimonials; and an attentive and active support system to assure your customers that they’ve made the right decision.

• Stay away from war metaphors in your ad copy. Such examples include: dominate; win; beat; conquer; fire up; blow away. These words may never reach the brain of your female prospect. Similarly, a phrase like “this is another tool in your belt” is directly targeted towards men. For women, use something like, “crayons in the box” or “spices in the rack.”

Posted by:

 Cyle Greenwell