consumer purchasing

Marketing to Women: Not a Niche

Women Are Not a Niche Market

When will marketers finally get it? Recently I was speaking to a professional group and was introduced as a specialist in the marketing to women “niche.” I almost choked. Once again, my specialty has been referred to as niche. Really?

Women influence 85 percent of all consumer purchases, and represent over $7 trillion in purchasing power. This is a niche market?

Yes, our team has managed public relations and marketing programs for food and baby products, but we’ve also represented men’s grooming products, motorcycle and automotive manufacturers, fast food, an airline, a real estate firm, gaming, and a major university. Why? Because eventually it all comes back to women. Women who, yes, are often moms – but who frequently have responsibility for making major business decisions as well. Like buying computer servers. And health insurance. And financial services.

According to Tom Peters, one of the world’s top marketing gurus, women are the top marketing opportunity for the foreseeable future.

Women Hold Purchasing Power

For years, women have been recognized as the chief purchasing officers for their households, and they still are the primary decision makers for household goods. But women also drive the big-ticket expenditures for themselves, their families, and their businesses. For example, women drive the purchases of:

91 percent of new homes
66 percent of computers
92 percent of vacations
65 percent of new cars
89 percent of bank accounts
93 percent of food

All this influence at the same time that 91 percent of these women feel that advertisers don’t understand them.

59 percent of women feel misunderstood by food marketers
66 percent feel misunderstood by healthcare marketers
74 percent feel misunderstood by investment marketers
84 percent feel misunderstood by investment marketers

Source: Yankelovich Monitor

The Key to Marketing to Women

It’s a scientific truth that women and men see things differently – because their brains work differently. While men think in abstract principles and have great spatial acuity, women are more accessible emotionally and think more holistically. Translating that into a brand’s marketing messages is critical in reaching this key consumer.

Does your brand truly “get” women and how they relate to your marketing messages?

1 In 4 Moms Say Purchase Decisions Are Influenced by Social Media Recommendations

Those of us who work regularly in this space know that bloggers — particularly mommy bloggers — are a powerful and influential force, but now comes the data to prove it.

According to a new study by The NPD Group and Child’s Play Communications, 79% of all moms in the U.S. with children under the age of 18 are active in social media. Of these moms, about one in four (23%) said they have purchased a children’s product as a result of a recommendation from a social networking site or blog.

The study: “Social Media Moms: How Networking Impacts Purchasing Behaviors” probes into the behaviors and opinions of active social media moms, defined as moms who currently belong to a social networking site and/or write, read or comment on blogs. Based on responses from a sample of more than 2,000 of these moms, it is evident that online recommendations have even more impact among the most frequent social media users: 43% of these moms who use these sites on a daily basis have purchased a children’s product as the result of a recommendation from these sites.

Active social media moms who purchased a children’s product based on an online recommendation said that, on average, they did so five times in the past year. More than half (55%) of these moms said they made their purchase because of a recommendation from a personal review blog and 40% from a Facebook recommendation.

“Social media has become an enormous influence on purchasing, and savvy marketers have certainly begun to embrace this vehicle when messaging to moms,” said Anita Frazier, Industry Analyst for The NPD Group. “But many marketers have yet to fully realize the potential of social media and the power of peer group recommendations, which means more opportunities are on the horizon.”

Clearly, moms nationwide are making purchasing decisions as a result of the information and advice other moms are providing through social media. It’s important that brand managers continue looking to this group of influencers and work to develop ongoing relationships with them as they develop their marketing strategies.

Has your brand identified its strategy for reaching moms?

Marketing Lessons From The Gap

The recent brouhaha over Gap Inc.’s attempt to change its logo is a cautionary tale for all brands.

Brand building is just that – brand “building.” It’s about building the brand through an ongoing consumer relationship. That’s especially true with women, because a woman’s loyalty to a brand in particular is tied to the relationship she feels with the brand, and how much she feels connected to it. It’s about knowing how to talk to women, and how to listen to her.

Logo aside, I think Gap has more pressing issues. Like many women, Gap became my go-to store when I had my son. The durable, high-quality denim and expandable waistbands in their children’s department meant I got maximum wear (and style) out of the purchases I made for him. And the products worked for me as well. They had a great selection of jeans in a large variety of cuts and washes. But over the years the quality and style began to decline. The denim was thinner, and the jeans felt cheap. And to add insult to injury, the price was not lowered to make up for the lack of quality. Eventually, I stopped going to Gap or even shopping its online site, and as a result the brand became invisible to me.

The Gap brand currently seems trapped between several fashion category trends. Women like to mix low-priced basics from Target or Wal-Mart with expensive signature pieces from premium brands. Unlike Abercrombie & Fitch, which has a deep understanding of its consumer and what makes them “tick,” Gap seems to have lost relevance with its consumers, or to even be able to identify its core target audience.

Yes, this was a massive miss for Gap, right up there with New Coke. To make matters worse, their “crowd sourcing” spin seems to have ticked off the entire graphic design community as well.

But most importantly, Gap’s trials and tribulations over the past few days really highlights the power of social media. What consumers (particularly women) might have thought privately while walking into a store before is now shared publicly. Personally, I like the old logo better, but the logo isn’t what draws me to a particular brand. It’s how invested I am in the brand, and more importantly, how invested the brand is in me.

I get that Gap wants to rebrand itself. The brand seems to be attempting a renaissance, and rethinking the logo is a legitimate thought. But Gap could have used social media to get their customers invested in this rebranding effort. By not asking customers on Facebook and Twitter for feedback before unveiling the redesign, Gap marketers missed an opportunity to speak to the brand’s key audiences – many of them women. Why wouldn’t they invite loyal customers to be a part of their journey, and feel some ownership and pride in the process?

What do you think – did Gap miss the boat?

Does “Mancession” Mean Women Will Lead the Recovery?

Mancession

Is Consumer Spending by Women Driving the Economic Recovery?

The 2007-2008 recession has hit men so much harder than women that it has even coined a new phrase: the Mancession, according to a recent Newsweek article.

Men are the victims of two thirds of the 11 million jobs lost since the recession began, primarily because they work in industries like construction and manufacturing that were most severely impacted by the recession. According to economists, they also will face a much more difficult road to recovery than their female counterparts.

American women already are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two thirds of their households, and it is predicted that by 2024, the average woman in America will make more money than the average man.

The Nuts and Bolts of Women Consumer Spending

American women are responsible for 85 percent of all consumer purchases; they hold 93 percent of U.S. bank accounts, 51 percent of all personal wealth, and are worth more than $7 trillion in consumer spending power—more than the entire economy of Japan. On a global level, women are the biggest emerging market in the history of the planet—more than twice the size of India and China combined. It’s a seismic change, and by all indications it will continue: of the 15 job categories expected to grow the most in the next decade, all but two are filled primarily by women.

Such a drastic shift hopefully will result in corporations sitting up and taking notice—and ensuring their products and services appeal to female consumers. Brands need to pay close attention to how they’re marketing to women, because ultimately it may be the female consumer that pulls us all out of this “mancession.”

The Lies Women Tell

A few posts back I touched briefly on how the book What She’s Not Telling You highlights an interesting behavior by the female consumer –– the habit of telling the “half truth” vs. the “whole truth.” Understanding this concept is so important to marketers that I decided to revisit.

Buying into a woman’s “half truth” can cost marketers billions of wasted dollars; not just in concept development and market research, but in the marketplace where it really matters. A half truth is what a woman is willing to admit, while the whole truth is what she really believes, does and buys. For example:

“I am happy with my looks” (half truth); “If given a choice, I’d like to look better than I do” (whole truth).

An example of how a half truth can negatively affected a brand is Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty.” This campaign broke the rules of the beauty business by putting less-than-perfect women in their plain white undies all over billboards, the media and the Internet. Talk shows went crazy and Dove was hailed as the brand that “gets it”. The PR value of the Real Beauty campaign was unparalleled. But soon after, Dove’s sales slowed and eventually flatlined. Why? Because Dove fell for the half truth that women want to feel good about their natural looks. But the whole truth is that women really want to look better than they do, which is why they spend $7 billion annually trying.

On the flip side, Procter & Gamble’s Oil of Olay identified this whole truth: “Just because I’ve earned these facial lines doesn’t mean I want to wear them,” and marketed their Pro-Age Regenerist product based on the whole truth that women want beauty products that really work. They marketed Regenerist as an alternative to invasive cosmetic surgery, and the launch became the biggest skin care launch in the mass market.

Are you identifying the whole truth when marketing to women consumers? What half truths have you told a brand?

The Purchasing Power of Women: The Marketing2Women Conference

Marketers Learn about Women’s Purchasing Power

Today marks the first day of the 2010 Marketing2Women conference in Chicago. I’m on hand to hear marketing execs from GM, Kodak, Mary Kay, MasterCard, P&G, Aetna and others talk about the purchasing power of women and the importance of building relationships with women in a way that they understand and appreciate.

Smart brands and marketers understand this is not an option, as women control or influence 85% of consumer purchasing in almost every single product category — from automobiles to electronics to pharmaceuticals and everything in between. Yet, despite their dominant role in our consumer economy, women repeatedly say that marketers don’t understand them.

Read my thoughts on a female consumer behavior panel I attended at the conference and how it illustrates just how mighty the purchasing power of women is.

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