Getting in Touch with the Feminine Half — or More

Businesses are waking up to an important fact, namely that women make up the majority of their customer base. Many businesses however don’t know what to do about it and are missing tremendous marketing opportunities.

We’ll use statistics from the U.S. in this article, but they represent a trend that’s current in all RAN ONE countries:

– 85 percent of women will at some point in their lives be solely responsible for their homes. 90 percent of women will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their lives.

– Over the past three decades while men’s median income has barely budged (+0.6% after inflation), women’s income has soared a dramatic 63%.

– Women bring in half or more of the household income in the majority of households.

And finally–

– Women control 80% of all consumer buying — which in turn accounts for 2/3 of the GDP.

Hit the Female Target

Over the past ten years there has been a dramatic shift in marketing. The old “shotgun” approach has been replaced by targeting, with market research honing its analytical abilities to tightly define market segments for any product. This in turn has led to a proliferation of specialist media that lets advertisers hit their target with minimal wastage — if they can identify it.

There-‘s no such thing as “marketing to women” any more than there is a broad male market. The target for a product may be something like “African-American females in professional positions age 35-54” and there are ways to hit it with the right marketing channels.

Is it worth the effort? If you don’t market to the female segment of your prospects you’re costing yourself a lot of money. If you think that doesn’t apply to you it could be because you aren’t aware that women bring in the only income in 27% of all households and 48% of working wives provide at least half their household’s income.

By all means go for the male consumers too, but if they’re married there’s a possibility that their wives earn more than they do — it’s that way in one-third of households and the figure’s rising.

It’s the same in the world of business

If you’re a B2B marketer and you don’t consider women in your marketing plan you’ll soon learn that there are good reasons to change your thinking. Why? For starters 49% of all professional and managerial workers are female. And 51% of all purchasing managers and agents are women too.

Up the Corporate Ladder – Obviously it is no longer unusual to see women in the corridors and conference rooms of today’s corporate offices. In fact, today, 49% of all professional and managerial level workers are women. Even more interesting to the businesses that sell materials to major companies is the fact that 51% of all purchasing managers and agents are women.

Thank goodness it’s still men who are the entrepreneurs – the ones who own their own businesses. Really? Bet you didn’t know that businesses owned by women (where the ownership is at least 50% female) comprise 40% of all companies. And these aren’t just little businesses either. The fastest-growing businesses owned by women are firms with more than 100 employees.

Women are More Profitable Customers

Women are more loyal customers. They’re risk-averse and more likely to stick with a brand and give their friends word-of-mouth referrals about products they like.

Women shop for themselves and others. If you convince her to buy something she’s very likely to purchase it for someone else as well.

Women are more likely to shop around for what they want. They’re open to suggestion and consider more options than men do when buying something.

It’s easier to keep a female customer by treating her right than it is to keep a male customer. (It’s also harder to win her back if you mistreat her.)

Women prefer non-aggressive marketing. They’d rather have the facts to consider than think somebody else is trying to tell them they need a product.

Any marketer that ignores the female market is displaying serious commercial ignorance, as is the one that thinks marketing to women is a case of “one size fits all”.

The sooner you start putting some serious thought into these differences, the sooner you’ll be able to tap into the biggest-growing market in the world today.

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Copyright 2004, RAN ONE Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from www.ranone.com.