Business Summaries
By Regine P. Azurin
Posted Sunday, August 22, 2004
This article is based on the following book: EVEolution Understanding Women –Eight Essential Truths that Work in Your Business and Your Life" by Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold, 2001 Hyperion, New York ISBN 0-7868-6523-7 Paperback ISBN 0-7868-8441-X 272 pages
For any business to survive today, it needs to understand how to market to women. The fact is women make 80% of all purchasing decisions. Women are brand loyalists. Your product or service must address their complex, multiple lives as home managers, home-workers, entrepreneurs, caretakers of elderly parents, and professionals. Build a lasting, meaningful relationship with your female customer. EVEolutionize your business before it’s too late!
Understand the eight truths about marketing to women:
1. Connecting your female consumers to each other connects them to your brand. Women need a “backyard fence” to talk to each other. If your brand is marketed in such a way that it connects women to each other as a community, a group, sisters, mothers and daughters and friends, they will embrace your brand into their everyday lives.
The web communities such as iVillage, women.com, and oxygen.com are just a few of the examples of women being linked together. Through EVEolution, and with the help of Faith Popcorn’s consultancy firm, BrainReserve, Snackwell’s launched a program of Mother-Daughter workshops across the US. It bonded mothers and daughters, reinforced the idea of eating healthy, while nurturing a positive self-image and attitude about food to pre-teen girls.
2. If you’re marketing to one of her lives, you’re missing all the others. From home office services, to cameras keeping an eye on her kids at daycare, if your brand markets to her merged professional and personal lives, then you will win her heart. Women need assistance in running all the facets of their lives. Appeal to her need for convenience. Give her a solution for her perennial problem of what to fix for dinner tonight. Supply her with support for dog-walking, childcare, telecommuting. Deliver her dry cleaning, diapers, and pizza, run her errands, so she can find more time to just relax at home with her kids. Acknowledge that she thinks about her family while she is at work, and provide her with a service that gives her peace of mind.
3. If she has to ask, it’s too late. Anticipate her needs. Women are the same whether it’s personal or work. If her husband doesn’t anticipate what she needs, she may be disappointed in him. If an employer doesn’t anticipate she needs a nursery near the office, and fairer compensation, she may consider another EVEolutionized company that offers more mother-friendly
perks.
How to become more Anticipatory than merely Reactive: Women must be in on the planning every step of the way. Talk to consumers in ways that inspire innovative thinking.
4. Market to her peripheral vision and she will see you in a whole new light.
Women are attentive to the small details men miss. They will go out and shop for that suit they saw on Diane Sawyer last night while watching the news. Starbucks is one company that is EVEolved all around. The female customer can enjoy her coffee in a bright, clean place with a well-stocked restroom (a must if you want to attract women) and she can purchase the in-house music on CD or a cookie for her toddler in tow. Work on the subtle details surrounding your brand, the store music, the way your menu is designed, the uniforms of your waitresses or sales representatives. She will more likely notice these things than if you assault her with aggressive
advertising or bothersome phone calls. .
5. Walk, run, go to her, secure her loyalty forever. The Avon lady was just the first step. She was born in an age when women stayed at home because they were mainly housewives. Today, women don’t want to make that extra trip to the grocery or salon because they are simply exhausted. If you can provide her quality service at home, at the times when she is at home, your brand will be indispensable. Why not supply her groceries on a monthly basis? Go to her, because frankly, she doesn’t have the time to go looking for you.
6. This generation of women consumers will lead you to the next. Practice the brand-me-down approach. The detergent a woman uses is most likely the brand her mother always used. Household names are what they are because women run the household. In Asian markets where family ties are strong, the brand-me-down approach will definitely sell. Attaching a brand to the name Mother will have a strong identification with quality and trust. Hold mother’s day events or family day events and strengthen your commitment to her.
7. Co-parenting is the best way to raise a brand. Ask her how she feels, what colors she prefers, how does she think she can be served best? When was the last time you asked her for feedback and actually responded by redesigning your product?
8. Everything matters – you can’t hide behind your logo. Women look for integrity in a brand. From the way you treat your employees, your CEO’s personal life, to issues like animal testing, environmentally sound practices, and raw materials sourcing. You need to walk your talk and back up your claim. Women don’t simply look for value in a brand. They look for Values.
About the Author
By: Regine P. Azurin and Yvette Pantilla (http://www.bizsum.com/freearticle2.htm) "A Lot Of Great Books....Too Little Time To Read" Free Book Summaries Of Latest Bestsellers for Busy Executives and Entrepreneurs Mailto: freearticle@bizsum.com
