Marketing specifically to women is a hot topic right now in seemingly every industry. For example, in the automotive industry, statistics show that women buy more than half of all vehicles and influence more than 85 percent of all vehicle purchases. With numbers this big, it would be a serious mistake to ignore this market.
Yet what does it mean to market to women? Should we include pink on our websites or liberally border web pages with flowers? A lot of the marketers out there seem to assume this kind of stereotypical approach will appeal to women. Try again. Marketing to women doesn't mean pandering to archaic and juvenile ideas of what women want, it means augmenting your marketing and sales with new techniques that take the unique female brain into account.
Andrea Learned, founder and president of Learned on Women, is the co-author of "Don't Think Pink" and an internationally recognized women's marketing expert and speaker. Her blog is a phenomenal resource for information about marketing to women. In her article, "Reaching the Gentler Sex: Why Marketing to Women Requires a Holistic Approach", Learned states that the key to reaching women buyers is to understand how women buyers think; namely, they engage in "web thinking," or holistic buying. Quoting noted socio-anthropologist Helen Fisher, Learned's article states: "As women make decisions, they weigh more variables, consider more options and outcomes, recall more points of view, and see more ways to proceed." Women tend to think in terms of a "web" of interrelated factors, as opposed to a man's tendency to think in a linear fashion. So, how can you mold your website to appeal to web thinking?
Build diverse search options into your website
Since women tend to think in an interrelated way, it makes sense that when shopping for a high-ticket item like a car, they will think of what they need the vehicle to do first, and then consider the make and model second. Do they have children and so need a four-door vehicle? How about if they travel an hour to work and back each day so need stellar gas mileage, not a hulking SUV? Vehix.com is an example of how to build different kinds of vehicle searches into your website. Visitors to the site can search by make or model, but they can also choose to browse by style, such as coupe, hybrid or station wagon. From there, customers can search by market segment (two-door, four-door, luxury) or price. Another great example is the website like.com.
As another example, Like.com uses visual matching technology to categorize images of products: a user can search a wide variety of possible products to find one that is 'just like' the clothing or accessory that she saw on a television show, worn by a friend or on a stranger walking down the street. These types of search options allow women to weigh more variables, and they show that you are aware that lifestyle factors are a major part of their buying process, which relates to my second point:
Insert the human approach into your website
As Learned notes in her article, "For women, the emotional side of the buying process may be what draws them in, while the linear facts and figures -- though still important -- may come into play further into the process."
Showcasing the experiences of real clients is a great way to insert humanity into your website. For example, when a website visitor uses vehicle configuration technology to research and shop for a particular vehicle, you could insert alongside a photo and a brief quote from a customer who bought that same vehicle. A quote from an actual customer can emotionally grab a shopper. There's no more compelling way to show the benefits of your products than by relaying personal experience.
This is a layered approach that perfectly fits web thinking and no website does it better than eBay. Every person who buys from eBay has the opportunity to leave feedback about the seller for others to read. This feedback is so widely-read and used by shoppers to decide if they want to do business with a particular seller that eBay even created 'Power Sellers,' designated by an eye-catching icon and a score of at least 98 percent total positive customer feedback.
These are just two ways to make your website amenable to web thinking, but there are many more ways just waiting to be discovered. If you are really serious about drawing more women shoppers to your website, consider asking your satisfied female customers why they chose to buy from you and how you can improve your appeal. Incorporate the ideas here with those you get from customers and your website can be a haven for web thinking shoppers.
Peter Batten is general manager of Chrome Systems. Read full bio.
