Women power: how to market to 51% of Americans

Joanna L. Krotz writes about small-business marketing and management issues. She is the co-author of the "Microsoft Small Business Kit" and runs Muse2Muse Productions, a New York City-based custom publisher.

By Joanna L. Krotz

Most industries and marketers have finally figured out something: Women have wallets, and women do make independent, big-ticket purchasing decisions.

Even traditional male sectors such as automotive, financial services and technology have made efforts to attract women consumers. More than a decade ago, for example, General Motors rolled out the Saturn model specifically for women buyers, making sure at the time also to hire women sales staff to sell the cars. Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab and Fidelity, among others, now market financial services to women, including such lures as life-stage retirement advice and investing seminars.

Is there anything wrong with this picture? Yes and no.

Such initiatives tend to be pretty small potatoes compared to the company's mainstream marketing plans and resources. Women may represent a majority of the population, but they are also an astoundingly untapped market:

'Stereotyping lives on'

Besides underestimating their financial clout, marketers often see women as just one homogenous group. "Stereotyping lives on," says Mary Lou Quinlan, chief executive of Just Ask a Woman, a New York consulting firm. "Marketers see a 25-year-old woman as upbeat, on the way in her career, going out at night. The reality is she's highly stressed, might not have a job, or be home with three kids. Such marketing stereotypes hold true for women ages 25 to 40," Quinlan says.

Even companies focused on women customers, like cosmetics or baby care — seem to view women as a single target group. Yet one recent study of Gen X and boomer moms found the mothers very dissimilar when grouped by age, points out Lisa Finn, former editor of Marketing to Women, a monthly trade newsletter. The most useful segmentation was by similar parenting styles — and that cut across the generations.

Overall, women are much better defined by their occupations, interests and identities than by gender. "Focus groups, forms, e-mail customer feedback and other such tools will give you a clear understanding of women's interests, including their passions, life stages, the problems they need solved, consumer sophistication level within your industry and the role they want your brand to play in their lives," says Andrea Learned, coauthor of Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy and How To Reach Your Share of This Crucial Market.

Tailor your pitch, but . . .

But there's definitely a tricky line to walk. On the one hand, you don't want to fall into the cliche of coloring everything pink or dumbing down a message. On the other, it's clear that women do respond when messages are created to be specific to them.

"It's like any sales presentation," says Vanessa Freytag of W-Insight, a Cincinnati marketing strategy firm. "You need to change your style and tailor your pitch to the audience." Don't revamp your brand strategy when trying to target women. Instead, research why men like your product or service, then find the women who parallel those male buyers.

After that, suggests Freytag, you should:

Time and again, say surveys and consultants, women buy based on the relationship they forge with the brand or the service. "If you ignore that as a company, you might as well save your marketing money," says Linda Denny, president of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council, an advocate of women-owned businesses.

Keep talking and listening to women

So to attract women clients, Denny says, you need to communicate the issues and concerns they care about. And you need to keep talking and listening to women. Their lives shift rapidly and they adapt fast while moving through ever-changing roles and responsibilities.

"This is exactly the time to start talking to women," suggests Robin Murray of RM Strategic Marketing, a New York firm that specializes in financial services. "Given the mood these days, women want to talk about the future for their kids, about security and their livelihood," she says. "They want to connect."

If you haven't talked to any women customers lately, start listening.