MN AMA – Marketing to Women – Nine Essential Ways to Engage Her in Your Brand

She Hive Marketing (Betsy Perez and Sharon Carleton)   gave very interesting presentation  and useful points to consider immediately. Marketing to women – related statistics was quite curious.

Why target women?

83% of all consumer purchases are done by women, and over 90% are influenced by women, women as a category outspend every other category, women involved into 89% of all consumer electronics purchasing decisions, do 80% of health care decisions, have 7 million more credit cards, and involved into majority of business purchases.

91% of women believe advertisers don’t understand them.

Recommended book – Marketing to Women by Marti Barletta

People are the most interesting in women’s lives… it is important to concentrate on human benefits and the user, not the product.

Portraying the target market – “the 10 rule” – 10 years younger and 10 pounds lighter. Women can feel depressed if a woman on the picture looks too much close to herself. The image does not have to represent a beautiful woman, but a fit one.

Communication for men – facts. Communication for women – “scoop.” Example: Wii is explaining how to fit the activity that the product makes available into her life.

9 ways to engage a woman:

1. Ask her what she thinks. Women are not as comfortable disclosing their opinions in a group of strangers (that can be dominated by a strong personality). Smaller group of women where participants know each other could be more effective. Online possibilities: surveys, communities, rating and feedback sites.

http://www.quarkbase.com/ – a free tool that allows evaluation of different websites, including number of links from social bookmarking sites.

2. Get into her conversations.

84% of women will tell friends when they receive a positive brand experience; brands with most conversations grow 4 times faster compared to an average brand.

Example – Charmin cleanest New York bathroom

Blogosphere is important for targeting women; Facebook is growing number of boomer women
Twitter: 64% of moms follow at least one brand, 48% of moms are willing to try product or service recommended on Twitter

But – women may not be comfortable receiving rewards for recommending something to their friends – charitable donations might work more effectively.

Caution about social media – it is important to understand the possible pitfalls; remember Motrin commercial mishap 

 
3. Don’t disappoint her online. Women are comparing your website to every great web site on earth. Yes, it is important to update content. Amazon is a good example for functionality and usability.

Example: Jack Cards  – a web site that helps remembering birthdays and other important event. The site allows selecting cards and dates and will send a card to the user in advance. It helps save time and maintain relationships.

Example: Moms panel from Disney World  women expect interaction and may not want to limit themselves to “brochure ware” web site with tips on trips and recommendations. Moms panel provides this experience.  

4. Go viral.

Caution from another presentation – viral can not be a strategy… it is not possible to plan for viral video – infamous Elf Yourself was one of 20 web sites produced

Though a classic viral marketing success, Elf Yourself was not connected to the brand enough and many of the users did not know what brand produced the site.

JC Penny viral video and site Beware of the Dog House

5. Market for the “thrift shift:

11% of women optimistic that the recession will end soon
39% of women consider their financial situation as “not good enough”

6. Be a need, not a want

More and more people are using lists when shopping

Wal-Mart: you can find you “wants” here too… on budget.
McCafe – luxuries without the guilt (women feel guilt too often)

7. Back to the basics. People are doing more activities themselves.

55% cook more meals at home, trips to grocery store are up, and gardening is up.
Landscaping companies offer to put in gardens instead of traditional landscaping.

8. Remember who has the money

Boomers are online and constitute 29,8% of US Internet users.
Millenials (eco-boomers) – most influenced by current economy (were laid off multiple times).

Cross-generational marketing (Wii Fit) – helps to keep the family together, what women find important.

9. Make her laugh.  Even sensitive topic can be presented with humor.

MIMA – Living in the Post-Advertising World

Michael Lebowitz, CEO of Big Spaceship, addressed the change that brands and agencies experiencing now and offered a few interesting suggestions during May MIMA event. He suggested to “never waste a good crisis” and experiment with new tools and possibilities.

Interesting points from the presentation:

Full service interactive agency may not exist – there are too many services and it is not possible to specialize enough in all of them to perform each service well.

Traditional advertising model is broken – consumer is in control. Advertising is competing not with other advertising but with the life itself; brands need to understand how brand can make consumer life better.

Example: Penguin Dating
Instead of creating a totally separate dating web site for book lovers, Penguin   formed a partnership with Match.com what became Penguin Dating.

Strategy is needed; marketers should be aware of “shiny object syndrome” when a particular new technology is used for the sake of the technology itself. Any technology needs to contribute to the business goals of the company.

Thinking about strategies, plan to adapt. Too much change and too many unknown parts that need to be considered.

Recommendations for agencies:

• don’t concentrate on metrics only
• focus on culture
• build things (don’t outsource craft)
• stay flat (allow some chaos)
• experiment constantly (not only for clients)

Approach to a project – all functions need to be involved at the beginning to allow collaboration and use of new opportunities. This approach is also helpful for “adopting on the fly.”

Experiment. Try something and see if it works. If it does not, drop it. If it does work, optimize and improve.

Example: Qapture  an aggregator of most popular links on Twitter in three categories. Qapture was built in a day and a half by Big Spaceship unrelated to any client requirements.