Have you tried to market your products or services to women but your efforts fell flat? Will your brand’s revenue improve remarkably by marketing to women? Do you find marketing to women complicated and challenging? Unlike marketing to men, targeting female consumers is a different ball game.
In the United States, women may make up 50% of the population. But they monopolize 70% — 80% of all consumer purchasing decisions. With 94% of women between the ages of 15–35 spending over an hour per day shopping online, businesses know that marketing to women will elevate their brands to unchartered territories and greater profits. Among the 4Ps of marketing and disregarding the price factor, advertising, loyalty and products must be differentiated to appeal to the fairer sex.
Before we explore how 5 brands were successful in attracting female consumers, let us understand headlining female consumer trends of 2019.
Did you know that all around the world, female students pursuing a bachelor’s degree outnumbered men? Education did not eliminate the income gap between men and women. But it has reduced the income variance between both genders. This gives women more opportunities to contribute to their country’s economy.
Last year, millennials spent a staggering $200 billion worldwide. Out of this, 85% or $170 billion were spent by women. Based on this trend, women are considered a formidable cohort and the largest spending powerhouse across any generation in 2019.
Above all, women are not only driving consumer purchases with their income, but their influence on buying is equally as important. Influence means that the lady may not be paying for an item or service but she can affect the decision to purchase or veto that decision.
2. Look Beyond The Name on the Credit Card
In instances when the printed name of the credit card reads “John, Jason or Joe”, you’re only seeing one part of the equation. The person who makes a purchase transaction isn’t necessarily the decision-maker.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre, 43% of decisions at home are made by women. This implies that in most households, women decide on what shared activities to do. Besides, women manage household finances and decide on what to buy for the household.
Even if a woman does not earn a salary, she is likely to be the gatekeeper to her household’s expenditures.
Therefore, personalizing your marketing communication for women can help you achieve above-average campaign performances. Leading name list service providers such as NameGenderPro.com have proven records of helping their clients achieve remarkable performance indicators. With conversion rates of 35%, email open rates of 50% and click-through rates of 25%, these statistics exceeds the industry average performance that ranges between 5% and 10%.
3. Pink is Not A Strategy
In a society that is leaning towards gender neutrality, marketing a product in a single color may be offensive. It can send a negative message — a connotation that the brand did not put in much through into its marketing efforts.
A notable exception is when the intent is to raise funds for female charity or breast cancer causes. So, it’s best to consider pink as one color among the many, unless you intend to promote a charitable cause.
4. Service is a Key Differentiator.
In general, women have higher expectations for customer service. And if you screw up on your customer service, be prepared for the worst as female wrath has no pity.
According to a survey by Vital Employee Service Consultancy, female customers are four times more troublesome then men. Ladies are more vocal when expressing their dissatisfaction. On the contrary, when you “wow” them, they are more vocal than men to praise and share their satisfaction.
So aim to elevate positive customer experiences among women (and men too) and make them your brand advocates. Your business can then reap its multiplying effect.
Now that we know the top 4 female consumer trends of 2019, let us take a look at 4 effective case studies on how to target female consumers in traditionally male-dominated industries.
Marketing To Female Consumers in the Insurance Industry
Do ladies need women-specific insurance? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Leading insurers such as AIA and Prudential believe that general insurance is inadequate to cover female-specific diseases. Generic health insurance policies cover diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, and only certain types of cancer.
With breast cancer being the number 1 killer among women globally, generic health insurance fails to protect against women-specific diseases.
With the introduction of AIA’s A-Life Lady360 plan, the insurer paved the way for a new female-exclusive product by providing coverage for female-specific cancer, carcinoma in-situ (early-stage cancer), recovery benefits for osteoporotic failure and arthritis (which occurs during menopause stage).
What makes the policy enticing to women is that it addresses all the health concerns considered taboo among women, but weighs heavily when adversity strikes. This includes coverage for reconstructive surgery following cancer or an accident.
In this tumultuous world where women are often targeted for petty crime, insurance plans such as Etiqa Femina Special are developed to offer compensation in the event of snatch theft, kidnapping or abduction. Acknowledging that women may be more susceptible to crime, Great Eastern quickly jumped on the bandwagon by introducing Lady Protector. The Lady Protector plan offers reimbursement for legal proceeding costs due to sexual harassment.
To conclude, successful insurers have identified a gap in the coverage for women. In response, these insurers created new products to address that need gap and priced upwards by leverage on early mover advantages.
Marketing To Women in the Automotive Industry
Automotive marketing has always been male dominant. And advertisers will put their biggest bucks behind a very masculine-skewed advertisement, as opposed to putting the bling for a female-bias commercial. Power, performance, dominance seems to be the standard genre that works.
But playing up the feminine imagery does not always work when it comes to marketing cars to women.
No doubt women spend less and a smaller proportion of their disposable incomes on cars than men do. But getting a share of their wallet is what the car manufacturers are after. And the best way of doing that is by offering excellent after-sales service. Automakers will offer up to 5 years of free service to secure the purchase. After the 5 years, the majority of men will shop around for alternative mechanics that are not affiliated with the automaker. This is because the big automaker boys make a living from aster sales service, while the mechanics outside can offer competent servicing at a fraction of the price.
Women, on the other hand, will continue with the automakers servicing and is willing to pay a price premium for convenience and the good servicing offered.
According to Jenny Darroch, the Dean and Professor at The Drukker School of Management, 65% of women request service work for their vehicles. Women also are more trusty towards their service advisors and rarely question their integrity. To exemplify, 70% of women will buy tires when they are told that they need them.
So for automakers, small touches like providing reminders on upcoming services, service scheduling and clearly explaining what each service entails are important.
Do not assume that all women want small, maneuverable, fuel-efficient cars. While most do, there are a growing number of women buying SUVs and small trucks. So understanding women’s unique needs without generalizing is the best approach for gender marketing in the automotive industry.
Above all, invest in building relationships with female customers. Gathering customer intelligence and using personalization tools to target female consumers with specific messages will go a long way in building brand loyalty.
Marketing Energy Drinks To Women
Did you know that millennials and women are trading their sodas for energy drinks? While the consumers of energy drinks are mainly young male adults, women are a growing segment on an upward trajectory. Women perceive sports drinks to be healthier than sodas, thanks to its association with sports. Although energy drinks were originally designed for athletes, these products soon garnered robust mainstream sales.
But winning women over from their swanky latte for an energy drink is not a walk in the park. 36% of women are more likely to reach for the coffee pot instead of an energy drink (28%) when they need an energy boost.
Men, on the contrary, have a reversed tendency. 43% of men admitted that energy drinks are their go-to, and only 22% prefer coffee over their energy fizz.
To realign the product as a healthy energy drink, brands such as Go Girl Energy Drink position it as a healthy energy drink for women. Go Girl plays up its low sugar and calorie content. Infused with naturally fruity flavors such as grape juice, peach tea, and lemonade, the nutritional claims for the product make it instantly appealing to women. To cap it off, Go Girl is encapsulated in a bright pink can ladies can never miss as they prowl the aisles.
Marketing To Women in the Alcohol Industry
The liquor industry is fiercely another male-dominated industry. Drink makers are however waking up to the fact that women present at untapped opportunities to grow their market share. According to TNS data (September 2009), women accounted for 37% of on-trade volume. This is a 26% increase from 26% in 2001, amounting to a total spent of £10 billion per year on alcohol.
The beer boys are pulling no stops and rolling out products to meet the fairer sex’s un-served needs.
To appeal to women, liquor companies developed different drinks. These lady-beers were sweeter, with its packaging in hues of pink, often fruit-flavored, or has low calorie. And their marketing strategies evolved as well.
Previously, alcohol marketers were notorious for objectifying women as sensual creatures and used as proponents to sell alcohol to men. Today’s alcohol advertisements portray women as fun and sophistication, playing up female friendship and empowerment. For example, Bailey’s “Here’s To Us” campaign cherishes the camaraderie of female friendship and encourages women to get celebrate and toast one another.
Taste-wise, beer for women no longer leaves a stale after taste like conventional beer. Hoegaarden Rosée strikes a perfect balance between enough sweetness and hints of sourness. This makes female beer more palatable than many other beer brands. Neither does it cause a gassy, bloated stomach.
Tuning in to women’s taste bud, the beer boys are capitalizing on the growing demand for a healthier social drink for women at the bar.
Conclusion on How to Target Female Consumers
To effectively market to women, we need to create products with women in mind and have the best women on board the team. Besides, gender is a powerful determinant that influences how we see the world and everything around it. Often, gender is a blind spot. And at times more significant than age, income, ethnicity, or geography.
And the underlying factor behind every winning marketing campaign is a mechanism that allows precise targeting of its key audience by gender. Thus, it important to utilize only reputable name-gender checker databases. NameGenderPro.com is a marketing solution that offers direct and unlimited access to an extensive name gender database.
NameGenderPro.com has collected 177,622 unique first names by gender: female, male and unisex. With a high score of 94% match rate between NameGenderPro.com data set is cross-checked against your client’s database, NameGenderPro is efficient and accurate. Above all, NameGenderPro is easy to download, allowing you to kick start your targeting marketing campaign in less than 10 minutes.
