Reaching Women Not as Easy as it Seems While marketers have known for a long time that the…

Reaching Women Not as Easy as it Seems

While marketers have known for a long time that the women’s market is a lucrative one and have targeted their marketing efforts to this segment, it’s getting harder and harder to compete for the over $5 trillion in spending power (in U.S) they control. The days of reaching women through soap operas are gone forever, as the economic empowerment of women is now seen as one of the most remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years. Women now account for an estimated $55 billion in expenditures in technology products, $90 billion in consumer electronics, and control over 85 percent of household spending. The attractiveness of this segment has marketers scrambling to get their share—and sometimes they are just not very good at it.
A big part of the reason women are so hard to target is the fact that they have changed so much. In 1966, 40 percent of women who received a bachelors degree in the United States specialized in education, and 2 percent in business. In 2009 these numbers were 12 percent and 50 percent respectively. Women now earn 60 percent of college degrees in the United States and Europe, and constitute the majority of professional workers in many countries. To be successful, companies must understand the impact of these changes, and integrate them into their marketing strategies. Consider these recent attempts:

■ Procter & Gamble has recently launched a quarterly print and online Custom Beauty magazine in the United States and Canada, provided free to an estimated audience of 12 million women. Aided by the mommy blogger community, the magazine will be loaded with coupons and information designed to establish a long term relationship with “beauty-involved” consumers. Social media strategies will be an integral part of the marketing effort, as will a newly designed website.
■ Dell Computers launched a microsite named Della to promote their notebooks, positioning the products as “suitably targeted to women’s needs.” The site provided a number of what Advertising Age referred to as nontechnical “tech tips” including how computers can help women count calories. The homepage included three women with clothing that matched their laptops. (Both were later changed.) As noted by TeressaIezzi, the site was yet another example of “the more that marketers do seem to be attempting to appeal directly to women, the execrable results speak to a culture that’s still mired in biased, old-timey thinking.”
■ After extensive research conducted with women, Verizon introduced the “home phone reinvented” Hub phone in early 2009. Users could make unlimited phone calls, locate family members using GPS, text, e-mail, purchase products and services, and more. A TV commercial was developed showing a young girl sending home a picture of a dress that she liked to her mother, who then looks up the location of a dress shop on her Hub and directs her daughter there. The focus was to “connect families” as the research indicated that “women are receptive to technology, but aren’t interested in how technology works.”

As of the time of this writing, only one of these products is no longer on the market. Can you guess which one? If you said the Hub, you are right.