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Markets: Women Rule
New York: March 01, 2004
By John R. Stephenson
Looking to add a little more oomph to your business. How
about redirecting your efforts toward women consumers. According
to Martha Barletta, author of Marketing to Women ,
91 percent of women survey respondents believe that advertisers
don't understand women and 58% of women are outright annoyed
with advertisers. This is particularly shocking when you consider
the following statistics about consumption by women in the
US:
• Women account for 83% of all consumer purchases
• They hold the purse strings to 89% of all bank
accounts
• Women account for 89% of all the spending on
health care in the US
• 94% of the dollars spent on home furnishing
are spent by women
• They make the purchasing decision in 91% of
the cases on home buying
• They buy 60% of the cars in this country and
are influencers to the purchasing decision 90% of the time
• Women make the purchasing decision on vacations
91% of the time including 70% of the time for adventure travel
vacations.
Not only do women buy virtually everything, but also they
tend to have innate skills that may make them better at business
in a modern interconnected world. In a world that is increasingly
interconnected and knowledge dependent, women's collaborative
leadership style may trump men's top-down decision-making
style. Not only do women have natural talents for collaborative
work that is now and will increasingly be important in the
future but they also approach purchasing in a vastly different
way than men. As a general rule, men just want the transaction
to take place whereas women are interested in creating relationships.
Wherever women go, they try and establish connections.
Everywhere you look, the business model that has been designed
by men runs up against the natural bias of their best customers.
Just think of all of the businesses, whether they are consumer
electronics stores or Jiffy Lube stations that have been designed
by men around a male model - fast and to the point, that could
benefit from a business redesign. In her book, How to
Sell to the Opposite Sex , Judith Tingley reports that
in general women view male salespeople as "technically knowledgeable;
assertive; get to the point; pushy; condescending; insensitive
to women's needs." Sound like a recipe for success? Hardly.
If your best customers (i.e. all of your customers) are women,
doesn't it make sense to at least try and incorporate their
perspective into the design and delivery of your product?
Consider the shopping mall. Designed and built by architects,
developers, engineers and bankers all over-whelming male.
The end-user of the product - overwhelmingly women.
Not only do women appear to have natural network talents
that may make them better equipped for the business challenges
of the twenty first century, but their more patient collaborative
style may make them better at many pursuits traditionally
attributed to men. For example, investing. Men tend to shoot
from the hip and overtrade their accounts - generally believing
they are smarter than the market. Consider the results. In
a 1997 study by the National Association of Investors the
following returns for investment clubs was documented:
• Women-only clubs - average club return: 17.9%
• Mixed (men and women) clubs - average club return:
17.3%
• Men-only clubs - average club return: 15.6%
In a world that is increasingly competitive, does it make
sense to ignore, or even alienate your best customers? Of
course not. But many businesses are blindly going about business
as usual. If your business is not going gangbusters, perhaps
it is time to take a look at the way you deliver value to
your best customers.
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