Last week, ANA and AXA Financial co-sponsored a day-long
mini-conference titled “Marketing with Women”. Led by former agency CEO and
Founder of “Just Ask a Woman”, Mary Lou Quinlan, and a cavalcade of marketing
and industry executives, the day was focused on bringing attention to today’s
most powerful constituency – women.
It’s rather strange that we almost take women’s focused
marketing for granted. Maybe we’ve all been doing it for so long, that it’s a
“given.” But it shouldn’t be. Recognizing that women make up 70-90% of all the
purchase decisions in the US and control a preponderance of wealth, we need to
keep women top of mind and really get into their heads – if we are going to
enhance our probability for successful marketing. P&G certainly gets it.
Not only do they profess “Know thy customer” – they also acknowledge that their
customer is a woman. That helps, big time.
ANA’s conference highlighted so many fascinating
knowledge points – too much for this writing. So let me take a crack at
defining four distinct platforms that I took away from the meeting:
1. Understand women’s financial power and wide-ranging
influence
By 2020, four-fifths of wealth will be in the hands
of women whether personally accumulated, inherited or directly influenced. How
women wield that power is critical for all marketers. Small shifts in spending
patterns can have broad implications for many business categories. Those shifts
can happen in reaction to product innovation or customer satisfaction. As
marketers, we can never afford to be comfortable that we are doing it right –
particularly in the fast paced / rapidly changing environment we live in.
2. Listen to what women want – then get ready!
Sure, it’s very important to understand where the women
consumer is today. But the real question is, where will she be tomorrow? Just
when we think we have it figured out, the landscape changes and shifts – as
fashion, innovation, quality and styles move rapidly. Companies like Toyota have
made enormous inroads to the female consumer simply by setting up ownership
groups and listening. Marketers have a captive audience in their female
employees; use them as sounding boards. Let them teach you what’s hot and
what’s not. Leverage their marketplace savvy to give you an honest peek under
the tent to let you know where the marketplace is moving.
Then, prepare to react. Listening takes you so far. What
marketers need do is to have the business systems in place to rapidly integrate
these findings into tangible actions. Competitive advantages are typically
“temporary” and often “fleeting”. Move
quickly and responsibly to capture the moment – and the opportunity.
3. Organize company communities to drive awareness
/ sensitivity / action
AXA Financial has been at this for about three years.
They literally have begun creating company-wide communities that provide
organized approaches to women’s marketing or generate unique findings about
specific areas of women’s interests. This extraordinarily patient and rather unusual approach is paying off
on AXA’s bottom line – as these individuals generate better results than
typical company work groups.
These approaches have enormous implications for
management structures as well. Ask yourself, is your company human resources
and management structure properly crafted to optimize women performance and
contributions? If not, consider the option of creating opportunities for
women to facilitate their professional development and work/life balance –
particularly when it comes to raising a family. Such women are incredibly
valuable to your company as they carry years of experience and insight – that
could be lost if they decide your company is not the place where they can
successfully prosecute all of the complex demands in their rapidly changing
lives.
4. Make it all happen
Look at the
processes achieved by marketers like Best Buy who have turned 25% of their
stores into female friendly models and have watched these adaptations trump
other stores’ performance. P&G has become increasingly creative with their
female customer base as evidenced by their recent multi-platform product launch
of Mr. Clean Magic Reach. 1-800 Flowers.com and Wyndham Hotels are other
examples that have adapted and continue to adapt – as they have taken a far
more progressive and aggressive approach to converting ideas into realities.
There are some marketers out there who have smartly targeted this audience and
have compassionately connected with them – a connection that has benefited
everyone.
As marketers, it is important to truly understand the
make up of our audience – and to set our marketing plans and initiatives into
action. Let’s be sure to remember the power and influence of women as we set those
wheels in motion.
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