Mission Critical - Marketing to Women

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Authors: Pradip Sinha & Prashant Banerjee,
Associate Consultant, Associate Consultant,
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).

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If Valentines Day, Fathers' Day, Girl Child's Day, Raksha Bandhan, Karvachauth to name a few, are used successfully and tactfully by companies it would do wonders for them in connecting and building strong relationships especially with women who tend to be emotional.

Studies reveal that men tend to focus on only one thing at a particular time, while women have the ability to do many things at the same time with equal concentration. This is because when men buy they buy for themselves, but when women buy they buy for themselves, their husbands, their children, their family members, etc. So, they have to take care of everything /every aspect while buying. For companies it's therefore important to concentrate on all aspects while targeting women. Companies have to help women integrate their lives more seamlessly. For women, switching over to a different product is a better option than complaining about the product. So, it will be easy for companies to retain their women customers only it they are able to anticipate their female customers and fulfill their future needs and wants by creating products and services which they may not even be aware of.

To conquer the mind and wants of women, companies have to develop a woman-centric mind set. Relationships play a key role here. As Faith Popcorn says in her book EVEolution, 'Men buy brands and women buy relationships'. The point to mention here is that companies don't have to make different products for them, what is important is the way in which companies go about understanding the differences and looking at a way of building a brand and making women feel good about buying something. It's true that anticipating the future needs of women and creating a product to satisfy those needs is difficult as women are complex at every age and stage of life. But, companies can do this by listening continuously.

Men and women are again very different from each other when it comes to perceiving and evaluating information. According to Andrea, "In the most general of examples, men may be more likely to respond to better, bigger, faster features while women might be attracted to a product or service that they know other women have been using for a while (so women don't need to have a better, bigger, faster product but they would like to have one that their friends have found to be reliable and powerful enough". Usually, women predominantly buy something based on trust, value and loyalty. Women are more likely to buy something after positive experiences of other women and appealing marketing reinforcement.

Women are more loyal to partial brands and less swayed by price and discounts than men. Many women while shopping have a 360 degree perspective on life and evaluate products and services by how they fit into that bigger picture. A classic example on this differential aspect between men and women is the one revealed by the Center for Women's Business Research and IBM, which shows how they both buy technology. Both wanted a fair price, but men were more concerned with processing power (how fast is it? How much memory it can store?, etc.). On the other hand, women were primarily concerned with ease of use (how easy is it to get this resuming? How easy is it to use? Will someone help me if I have problems?)

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