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Niche Down, Way Down: Why Segment the Women’s Market Vol I, Issue I By Andrea Learned |
| If your marketing department has only
a minimal research budget these days, like most, you really need to
prioritize your spending. One of the top ten tips that Lisa Johnson
and I share with clients is to begin by examining the lifestage of
your women consumers. Behavior and where they are in life, much more
than age range or environment, are the key considerations for deciding
on what and where to spend your marketing to women dollars. We are long past the days of being everything to all women, as savvy marketing professionals, right? So let’s go over the obvious to get you in the right mindset for developing your strategy. Career lifestage: Some 35 year old college-educated women are at home with 3 children under 10, and others are just in the peak of their business careers with nary a tot in sight or on their minds. Senior lifestage: Not all "senior" women are acting very elderly these days. Sure, some are in retirement homes and may be a little slower on the draw, but lots more of them seem to be doing significant traveling, taking classes, playing golf and tennis, and generally staying extremely active. For (personal) example: When I was a kid, I remember observing my 65 year-old grandma slowly moving about the house making full-on breakfasts (eggs, toast, etc.) in her housedress before a day of cleaning up and shopping, and I thought to myself, "so that’s what ancient looks like." These days my mom is in that same age range, but her lifestage is much different. Mom has daily (I swear) and significant volunteer commitments, she does aerobics and plays golf several times a week with all ages of friends, and, she travels the world with my dad when her volunteer gigs "allow." (And, my dad has not yet really thought about retirement, because he loves his work so much – but this is a "marketing to women" column so I digress…) Neither of them can ever sit still for a full dinner, let alone breakfast, unlike my grandmother. Too much to do, too many places to go… But, back to my point: We all know that "mommies" are a significant niche for marketers. And, we understand that way back when (the 50s perhaps?), the "mommy" lifestage referred to women in their mid-twenties to late thirties with husbands who worked, but who themselves may not ever have worked. Fade to the 21st century, and the mommy segment might include young, single mothers in their late teens/early 20s, college-educated early 30s, fully employed women with fully employed husbands, or more "mature" moms in their early 40s who waited a bit longer to start their families. Any or all of these women may be fully employed, or not (and may be married, or not), and planning to work again at a later date. So many variables! So little time! My advice is to give your brain a little exercise and consider in which of the different lifestages the women you are hoping to reach may be. Drill down and really pinpoint the commonalities. Whatever you are marketing, all women in a certain age group will not be interested in what you are offering, but a certain, well-defined segment will be on pins and needles waiting to hear from you with the solution to their problems. Tips for Segmentation Some considerations when planning women’s market lifestage segmentation include: • In the online realm, technology comfort level differs with lifestage. (So, if you must use flash or develop portions of your site that need downloadable software to use, think long and hard about whether that will be a boost or a bother.)Throughout your process of examining the lifestage of your consumers, remember how you feel when a completely uninvited email drops into your box addressing you simply by your gender and cliché "needs." Don’t those assumptions just drive you crazy? And aren’t you more likely to delete before even reading a sentence of the promotion? Let me know about the really dumb ones and we can have some fun with those in the future. There you have it. The first of our Reaching Women Online newsletters. I hope you found the insights on segmenting the women’s market helpful. There will be more where that came from, among other things, in the book we are editing for MarketingSherpa.com, entitled, "Special Report on Best Practices of Marketing to Online Women," which is due for release in September. (Rest assured. We won’t forget to remind you about that a few more times between now and then.) Have some fun in the sun, why don’t ya, until Reaching Women Online appears in your mailbox again.  Andrea P.S. Feel free to write me with your ideas, comments, or questions at: andrea@reachwomen.com |
| Yes, please do! Forward this newsletter, in its entirety, to a friend or colleague. |
| "Women are the best index of the coming
hour." --Ralph Waldo Emerson |
| Getting the Attention
of Gen Y girls: Here’s what I learned from a group of generation Y girls at an Internet marketing workshop I taught a few weeks ago: Quizzes rock. (Specifically, the well-written and viral quizzes found on emode (www.emode.com).) Finding out what kind of dog you’d be or what kind of car you’d be, or who would be your celebrity crush match is definitely a powerful motivator for this quirky market segment. And, I must admit, the same thing that got them interested also led to some wasted time online for my friends and I. I’d be interested to talk with eloan, a savvy company that sponsors the car quiz on the emode site. Any of you other brand marketers interested in catching the attention of Gen Y? I thought so. Consider Single Women Consumers: According to "The Single Female Consumer," (a study released by The Intelligence Factory division of Young & Rubicam in 2000) single women consumers will be a very influential economic force in this century. Trends in the single women’s market include, among other things: growing home ownership, growing car ownership, and growing business ownership. Products and services geared toward this market range from travel packages (more single women are interested in adventure travel) to grocery products (individually portioned sizes) to real estate developments (adjoining residences or other creative community arrangements). As the online population overall gets more web savvy, single women will likely be driving the development of more time saving and lifestyle enhancing utility from their web experiences. Marketing cars or residential real estate may never be the same. |
| info@reachwomen.com Oregon office: 541.685.9400 Washington office: 360.715.0681 |