Marketing to women

Gender-specific marketing campaigns can be equally as profitable as they are risky. This is because unlike general campaigns, there are unique elements associated with gender-specific marketing that makes them unique. With an understanding of these elements, you can market more effectively to your audience, and increase your sales in the long run.

Here are five considerations that can help you design a killer marketing campaign.

Get rid of stereotypes

Features like a love for the colour pink have long been linked to women. And while women do love pink, did you know that women often associate the colour pink in breast cancer campaigns with the threat of death? That’s right. Instead of raising awareness about the disease, the colour has slowly become a reminder of the risks, and that makes women apprehensive. Marketing to women isn’t just about finding what women like and getting it right in their face through ads anymore, it’s about the intent to buy, the intent itself being “what will that person search for in order to land here/there”.

Another example of how stereotypes can misdirect your audience is a common notion that women are passive and weak. In the past, that may have been true, but these days, women carry lots of responsibilities, both at home and in the workplace, and they are much stronger than everyone believes. This means that using the image of weakness can actually hurt your campaign.

Here is an example of how stereotypes can affect your campaign:

Imagine that you were selling health supplements. A stereotypical campaign would feature a lot of pink colours and appeal to the “weakness” of women. But many women may see this and get turned off by it.

A more effective approach would be to lead with how women often go through a lot of stress and can use all the extra help and energy they can get.

Aim at female audiences

It’s not news that the internet has become the ultimate advertising medium. Consider that according to a source, over $83 billion was spent on internet advertising in the United States alone. This means that there’s no better place to kick off your marketing campaign than on the internet.

Advertising on the internet has one peculiar advantageyou can target it. With so many women-friendly forums on social media, not to mention blogs and websites that all focus on medical topics, issues and products, you already have half your work done for you.

All you need is a message and some funds.

Expand your focus

Even though advertising is about finding your target audience and appealing to them, you shouldn’t fall into the trap of getting too focused. An example of this is only targeting mothers. But you know there is more to the female population than motherhood.

Try to consider other groups of women in your campaign like artists, CEOs, sports enthusiasts, and of course, mothers. One thing to note is that with a wider focus, not only can you capture multiple groups of women; you will also have a lot of overlaps.

For example, you may reach a woman who is a mother and also a CEO twice, and thus increasing the odds that you’ll close a deal. In the very least, you’re bound to generate more leads that way.

Include women in your campaigns

It may seem simple at first, but you won’t believe how impactful having a female perspective on your ad planning committee can be. In fact, you should probably have as many women as men on the team. This is because no-one understands a woman better than a woman.

Who better to help you develop the perfect message to elicit a response than a woman? A feminine perspective can also prevent you from committing a blunder like associating pink with women. It may just save your marketing campaign!

Illustrate your offers

This doesn’t just mean to use graphic illustrations in your adverts, although that’s also important. Since we’ve spoken about untrue stereotypes, here’s one that’s true: Women are visual thinkers. This means that they love to visualise whatever offer they are considering. This is why women see much more shades of colours than men.

So how does this apply to your campaign?

If you’re selling a product, you should include as many pictorial examples in your adverts as possible. If you’re meeting your clients, you should also try to give demonstrations. You can use the same logic when marketing on the internet. Only this time, you’ll need lots of pictures to drive home your point.

The bottom line

When you combine classics of advertising and marketing like identifying your audience with gender-specific angles like discarding stereotypes, you can build a very strong advertising campaign.

For all information and perhaps making the best out of marketing to women, contact us here.