Marketing to WomenUnderstanding how women buy and how to gain your share of this crucial market

By the early twenty first century U.S. women were making or influencing 83% of household purchasing decisions and are now becoming the most sought after buyers of big ticket items such as consumer electronics, automobiles, travel and health/wellness products and services. A recent survey from the Federal Reserve Board found... read morewomen control slightly more than half (51.3%) of all personal wealth in the United States. Their power is also looming large on the business front, as women-owned businesses today are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy, with $3.3 trillion in purchasing power.

The major news in this is not that women represent the core consumers for most goods and services, but that brands have only just started to pay attention to this. While there has been some progress on this front, some fairly obvious mistakes continue to be made. Many brands still consider ‘women’ a homogenous segment (as in “all women everywhere are moms and love the color pink”) and so have denied how rapidly women, in any specific market, are evolving.

But the numbers (U.S. figures) continue to prove the point. Women:

* Make more than 50% of all auto purchases and influence 85%
* Account for 66% of all home computer purchases
* Purchase 81% of riding lawn mowers
* Make 80% of healthcare decisions and account for 67% of spending
* Hold 89% of all bank accounts and carry 76 million credit cards (8 million more than men)

Still, this is not the whole story. These powerful female consumers also represent the cutting edge of the purchasing trends among all consumers, male and female. So when marketers learn more about reaching women, they will also be better prepared to serve the average consumer who is and will very much be in the near future: a sophisticated, more holistically (right with left brain) thinking individual demanding the highest standards from the brands he/she buys.

This series provides marketers with the marketing to women 2.5+ view of how women are buying in the twenty first century and how to most effectively serve them. It also gives marketers some sense of how men are evolving as consumers.