Five Fantastic Facts About the Women's Market

Jane is considering the title of this post...and all Tuesday posts where she writes about "Five Fantastic, or Fun, or Fabulous, or Phenomenal" things that have to do with the women's market. The category is Fit by 5, but we are thinking it should be Five Fantastic Facts...to make Jane's -- and your -- life easier, dear reader. What do you think? Of course, Jane could write 10 Fantastic things, even 20...but let's keep it to Five.

This week we will study some history (recent history) and spotlight some current events.

Fantastic fact number one comes from two Americans winning the Nobel Prize in medicine for mapping how the sense of small works in human beings. Linda Buck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and her partner in this work, Dr. Richard Axel, of Columbia University, discovered "odor-sensing proteins in the nose and traced how they send their information to the brain."

From the article in the Twin Cities.com Pioneer Press:

"Odor is a big part of what is perceived as taste: To people lacking a sense of smell, most foods — even some putrid ones — taste exactly alike. Odors are also notable for their ability to stir memories and emotions — a function of the nasal lining's direct connection to deep and "primitive" parts of the brain. And as the world's perfumers have long averred, smell is an important mediator of personal attraction and perhaps even love."

Jane applauds these scientists (you did notice that one of them was female, didn't you?) and encourages readers to capitalize on this news. Evoke the sense of smell in your ad copy, or your website copy. Remind women of the crazy days of their youth...words are your tools...until technology catches up with this scientific discovery and gives us scratch and sniff computers. (don't laugh, it's coming!)

Fantastic Fact number two comes to us from MediaPost's SearchInsider column, written by Gord Hotckiss on Thursday, September 30th. Gord write about "The Inside Line of Search Marketing." According to Gord, "The 800-pound gorillas of search and brash new upstarts like Blinkx and Gurunet are working to find a way to make search more intuitive, ubiquitous, and intelligent."

Hear, hear! Women are all for easier searching. This is a #1 complaint from women Jane talks to... the inability to find what they are looking for online, even when it's a website they are familiar with! One of Jane's sisters just hates shopping online because the places she wants to shop, boutiques and lower-priced outlets, don't make it easy to find themselves online. A Google search delivers an overwhelming number of options, generally NOT including a thing she wants, and further drill downs just leave her frustrated. She ends up in the car driving to the local mall, wasting gas, purchasing something she could probably have bought cheaper online.

But, that isn't why Jane is bringing you this message. Further on in Gord's story, he gets into personalization, something Jane has been advising readers to add to their websites for some time now. Gord maintains in his article that in order for the Internet to be search friendly, searchers are beginning to delve into profiling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Let's not get into what all of those are...that's for the scientists and techies, but, the idea of profiling is one to consider. The header to the section of the article discussing these things is, "Friendly Search Engine Seeking Single Middle Aged Woman." Hmmm...we wonder why he chose that title? Perhaps it's because single, middle aged women are big online shoppers.

Think about that, dear readers. Then, study this new form of search that's being invented, and take a stance on it: is it pushing the envelope too far? The answer is in these two questions...

--Can you get the information you need by using surveys and contests?

--Are you utilizing effective Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing?

Fantastic Fact number three comes from another trusted source, Internet Retailer asking the question, "What do women want online?" Their answer, "Knowledge and confidence."

To quote, "Women find the Internet an empowering part of their shopping experience that arms them with the knowledge they need to be smart shoppers both online and offline," according to Kelly Mooney, president of Resource Interactive. She will be touting this message to participants at the Shop.org 2004 Annual Summit in Anaheim, CA, next week.

Knowledge and confidence. Two big reasons our book, Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online offers as reasons for the popularity of online shopping in the women's market.

Fantastic fact number four is part of our history lesson. In an article at ClickZ, posted last June, writer Rebecca Lieb started "What do women want?" by saying, "It's pretty much a given that anyone who's marketing anything is likely marketing it to women. By now, it's well know to everyone in this game: Women are the world's most powerful consumers."

Lieb goes on to report specifics regarding the importance of the women's market, but her most powerful statement, according to Lip-sticking, is this:

"Media buyers and agency creatives should bear in mind 83 percent of the consumer dollars women spend or influence go way beyond the grocery store and Victoria's Secret. Did you know women compose nearly 40 percent of the NFL's fan base?"

Never underestimate the power of an eager sports fan...especially when she's eager to buy products that support her team.

Fantastic fact number five -- perhaps the most important fact of all, comes from our friends over at Small Business Trends. Anita's and Dave's Powerblog this week is all about the Hispanic Market. Jane urges each and every one of you to visit the Powerblog review and learn all about Hispanic Trending, a blog by Juan Tornoe. According to Anita and Dave, "This is a super resource for finding just about anything that deals with Hispanics and Hispanic culture, attitudes and behaviors."

Jane would like to add that women play an enormous part in the Hispanic culture -- a fact we've presented before but that we feel is so valuable to our readers we will continue to report on it, today and tomorrow and on and on, into the future. As far as trends in small business go, as far as online shopping goes, as far as getting in front of the women in the Hispanic market, Juan has a great post on "bilingual women."

If you're serious about your business, it's time to get serious about the online shoppers in the women's market. I smell a sale happening... at your website... do you?

What's not to like about that?

Comments

[Yvonne DiVita]

Hi,
You have a valid point and describe wonderful things to do...when we have time. Most women today are so pressed for time, the activities you describe have become casual occurences that can happen more often because women do their shopping online first. The women I talk to are online for the convenience...they still value visiting small boutiques and shops on our Park Ave district, or going to a popular store here called Parkleigh...but shopping in these places is a different story. They want to click a few buttons, have their purchase delivered (free) and have the extra time they would have spent in the car driving to the store, to spend with family, doing the things you describe. Just last night a woman at a networking event was reading my book and said she just wants to get in, choose her product, and get out (online). That leaves her time for reading, chatting with friends, or doing schoolwork.

No doubt about it, getting out and moving about is important...none of us is leaving that behind. We just don't want to waste that valuable time shopping. We'd rather go hiking, or to the movies, or visit family. Shopping online let's us do that.

Thanks for writing.

[plavalaguna]

hi!
But what about good things in purchasing goods NOT online? They joy of shopping, walking around, take some coffe or snack inbetween...what is the healthy balance between virtual and "moving around" kind of lifestyle???!!!