|
Dick_and_Jane_Revisited
| Dick and Jane Revisited
Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher is known to
have said; “If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want
anything done, ask a woman.”
Who Gets It Women get it. They’ve always gotten it. In a long
ago century (1800s) Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “Women are the
real architects of society.”
Women are the doers of the family, of the office, of the world.
It’s precisely because women get it, and because we are doers,
that it’s important for small businesses venturing onto the
Internet to understand the women’s market – a market that isn’t
about male bashing, but about embracing new technology. Today
it’s about getting your marketing and sales message in front of
Jane, not Dick.
Be Friendly The numbers don’t lie; more than 63% of the online
sales last year were made by women.
Being “female-friendly” isn’t all that hard. Women just want you
to treat them with respect and consideration. Online that means
using marketing elements women find useful and attractive;
elements such as navigational text-links, not graphics that make
us guess what you mean. Elements such as showing women on your
homepage what you’re about, right in that prime real estate
section—the center of the computer screen. And, if you’re
reading that e-mail marketing is dying a slow death, let me
paraphrase Mark Twain: the death of e-mail marketing has been
greatly exaggerated. Women are prime users of e-mail.
Women share advice in e-mails, they distribute information, and
they talk about where to buy the best stuff. By targeting the
women’s market you increase your reach extensively because any
woman who reads your ad and likes what she sees, will share it
with others far more often than any man will do so. My own
daughter recently clicked on an e-mail sales message, found
something she liked, bought it – online-- and then wrote to tell
me about it.
Being friendly means generating trust. Any sales and marketing
expert will tell you that trust is a prime factor in making
sales. People buy from people they trust. Women especially need
that trust factor. Make friends with women by creating loyalty
programs, by offering free shipping, and by asking for feedback.
Keep an 800# on your homepage and on your catalog or product
page. At the very least, make sure you have a contact method
with an auto-responder that will follow up any e-mail question
within 24 hours.
It’s time to put away childish toys and thoughts. That old Dick
and Jane world of marketing to men only, once so popular in the
20th century, belongs in history books, not in your marketing
plans. If you rely on Dick to buy your products, you will be
cutting out more than half of your potential market. Fully 63%
of the shopping done online last year was done by (women) Jane,
not by (men) Dick.
Whether Jane is a CEO in charge of major company purchases;
whether she is an office manager in charge of the supply cabinet
and the conference room; whether she is a homemaker trying to
keep her family happy and healthy; or whether she is a college
graduate starting a new career; Jane is looking for you online
and she isn’t asking Dick’s permission to buy. She needs office
supplies; she needs a good leather briefcase, a cell phone, a
PDA, a desk, a picture frame for her desk, a new car, and
business, career, or health advice. She needs business cards and
stationery. She needs technology advice and financial advice.
She needs all of the things her partner and friend Dick needs.
Sell them to her.
Bury the those old Dick and Jane days and their outmoded
thinking with your 4.5inch floppies and old versions of DOS.
Join the new millennium and get with the game: women as
entrepreneurs are looking for you online. If they like what they
see, they’ll go home, put on their consumer hat and share their
good fortune with all their friends, both male and female. The
fact is, more than half of the time your message is being looked
at by Jane, not Dick. Forward thinkers will also recognize that
marketing to Jane doesn’t alienate Dick. He’s merely waiting for
Jane to give him the head’s up.
Offline vs. Online: Hand in Hand We Go Everyone knows that women
are the shoppers of the world. Make friends with them. In 2003,
Maya Draisin, of the Webby Awards,
http://www.webbyawards.com/main/in_motion/index.html had this to
say about e-commerce, “The trend this year is toward using the
Web to connect people online to mobilize them offline.”
This means if you make friends with women, they will shop at
your Web site and also at your offline store, if you have one.
Today, women purchase or influence the purchase of more than
half of the normally male-dominated products such as cars, lawn
mowers, computers, and other electronics. What’s not to like
about that? Smart Marketing to Women Online; it’s a good way to
start 2004 and a great way to make some loyal new friends and
customers.
About the author:
Yvonne is president of Windsor Media Enterprises, a new media
company that assists online entrepreneurs with e-doc, e-book and
web content publishing. Yvonne’s book on marketing to women
online “Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online” is
available at print on demand company, 1st Books.com and in
bookstores nationwide.
|
|
| |
| |
