Last week I received an email from a former male client in response to one of my recent blog posts – Men and Women Solve Problems Differently. Therefore, They Shop and Buy Differently. He and I worked together for quite a few years and during that time we were always honest with each other – rarely holding back on our differing viewpoints.

So, less his name (we’ll call him Bob), but with his blessings, I’d like to share his opinions as well as my rebuttal. And you decide. Who’s right?

Oh, and what he probably didn’t know, until now, is just how instrumental he was in the inspiration of my developing the She-conomy blog. Please, read on. I think you’ll see why.

Bob’s Viewpoint:

Hello Stephanie,

After reading your insightful articles, I’ve come to this conclusion:

With exception to the deeply offensive marketing campaigns, the Male Marketing Gurus can do a poor job, or a fair job, or even a great job marketing a product or a service that speaks directly to women. The general quality of their work product created from their male perspective doesn’t really matter when it comes to the company’s bottom-line. The reason it doesn’t matter is because of the fact that most women consumers are: 1) smart, 2) resourceful  and 3) energetic –  when it comes to being an informed consumer. Most women will conduct a degree of research,  analyze it to death , and finally resolve their needs – all in order to decide “what to buy?”.  Just like the Rabbi’s wife. Do you think I’m wrong?   I’m not, here’s Why?  As you’ve said, “85% of branded products purchased for the household are bought by women. Yet, almost all of those items were marketed by men who haven’t a clue and gone so far as to have implemented pissing Rhinos, talking toilets  and  paper knives – to spread icing on a cake. In response to those uninsightful marketing efforts, women simply roll their eyes and buy the stuff anyway.. Right? Yes, they do, irregardless of the male’s marketing disasters.

SUMMATION: Male Marketing Gurus don’t reeeeally need to work diligently to “speak to women” in their marketing campaigns.   This is simply not warranted because women always figure out what to buy on their own, at least 85% of the time.  85% is good enough for me.

Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke!

If you think I’m wrong,  you may be right. I’d love to hear back from you on this. But before you respond, please ponder this. If a male marketing guru develops a marketing campaign that reaches women “perfectly” it still has to be launched. The “Approval” prior to launch usually comes from a MAN (the CEO or Pres.).

At this point, the approval will hit a brick wall because the CEO or Pres. doesn’t get it. He thinks the Marketing VP is a real moron and is FIRED. My point is, until you convince the Male CEO or Pres. about the need to speak to women, you will have ads that do not speak to women.  But, as I said above, these types of ad campaigns are simply not warranted because of the resilient women consumers resolving their problems in spite of the crappy Ad campaigns.

If I missed something I’d love to know about it.  But I believe that changing this machine’s direction is a mammoth task and sort of unnecessary.

Take care.
Bob

My Rebuttal:

Hi Bob,

I am sure it won’t surprise you, but I actually do have some thoughts on your comments. I’d like to make 2 main points.

1. What worked in the past is no longer going to work in the future
2. Women are responsible for 85% of all brand purchases (ie. 91% homes, 92% vacations, 65% new cars, etc.) but the question is… Is she choosing your brand?

I’ll elaborate:
1. What worked in the past is no longer going to work in the future.
You can check out a blog I posted referring to this for more explanation. But essentially, I would agree with what you describe as the way things have been – certainly throughout my career in marketing. I even ran the numbers after I started the She-conomy blog. A review of over 300 companies revealed that 96% of the decision makers I have worked with in my 26 year career have been men. I wrote about that here. And with 80% of the products I marketed being purchased or heavily influenced by women, I found myself trying to sell men on marketing to women… without ever saying it. I knew who the market was and I knew how to connect with them… but I had to learn to sell it by speaking to men. Which is why I talk in terms of proformas, capture ratios, build outs, etc. in order to sell my ideas. It was not until the data began to surface that I would ever have attempted to come right out and say that I was trying to appeal to women.

So, the fact that women are making the decisions and men are providing the products and services is not what has changed. What has changed is that now we all have a voice. As a result of Web 2.0, social media, and the rapid influx of Web 3.0… call it what you like…. the consumer is in control, loud and clear. It is estimated that within the next 3-4 years companies will be yielding to the whims of these online communities and vying for their dollars. You will hear advertisers saying (actually, you already do)… “We are listening to you. You said you wanted this…. and now we have it.”

2. Which brand is she choosing?
Gone are the days of marketers telling the consumers what they want. The pretty ads and how to call, simply will not cut it. They are no longer just rolling their eyes and buying it anyway. If they don’t like it, they will tell you and their 1,000 closest friends. Motrin® found this out when they put an ad campaign out that mommy bloggers resented. Within 3 days Motrin pulled the campaign, placed an apology on the homepage of their website that stayed up there for a month.

But we are not just talking about offensive messages. As a matter of fact, at least Motrin® knew they messed up and could address it. More at risk are those whose ads never even connect or resonate with the female – not even enough to get on their radar to talk about. Women are insanely busy. So much is thrown at them on a daily basis. If not connecting appropriately, the ad/message/etc. is simply a waste of money. Can the female eventually find you somewhere? Maybe. Maybe not. While she does intensive research, she does it based on what and who is connecting with her. It begins with knowing where she is spending her time, connecting with her and building a relationship.

Companies that realize the changes that are taking place and react accordingly, will move ahead of their competitors. Just because the female is making 85% of the purchases does not mean she is choosing your brand. A few years ago knowing women were your market was a competitive edge for those who connected effectively. Today… most know they need to do it, but few do it well. I anticipate that more will learn how to effectively reach the multi-dimensions of the female mind and it will no longer me a competitive edge, but instead a “must” to survive.

To summarize, I think you may be underestimating the female consumer and the platform social media provides to think this machine cannot be moved in a different direction. It is already moving. There is no “choice.” The consumer is in complete control. And the “machine” will ultimately move to where the money is, period.

Thanks so much for your comments. It is actually this exact mindset that I am attempting to reach and help with my blog. Obviously… I have much work left to do!

Here is a recent Newsweek article titled, What Do Women Really Want? that someone sent me yesterday. It might be helpful as well.

Have a great day!

Stephanie

But what do you think?

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Guys, simply knowing that women are your market is not enough. You must understand WHO she is to connect with her effectively. You must think in terms of lifestages, not ages. You must listen to her. Engaging the single woman is completely different than engaging moms or even married women without children.

The transcript from the show is below or you are welcome to listen here. Thanks, Ashley, Tracy and Melanie. Great story!

No Advertising Love For Single Women

Marketplace®, American Public Radio™

Kai Ryssdal: The Census Bureau says women control something like 80 percent of all the household spending in this country. Retailers and marketers being fairly quick on the uptake, they have geared a healthy proportion of the ads we all see to women. Ads that are pretty heavy on images of motherhood, family and happy couples. Unless, of course, they are cat food commercials, which seem to be almost entirely the province of the single woman. Thing is, more women are single now — getting married later, if at all, or becoming single again later in life. Ashley Milne-Tyte would sure like to know why more marketers haven’t caught on to that.

LOWE’S AD: Somehow, updating the bathroom, it just hasn’t gotten crossed off. I’m a grown woman, and I was scared of my own bathroom. Until I went…

OK, I won’t admit to being scared of my bathroom. But I will admit to enjoying the ad. I felt a little glow of pleasure at the thought of that woman happily laying tiles and spreading grout. So how did a cynic like me get gooey over a home improvement commercial?

Melanie Notkin says I finally felt included. She’s CEO of SavvyAuntie.com, a Web site for women who don’t have children.

MELANIE NOTKIN: America seems to talk to all grown-ups as we’re part of an intimate family of a mom, a dad and kids. Single people tend not to be spoken to or tend not to be part of the conversation.

Notkin says most advertisers actually have no idea how to talk to single women.

NOTKIN: When they want the visceral feeling to be happiness, they’re going to show what we qualify as a happy lifestyle, which is family. And people often assume that women who are not married are terribly unhappy.

That’s what was nice about the Lowe’s commercial. The woman was excited about her home, happy and independent. Given how many single women there are, I wondered why so few ads are aimed at us — 44 percent of women over 18 are single, 2 percent more than 10 years ago.

Tracy Chapman directs strategic planning at consultancy firm Just Ask A Woman. She says advertisers want to pitch their products to a broad audience without offending anyone.

TRACY CHAPMAN: They need to justify why they would go after this specific target. I think they want to reach as many women as possible with the amount of money that they have.

But ad industry veteran Stephanie Holland says that’s misguided. She’s executive creative director at Holland and Holland Advertising. She says instead of going for one-size-fits-all, advertisers need to target different types of women or they’re wasting their money. So why don’t they? Because, Holland says, so many decision makers at brands and ad agencies are men.

STEPHANIE HOLLAND: Men have a difficult time distinguishing even among moms, much less coming in and understanding the single female.

She says marketers are missing a big opportunity to target people like me. She says they just need to work on making that connection.

HOLLAND: An understanding of where you are in life as well as tons of other people as single women, and making you feel good about it. And that’s what’s gonna make you feel good about the product.

Take this upbeat approach from Chevrolet. A young woman, fresh from a first date, is picked up by a friend who whisks her away in a bright red Chevy Malibu. They hit the open road.

CHEVROLET AD: He said he was a professional student. No! Of life. Oh, I’m so sorry. Single lane ahead. I’ll be in that lane.

In other words, girlfriends rule. At least for now. I’m Ashley Milne-Tyte for Marketplace. Ashley Milne-Tyte

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

But wait, there’s more! For everyone to watch, Mohawk® Flooring subjected a piece of their carpet to two weeks of being walked on, peed on and yes… crapped on by Ricko, a 2,800 lb. African rhinoceros. All in an effort to prove how stain resistant and durable their new SmartStrand® product actually is. Seriously?

I saw this campaign for the first time last week. Even though it is about a year old, I think it’s a great example of taking a boyish obsession with bathroom humor to the next unfortunate level. Guys, women are responsible for more than 80% (some stats say 90%) of all flooring purchases and they simply are not as enamored with bodily excretions as you are. They for sure do not want to watch as animal feces pile up on carpet.

But I believe it is also an even deeper illustration of how men and women differ in retaining their thoughts. For men, simply cleaning it up also wipes the thoughts of dung and pee from their memory and all is good again. Yet, women will most likely retain the association as they process things on a multi-dimensional level. I am confident I will now always think of rhino dung when I think of Mohawk’s®SmartStrand® carpet. I cannot imagine how I would feel had I actually participated in viewing it for two straight weeks. As a matter of fact, after watching the final video I am not even impressed with how well they were able to clean the carpet, much less able to get the images out of my brain.

But I would like to hear your thoughts. I have included the four stages of the campaign that I found, below.

1) The teaser trailer
A video that reveals peoples’ reactions when they were told what Mohawk® planned to do with the carpet. Such as:

You are gonna what?!
That’s nasty!
Wouldn’t it be kinda messy?
eeeeeewwwwwwwww!!!!!
That is actually really gross.

Not exactly how I would want to leave my brand association hanging until the next update.

2) Introduction to the SmartStrand Challenge
Next, there’s an introductory video where Chip Wade from HGTV explains the SmartStrand® Rhino Challenge.

“We’re about to cover the entire enclosure with SmartsStrand® carpet and for 2 solid weeks, Ricko here is going to do “whatever it is that rhinos do,” on SmartStrand® carpet. Something tells me it won’t be pretty.”

Hmmmm… I wonder what rhinos do? Again… not really the image you want your brand to conjure up.

3) The best moments of Ricko on SmartsStrand® carpet
For two weeks you could go online and watch Ricko “do his business.” Here are the highlights and you get to see more than just peeing. I assume the sounds effects are a just a bonus in case you “miss” it.

Okay…as of now all all I can think about is how nasty that SmartStrand®  carpet has to be.

4) SmartStrand® Survived
Really? I must have missed it. Or survived for what? To be pulled up and thrown into the dumpster… yes. To be installed in my house? I don’t think so.

If at the end there had been a shot of pristine white carpet covering the entire floor, it just might have delivered the pay off.  I can only assume, that was not possible. As it is, there is nothing in this video that convinces me that all of the stains came up. It raises more doubt than confidence. At the end of the day I now connect SmartStrand® carpet and rhino excretions. Yuck!

But, again, I’d like to know what you think.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

We love how you solve problems.
The rabbi describes the way his wife tackles obstacles as full of drama: She rages, she cries, she internalizes everything. Her system of problem-solving takes a long time and involves making everything personal and leading with her emotions in a quest to see how she would feel about each possible solution. It is apparently a very stressful process. In contrast, the rabbi’s problem-solving method is to just try to find the fastest fix. When I asked him why he preferred his wife’s method, he said it was because “her decisions always end up being the right ones, whereas mine always end up being the quick ones.”

Interesting, isn’t it?? A marketing layman (the Rabbi) has understood and found value in the differences between men and women’s problem solving techniques; yet most marketers lump their customers together into a genderless group and assume everyone thinks the same way. You’ve heard what they say about assuming, right?

Now, here is an excerpt from Ms. Buchanan’s blog where she explores the science behind the difference in decision-making and how it relates to buying behavior. (On a side note, if you don’t read her blog, you should. This lady’s one smart cookie.)

Brain differences between men and women

Science has proved that men and women have different brains.  This article talks about the differences:

In 2001, researchers from Harvard found that certain parts of the brain were differently sized in males and females, which may help balance out the overall size difference. The study found that parts of the frontal lobe, responsible for problem-solving and decision-making, and the limbic cortex, responsible for regulating emotions, were larger in women.

Hmmm…..so let’s look at what our What Men Love About Women rabbi story said:

Her system of problem-solving takes a long time and involves making everything personal and leading with her emotions in a quest to see how she would feel about each possible solution.

Women have larger areas of their frontal lobe, responsible for problem-solving  and decision-making.   They are indeed  planning ahead, visualizing multiple solutions and using that female brain processing to put more time and effort into a decision or problem solving process.   (aka, taking a long time)

We also see that the limbic cortex, responsible for regulating emotion, is larger in women. Women have more connections to the emotional centers of their brain.  They tap into that emotional center when making decisions (aka, leading with their emotions).

What’s interesting to me is, while the language used to describe a woman’s problem solving process is often negative, the end conclusion is, “her decisions always end up being the right ones.”

Be aware of a woman’s buying process when you are selling to her

Understanding a woman’s buying process is crucial when you are in a sales situation.

1. Give her enough time – if a woman says “she needs to think about it,” she is not saying no. Women complain that men move in too soon for the close.  If she’s not ready to buy, ask her “do you have any questions or concerns I haven’t addressed?” to see if she is missing crucial information, then let her go do her processing and set up another appointment.  She will appreciate this!
2. Make an emotional connection-  Ask her questions, find out everything you can about her situation, her concerns, the people her decision will affect.  By asking questions and really listening to her answers, you are building trust – the most important emotion in a sale to a woman.

By understanding the differences between how men and women make buying decisions you can accommodate each gender’s preferences – aka, sell more stuff.

Like I said, she knows her stuff and I couldn’t have put it better myself! Thanks for your insights, Holly!

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Women mull things over, they picture the relationship between things, and they conceptualize the long-term patterns. Women desire evolution, experience, and good relationships. Men, on the other hand, want “it” done right now and they tend to align themselves with the here-and-now. Men tend to desire achievement, action, and power.

As Dr Deustch says, “…the two genders have different ways of perceiving causality, time, and power.” Therefore, you can’t market to women the same way that you would market to a man.

Keeping these cognitive differences in mind, Deutsch gives seven key principles to consider when desiring to market to women:

1. Pattern: Women don’t just focus on a point. They are more likely to understand and appreciate the initial idea that gives way to a short moment in time.
2. Authenticity: Women look past immediate appearance to calculate other factors such as history or persona. They also recognize that “universal principles underlie particularities.” Keyword: transparency. Women are likely to dive deeper and find out where you’re coming from. Save her the trouble and tell her. If you make a mistake, be honest about it and fix it. Home Depot and their use of Twitter is a great example of this.
3. Quality: Not just quantity (size). For women, bigger and/or more is not always better. A steady build will get you farther than one impulsive response. Otherwise, go deeper. Have a conversation with the women your are targeting and find out what they like. Don’t just throw a pink blanket over your product and expect women to come running.
4. Connectedness: Not just individuals. Women are more likely to see that we are all bound together and they appreciate the idea of community. Hello, the whole premise of social media!
5. Society: Not just markets! Markets are just numbers and women are not just numbers! Women are people, people who have a multitude of feelings and intentions. Don’t assume that because there are “X” number of women, you have the ability to sell “X” number of products and that they can be reached with the same message. Just as men and women are different, women in various groups have differing thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
6. Quality of Life: Not just accumulation. Marketers must recognize that there are individuals wants and musts that make up the needs that facilitate the buying of “things.” Don’t just tell a women she NEEDS something, tell her WHY she needs it and HOW it will improve her life
7. Reasonableness: Not extremism or absolutism. Recognize that there are always gray areas. Very few issues are black and white. Exaggerations to either side of an issue covers up the nuances and subtleties that women are adept at recognizing. Ever heard the phrase, “a woman’s intuition”? Women can pick up subtle messages, there is little use in strong arming your message.

Most of these principles point to one key implication: WOMEN CONNECT. They connect with each other, they connect with family, and, importantly for marketers, they connect with brands. To connect with a female consumer, you must be willing to build relationships (i.e.- personal connections). While this may take a lot of time, effort, and money, with women making 85% of all consumer purchases, it has the potential for a major pay-off.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

“The world’s gone social. And women are more social than men.”

In a Forbes article, “What Men and Women are Doing on Facebook,” by Jenna Goudreau, she discusses the different reasons men and women use Facebook and other social sites, as well as, the different reasons that men and women use social media.

First of all, women rule Facebook…no doubt about it.

The 400-million member site, which is the largest social networking tool in the world, is 57% female*. Also, Facebook attracts 46 million more female visitors than male visitors per month.* Not only are there more women on Facebook, they are more active on the site than men. According to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, women on Facebook have 8% more friends then men and they account for 62% of the sharing.

“The social world is led by women,” Sandberg says.

First of all, it is very important to know which sites women are visiting most frequently. According to Goudreau those are sites more focused on discussion rather then content such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, and Flicker. Doesn’t this make sense?? Women love to share and communicate with each other which is the key purpose of all of these sites listed. Men, on the other hand are driven to sites like Digg, YouTube, and LinkedIn, sites which focus on content and not discussion. If you’re trying to market to women (and you should be) this means you have a better idea of where to focus your efforts when creating a social media campaign. For example is you’re building your website to appeal to women, it will probably be more effective to include a Twitter button versus one for your LinkedIn account.

Also, and even more importantly, you must know how women use social media, which is differently than men. According to Goudreau, experts presume that the differences in how men and women socialize online mimic their offline intentions. While men use social media to “wheel and deal” by gathering information and making social connections to increase their status, women use social networking to connect and share. As Jodi Kahn, the head of iVillage says,

“We’re women-we like to talk about things.”

Recently, iVillage and BlogHer joined together to conduct a study and found that 75% of women use online communities like Facebook to stay up-to-date and in-touch with friends and family and astoundingly 68% use them to “connect with others like me.” Does that sound like an opportunity to you, men?? It sure does to me! Women are using social networking to find and connect with others that they feel share their motivations, feelings and opinions. Want to connect with women? Give them something or someone to connect with. According to Kahn, “Women are online solving real-life issues.” They want to learn about and connect with others who are experiencing similar problems. Men, however use online communities as a means to research and make contacts. As Lorrie Thomas, a social media marketing professor at UC Berkeley, says, men use social media as an “interactive Rolodex.”

This difference in social media usage is closely related to how men and women are raised. Men are raised to be hunter gatherers and women are raised to converse and connect. Elisa Camhort Page, co-founder and chief operating officer of BlogHer believes that men “leverage social media for broadcasting their ideas and skills vs. women who find connections with others by sharing the ups and downs of their daily lives.” In a recent survey done by ATG, an e-commerce software firm, twice as many women as men said they frequently share purchasing information on social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Scott Staab, group creative director of marketing agency T3 says that a woman recommends a brand online is more likely to influence her friends. Once again I will use the words of Sheryl Sanberg, Facebook’s COO to reiterate a point I’ve made before,

“If you reach women online, they will tell their friends.”

Now, don’t you want to be a part of that??

*BrianSolis.com and Google Ad Planner

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

So, if you’re jumping into the fray with no prior experience in creating a social campaign, who do you trust? Whose advice is applicable when creating a substantial and worthy social media driven campaign? In his recent AdAge article, “10 Essential Rules for Brands in Social Media,” Taddy Hall (COO of Meteor Solutions) gives 10 rules on which to build a worthwhile campaign. In his attempt to build a list of fitting rules, Hall relied on data from hundreds of brand clients to see what certain truths came to light. And here they are…

1. The 1% Rule

Only a small percent of people who visit a site are responsible for a healthy portion of site traffic. Hall found that, on average, the percent of influential users (defined by Hall and his associates as “a visitor who’s subsequent sharing actions result in at least one additional site visitor”) on a given site is somewhere between 0.6% and 4%. Though their numbers are small, these visitors generate 20%-50% of total site traffic and an even higher share of conversion (defined by a site owner). Marketers must seek out these influentials, ahem… women, and connect with them.

2. The 2-4X Rule

Visitors who are driven to your site by influencers are up to 4 times as likely to convert than if they were driven to a site by more traditional methods (display ads or paid searches). To encourage visitors who are coming from shared links and social sites to convert and share your deals with others, marketers should make the landing page reflect their interests.

3. The New Media/New Pipes Rule

What consumers say about a brand is far more important to other consumers than what a brand says about it itself. Word-of-mouth is more powerful than brand-approved content. This is another chance to utilize your brand’s influentials. If they post something on their FaceBook page, it is far more likely to go viral than if you post the same content on your brand’s FaceBook page.

4. The Martha Stewart Rule

As Hall puts it “Throw your own party; don’t just cater someone elses!” If your are looking to use social media beyond building brand awareness, you have host your own “party.” Don’t solely rely on sites such as FaceBook and YouTube. While you may get a lot of visitors to these sites, you may not be able to retain and convert them. It could be more beneficial to create somewhere for your consumers to congregate and communicate with one another and with you – blogs and forums for example.

5. The Power of “Weak Links” Rule

Not only does the number of influentials’s friends matter, so does the number of their friends-of-friends. Though these links may seem weak, they matter, especially on line. Marketers can use these links to track how far their content is extended so that they can understand and use the dynamics of influence.

6. The Feed The Fire Rule

People want to share fun, entertaining, useful, and relevant subject matter with each other. If you want them sharing your stuff, make it easy on them! Make your content accessible and easy to share. According to Hall, “Ninety percent of internet pages have fewer than 10 links pointing to them.” Basically these pages are unfindable. Don’t allow your site to get lost in the seemingly bottomless pit of useless information. To do so will take more effort than sticking a “share” button on your page. Instead, get active! Follow, befriend, etc. your influencers AND their friends. Also, send out relevant information, even if it isn’t yours.

7. The More Things Change Rule

…the more they stay the same. Don’t get rid of your old e-mail marketing methods because consumers still share information via e-mail and IM. Instead, give it a social twist by including incentives for people to share your content. This will allow you to capitalize on an investment that you already have.

8. Horse Before the Cart Rule

Don’t allow your social marketing strategy to rely solely on “advertising” in social media.  Marketers must tie in their content with social venues. Simply placing ads in social forums will not be effective. As Hall states, “…to succeed in social media, your brands and content need to have social attributes — content worth sharing, brands worth talking about, sites that encourage consumer participation and dialog.”

9. The PR Pitfalls Rule

Though blogger outreach and content seeding seem to be popular ways to spread your message socially, they may not be as effective as you think. According to data from Hall’s and his associates’ research, more than 90% of seeding material has no impact, up to 5% gets some response but less than 2% of seeding drives valuable traffic. What does this mean? If you aren’t getting the desired impact, check your content. The old rule of getting your message out there is better than no message at all, does NOT apply to social media. It can actually cause more harm than good.

10. The Customer-Service Rule

A social media strategy is successful when your customers get something out of it. The traditional media-planning processes that entail producing reach and frequency targets are not as helpful in social media as they are in conventional advertising. However, reach and frequency are by-products of a successful campaign where consumers spread your useful and relative content across their social networks.

While these rules can provide a framework for your social media strategy, remember, this is not an exact science and there are exceptions to every rule.

So get started because social media is not an option when it comes to marketing to women. Don’t let perceived failures of others efforts in the social space make you think it’s not worth the time and effort. Because when it’s implemented correctly,  social engagement equals higher revenue!

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

This same study says that 81% of Americans planned on doing a home renovation project in 2008 but only 44% wanted to perform the task themselves. That’s down 12% from 2006, where 56% of people planning home projects were going to do it themselves.

And specifically women?

The Vertis study shows that female decision-makers between the ages of 25-34, only 32% say they are likely to take on a DIY project. When compared to 59% planning DIY projects in 2006, that’s quite a change. Also showing a remarkable change are women in the 18-24 age category. In 2006, 48% of them planned on doing their own project whereas only 29% of them planned to do so in 2008.

What does this mean for you and your company?

Women want comfort and confidence when hiring companies to do work for them. Reach out to women and offer to support them in their next home improvement project. Also, don’t be condescending. Many of these women can do the home improvement projects, they just don’t want to. Become a solution, not a bigger problem.

Source: Marketing to Women Conference

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

T.V. is a part of most Americans life, especially for moms. Their children watch television, and consequently so do they.  In a blog on MediaPost, writer Petra Arbutina, asks a very good question: “Are these moms really engaged in the programming when they’re watching television with their families?” I would think that the answer is…no. As I mentioned in an earlier post, women are “multi-minders.” Though there may be something on the tv, it doesn’t mean that mom is paying the least bit of attention. More than likely, there are a million and one things running through her head and the commercial for a new soap scum remover that plays during her child’s afternoon show is just another distraction. As Ms. Arbutina says about her personal experience,

“Though my television may be on, there’s a good chance I lost the story line within five minutes of the show starting. And there’s even less chance that I’m going to catch the commercials.”

Ms. Arbutina also states that moms control $4 billion in annual ad spend, so it is absolutely critical to get their attention. But how do you get someone’s attention who’s concentration is likely to be split between so many things?

For the the blog, Ms. Arubutina and her associates at Media Post conducted research with over 400 moms who have children under the age of 12 living in their homes. They found that:

• 75% of respondents watch certain shows with their children.

• 50% of respondents indicated that they’re likely to be doing other things while watching television with their children. (This could mean that though they are watching the program, they aren’t engaging in it.)

• Women with very small children indicated that it was “impossible for anyone to watch anything in the house when the kids are up.”

• Women with older children experienced phases of “family TV viewing” where they watched shows targeted to their kids’ age group between ages 4-7.

• Interestingly, as the kids get older, women become more engaged in the programming as they come to share favorite shows with their kids, such as “American Idol” and “Survivor.”

• The respondents indicated that ultimately they can only truly engage in what’s on the television when their children aren’t present. (This was a consistent response among all respondents regardless of the age of the children.)

• 81% of our survey respondents stated that they have “their shows” that they watch during what they deem to be their “me time.” This offers them an “escape” from the daily pressures of work and family.

• Women are also prone to “time-shift” their preferred programming by DVRing their favorite shows or visiting On Demand, network websites and Hulu.com to re-watch shows or catch episodes they’ve missed.

What does this mean?

According to the research, if moms are watching TV with their children they are not probably not engaging with programs that their children are enjoying. I think its easy to conclude that if they aren’t engaging with the programs, they are definitely not engaging with the commercials. The research also shows that mom wants to watch TV during her “me-time” when interruptions from the kids are minimal. If you are advertising on television, try to get spots on more “grown-up” shows that mom will watch by hersef.

Unfortunately not every mom’s “me-time” is going to be the same. As stated in the last bullet point, mom is using technology such as DVR and websites such as HULU to make her favorite programing fall in line with her self-mandated “me-time.”

So how do you connect?

By going online. Moms are a huge part of the blogosphere and online world. By connecting with her online, you are going where she goes. You may want to gain her attention by advertising on websites where she goes to watch her programs.  If she is making time to go online and “engage” in her favorite programs, try to extend her engagement beyond the actual program. Ms. Arbutina suggests doing things such as online sweepstakes or interactive quizzes.

Bottom line…don’t assume that just because the TV is on mom is watching.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

“What’s for dinner tonight?” “I wonder how the proposal is coming?” “The sun has finally come out!” “Did I reschedule that appointment?” “Wow, my feet hurt.”…

And these are just a few of them. In Kelly Skoloda‘s book “Too Busy to Shop“, she introduces who she refers to as a “multi-minding” woman. According to Ms. Skoloda, a partner at Ketchum PR firm, these women are aged 25-54 and are constantly thinking multiple things. When reviewing “Too Busy to Shop” Mr. Martin Bihl seems a bit disappointed that she hasn’t provided us with insights on why women are this way. But I have to say, that is a subject more likely to be found in psychological and neurological based books. The important thing is that as a woman she recognizes these truths and makes a compelling argument to consider “multi-minding” when marketing to women.

I was also a bit amused that Mr. Bihl felt the need to have had more specific age breakdowns as he felt that 25-54 year olds were too broad of a range. He points out that 25 year olds think about different things than 54 year olds and therefore surmises Ms. Skoloda cannot say they think the same way. Again, the point is, not “what” they are thinking about but that they are thinking about several things at the same time. This is not an really an age thing, Mr. Bihl, but a female thing. It is, what it is.

So, how does a marketer break through the internal chatter and find a resting place inside the female consumer’s mind?

First of all, don’t talk at women, talk to them. Engage your female consumer and listen when she talks back. Pseudo-conversation is no longer acceptable. Marketers must truly listen and take into account the answers that they receive. Conversing half-way has the potential to create a disconnect between you and your consumer.

Secondly, go where the she goes! No use in starting a conversation if no one’s there to listen. Women spend a lot of time on-line immersing themselves in social media. An astonishing 86% of women are now using popular social networks, a 48% increase compared to 2008.* Marketers must step into the world of social media. While social applications such as FaceBook, Twitter, and Plinky may be “trendy”, social media and online engagement are here to stay. Welcome to Web 2.0.

*SheSpeaks’ 2009 Social Media Study

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email