Why should all marketers learn more about women and why they buy what they buy? Because women buy or influence the purchase of 80% of all consumer goods in the United States. Pretty good reason, eh?
Caroline Winnett wrote "Gender and Marketing: The Female Brain" for the March 6, 2009 issue of the Progressive Grocer newsletter. She cites the findings of a firm called NeuroFocus that "specializes in understanding and measuring how the brain responds to literally any stimulus that a person can receive." Here are some of the article’s points that will interest marketers:
Women rely more heavily on their brains’ mirror neurons, which enable them to feel what they see another person is feeling.
Women are much more likely to attach emotional significance to stimuli, including marketing stimuli.
And women respond significantly more strongly to certain styles of packaging designs, in-store presentations, and store layouts.
Here are a few of the suggestions NeuroFocus offers for marketing successfully to women:
Be authentic
Focus on cooperative, reciprocal, collaborative conversations
Keep messaging exploratory, not flatly declarative
Provide plenty of information
Acknowledge that she's integrating many goals with every shopping experience and purchase
