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Selling & Advertising To Women Versus Selling & Advertising To Men: ‌How Are They Different?
Selling & Advertising To Women Versus Selling & Advertising To Men: ‌How Are They Different?

December 24, 2024

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Are there differences between selling or advertising to men versus selling or advertising to women? ‌ Will it cost your business for not knowing them? 

Yes, we'll talk about all that, but first, you need to understand how selling to women differs from‌ ‌selling‌ ‌to‌ ‌men.

So, first of all, we need to understand the basic psychological principles of selling. People buy based on emotions and they justify with logic. 

Let’s suppose you walk down into a superstore in the upmarket of a city, and you see something very expensive, like a watch, or a dress, or a suit and you didn’t even like it. Let's suppose that the particular object costs US$30k. The question is do you really need that product to survive? Is it essential for your survival? 

The simple answer is no, it isn’t essential for your survival, but you will get emotionally attached to the product or a service and it will get you involved in the process of buying it. So, you are going to either buy it with logic “well, if I have that people will perceive me as more powerful, or as more successful, as more handsome” and you start justifying it to build up your emotion to just increase your emotion or desire to buy it. That’s how it works in selling. This is especially true when it comes to selling or advertising expensive products.

Why do people also buy products or services? They buy them to solve an existing problem or to improve themselves or to also buy a better version of themselves. 

This is especially true when it comes to luxury products. People buy them to become a better version of themselves and yes, people, maybe, also know they need it to solve a problem. For example, you’re a lawyer and provide legal services, etc. You get paid to solve a problem. And that’s the pain point of your target market and it’s very important that you know your target market, your customer. 

The first thing that I do when I create a marketing campaign is that I create a buyer persona (a semi-fictional character of your prospect, of your ideal customer). It’s very important that you think about what are the problems that your clients have, what they are looking for, how old they are, how they are living, how much they could be earning. Try to come up with as many facts as possible and really try to figure out what keeps them awake at night. 

If you know that, you have everything to succeed with a great marketing concept, and also to drive your sales. That’s what I can say you can follow to drive your sales, increase your revenue. 

At this point, one thing that I need to make clear when discussing differing methods of advertising to men versus advertising to women is that today’s mainstream advertising in general adopts unisex advertising approach, shying away from gender targeting, thinking that this would help them to not reduce their potential audience by half. 

Gender targeting in advertising is never incorrect until it hurts in any way. 

I’d rather quote John Gary “Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.” 

What implications does this have for eCommerce? 

When targeting female audiences, advertisements that evoke feelings of comfort and appreciation tend to have a greater impact.

You can affect this aspect of your company in the following ways:

  • Good advice
  • Great customer service
  • Discount voucher on Birthday!
  • Regular holiday based communication
  • Good product + listens to product feedback
  • Great value, great offers, loyalty + Rewards scheme

For‌ ‌men, problem-solving is needed

  • There is a solution to the problem, e.g. something causing stress to the Female partner (he‌ ‌is stressed because she is stressed,‌ ‌so‌ ‌he‌ ‌wants‌ ‌to‌ ‌fix‌ ‌it)
  • Create videos that explain how to do something (such as DIY tasks).
  • Solve problems through the products stocked - content geared towards addressing "Pain Points".

Let’s come directly to the point now. 

What to consider when selling or advertising to women? 

For women, buying is a journey. Let’s picture the buying journey of a girl. In general, girls or women love shopping. When looking to buy something, for example, a handbag, dress, etc., what they usually do is they will not go into the first store to buy the dress or handbag they need over there. For women, the process is very different. First of all, they go into one store, then go into another store, then go into the next boutique, and they drive around and come back and finally they get sight of what they are going to take home. The journey of buying for women is basically based on emotion. Emotional decision-makers when it comes to women buying something. 

Suppose a woman is looking to buy a car. She goes into the car dealership store and unlikely gives so much emphasis on the facts and figures of how much horsepower it has, when it was launched, or how much fuel it will consume, etc. The first things they will analyze are how many bags I can put into my car, if the car matches with my garage, or how it will look in the neighborhood, etc. What will the neighbors think? That’s basically how women are learnt to make their purchase decisions. Emotions involved in their buying journey very much! 

Female-client focused businesses like beauty saloon, boutique, etc. should create a very pleasant experience so they come back. What does it mean by pleasant experience? 

Let’s say you have a boutique. As soon as they enter your store, offer them something to drink. First of all, it doesn’t cost that much money and it may really create a great experience for them and it may also make them spend time in your store and spend time looking at what you have to offer at your boutique. It might also drive your sales. Whether you have an offline or online business, make sure to create a really pleasant experience for your female clients. Try to create an environment that drives them to get emotionally involved and they will come back. 

What to consider when selling or advertising to men? 

Well, men usually tend to make decisions based on facts and figures. For example, when they are looking to buy a car, they want to know the horsepower, when it’s built, how much fuel it uses and all that stuff! So, if you have a business which is more centered towards male-client deals, I highly recommend that you get all facts and figures ready, because you’ll need them. For men also, buying is something like a mission. They want to get it done quickly. Let’s say a guy who needs a t-shirt or a suit. He’d not be ready to spend that much time, so he would probably go into the first store, buy it and probably solve it. 

That’s said, you need to create an environment or give them an experience that will say it will solve their problem easily, quickly, without having to spend so much time. 

In Conclusion

What I’d recommend is first of all you need to know your customer well. Create a buyer persona, come up with what keeps them awake at night, and try to know your customers better than they know themselves. It’s very important when it comes to creating marketing materials, marketing strategy, sales copy, etc. 

While creating marketing strategy, keep it in mind that women tend to respond better to email marketing campaigns than men. Women are reported to also prefer something like Facebook, Instagram ads, etc. It causes them to show them the solution they are looking for. According to a recent study, men tend to respond better to mobile marketing. So, if you want to reach out to them, build a strategy to optimize your business or website in a mobile-friendly way. It’ll show them it’s easy, it’s simple and it will get their problem solved quickly.

 


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