Marketing to Women Online

I Want to Be a Phoenix

 
If you spend any time online, you've seen their banner ads everywhere. University of Phoenix has been pushing their online curriculum for a very long time.  But something interesting happened recently.....their ads actually made an emotional connection.

In their "I am a Phoenix" campaign, the University of Phoenix has tapped into one of the strongest motivators known to man - the desire to belong.

And that's not all, they also tapped into the powerful motivator of self identity.   My prediction is that this one-two punch will be very successful. 

Making an emotional connection and setting themselves apart

Are You Losing Your Customers at "Hello"

When my book The Soccer Mom Myth first came out, I did a reading at a book store which was attended by an old friend of my father.  This guy had been in advertising for a long, long time.

After my presentation, he came up to me to tell me how much he enjoyed it, and that he disagreed with everything I said.

"Um, OK" was about all I could manage.  How could he have disagreed with everything?  All of the points presented in the book are backed up by research - from neurology to behavioral scientists to my own research and online testing.

What was the problem?  I lost him at "Hello."  

He disagreed with my very first premise, which is that men and women have different buying processes. 

What Images Increase Sales to Today's Women?

What are the most important elements in advertisements targeting women?  Quite often - the images.

As we've seen, women sometimes don't respond to/relate to the same images that men do.

So what images do women respond to?

I asked Sally Bjornsen that question.   Sally runs Sally Bjornsen Represents where she represents a select group of photographers.  Ad agencies hire these photographers to do photo-shoots for their clients.  I wanted to talk to Sally for two reasons:

1. She has an extensive advertising background working for companies like Nike and Nordstrom as well as running her own women-focused ad agency.
2. With her current business, she sees firsthand what types of images agencies are looking for today.  

Sally has seen some trends as to what types of images are connecting with consumers, especially female consumers.

Mommy Bloggers - Why Advertisers Want Them

You want to reach moms?   You want word-of-mouth advertising?   You want moms to get on board with your brand or product and to tap into the influence they have with their friends and family?  

Meet the mommy blogger.

Companies small and large are trying to climb on to the mommy blogger bandwagon. Advertising Age recently did a story about the phenomenon - Inside the Mommy Blogger Business. 

Despite their lightweight moniker, mommy bloggers have become marketing business heavyweights. Now said to number in the millions, these online women have cobbled together content networks that rival some mainstream media companies. And they're clearly a force that retailers underestimate at their own peril. In this "About Digital" report, we talk to a retail giant, an analyst, major publisher and a PR agency to better understand how various segments of the industry are adjusting to this phenomenon.

There's a reason why mommy bloggers are gaining the attention and respect of advertisers.  

Mom Bloggers - The Hot New Advertising Medium

More and more companies and advertisers are waking up to the power of mom bloggers. 

Nielson recently published a list of their top 50 mom bloggers.

Nielsen also published its list of the top 50 mommy  bloggers, which categorizes these influential online contributors by topic and behavior-based segment.

In what Nielsen calls “a collection of leading voices in the mom blogosphere,” the Power Mom blogger list is based on a blend of blog posts and comments, and inbound/outbound traffic captured via Nielsen BuzzMetrics, as well as Twitter followers and other metrics.

Companies are anxious to reach out to these influential women to help them promote their products.

Using Mom Blogger to Promote Musicians

I also recently read about a venture with Barbara Jones and One2One Network and Steve Greenberg of S-Curve Records to promote one of my favorite new artists Diane Birch.

What Women Small Business Owners Want

The Small Business Success Index, (a joint effort between Network Solutions and The University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business) put out a recent report on The State of Small Business.

One of the  most interesting parts of the report was about women business owners. the report found that:

women business owners are more likely to view the business as "highly" or "marginally competitive" (61%) as compare to men (50%). This reinforces the trend reported earlier that majority women-owned business are slightly more competitive.

"Women are simply better at running businesses –with the exception of 'borrowing money'"– according to Roy Dunbar, CEO of Network Solutions, the company that co-authored the report.

This seems to coincide with other reports from NAWBO and WPO finding that in the current climate, women business owners are more optimistic about their futures. 

So where are women small business owners looking for help?

How To Handle Angry Customers

We've all been there.   You're at an airport.  You're tired.   You just want to get home.  And your plane is delayed.

With no real explanation.

How many times has this happened to you?   How many times, like me, have you stated that there is a special place in Hell for (fill in airline name here).

What airlines and other companies seem to miss is one of the most important parts of customer service - communication. 

Especially when things are going wrong - THIS is when you need to communicate the most. The worse thing you can do is ignore angry customers.

The other way to diffuse a bad customer situation is to use humor.  

Lisa Barnes at marketingfit.com has a fabulous real life example -  How to Handle Customer Complaints the Westjet Way.    Laugh and learn.

Was The Motrin Moms Campaign Really A Failure?

Like a lot of other folks, I felt the Motrin Mom "sling baby" campaign really missed the mark.  It was yet another example of good strategy, but poor execution.

Or was it?

In her article, Using Social Media to Listen to Consumers, Abbey Klaussen had this to say about the campaign:

Last fall, Johnson & Johnson's Motrin broke creative of a mom complaining that wearing your baby "in fashion," via a sling, can cause back and neck pain. It offended some in the social-media sphere, and an army of Twittering moms got the brand to yank the ad and issue a mea culpa on its site. But, according to a Lightspeed Research survey, almost 90% of women had never seen the ad. Once they saw it, about 45% liked the video, 41% had no feelings about it, and 15% didn't like it. Even fewer, 8%, said it negatively affected their feelings of the brand, compared with the 32% who said it made them like the brand more. Was Motrin's decision to yank the ad and apologize the right one -- even if it made the problem go away?

Wow - what's going on here?  How could the Lightspeed Research survey produce such a different response from the moms in the social media hemisphere?

The "She's Just Not That Into You" Marketing Phenomena

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

This is an important thought to keep in mind as companies start to tap into the power of Web 2.0 and social media   Yes, brands are now able to create wonderful interactive experiences online. But the "if we build it, they will come" mentality doesn't always work.

All of your efforts with Web 2.0, social media, etc. should be based on one thing - what your customers want/care about.

Sometimes brands are so caught up inside their own bottle they forget - sometimes she's just not that into you. 

A perfect example of that is a recent marketing campaign by Comcast.  

Seth Stevenson at Slate has a great article - Would You Like Your Cable Company More if It Were Quirky and Hip?

He points out that, while the TV commercial has some cool artistic attributes, it doesn't change people's attitudes about Comcast.

As for Comcast's interactive website, Seth has this to say:

The campaign Web site lets you download Comcast wallpaper and ring tones and create your own "room" in Comcast Town, complete with virtual furniture and accessories. You can also see the lyrics for the Comcast Town songs and even open PDFs of the sheet music. The site is meant to be a sort of interactive playground for Comcast enthusiasts.

Which brings me to the problem with this campaign. Who on earth would become a Comcast enthusiast? Who hangs out at a Comcast Web site and rearranges pretend furniture? Or, put more broadly: What sane person forms a loving attachment to a cable behemoth?

Couldn't have said it better myself. 

If you are marketing to women, keep something in mind - her new "inbox" includes her email (sometimes a work and personal account), Facebook, Twitter, probably several communities she belongs to and blogs she reads and interacts with on a regular basis. 

The competition for her attention online is fierce.  If you're going to create a Web 2.0 experience, start with what your customers want and care about (instead of with your products).  Focus more on her, and less on you.   And beware of the "she's just not that into you" phenomena. 

How to overcome the "she's just not into you" phenomena.

Why Email Marketing Is More Important Than Ever

There is a consistent mantra among marketers right now - do more with less.

Marketing budgets are being slashed, or are simply non-existent.  Yet, even with anemic budgets, marketers are still expected to deliver results.

Email is one of the cheapest ways to drive sales.  And, according to Marketing Sherpa, people are still reading their email.

I attended Marketing Sherpa's Email Summitthis last week.  Here are some of the top learnings I took away:

5 must-do's - Don't share subscriber's email address with others

                  - Offer special pricing for email subscribers

                  - Allow subscribers to customize frequency 

                  - Allow subscribers to customize information they receive from you

                  - Give subscribers a first look at new products

Segment your list - "Batch and blast" emails are going the way of the dinosaur.  Segment your list and customize messaging and offers for each segment.  The more relevant you make those customized emails, the higher the response you'll get. (examples of segments:  gender, frequency of purchase, amount of activity, area of interest, etc.) 

Test and test some more - Test subject lines, content, calls to action, conversion rates.  Your gut is often wrong.  By testing to see what gets the highest response you can dramatically increase your results.

Scrub your list - get rid of invalid email addresses, inactive addresses and other dead-weight that's hurting your delivery, your response rates and your reputation. 

Bottom line - it's all about being relevant to your audience.   

Coming next - some specific examples.