Marketing to Women Online

An Apology to Manolo Blahnik

It's a never ending joke - women love shoes.  When advertisers survey women, they compare luxury vacations with buying new shoes.    When they need humorous creative, they have a skit with women obsessing over shoes.    When they depict women's fantasies, there are almost always shoes involved.

I have been ranting about the "women and shoes" cliche for several years now.   I've just never bought it.   Women simply can not be that obsessed with shoes.   That has always been my stance.

Until last Thursday.

I responded to an 11pm cry from my sister to help her move.  She rented her house for the summer and had to be out by midnight.  She was not going to make it unless she got some serious help.

So me and my car rode over to the rescue.  She had almost everything out of the house, except for some plants and her clothes.  I figured that was one trip in one car.   

I was wrong.

Websites for Women - Common Mistakes Part 3

I was talking with Jean at All Moms Go To Heaven, our guinea pig site, er....our test subject, and she has seen a definite increase in activity on her site.   By fixing her home page, and and making the suggested changes to her nomination form, she's seen an increase in sales, nominations, and overall positive comments on her site.

But there's still a lot of room for improvement.

So - let's take a look at another common mistake when creating websites for women - category pages.

I've written about category pages before and how important they are, especially if you are targeting women. 

So let's take a look at All Moms Go To Heaven and see what improvements we can make on their shopping page.

The Difference Between Edgy and Creative

Tell me, really, I want to know.    Why do so many advertising creative types equate adolescent humor with being creative?   

Everyone out there wants to be "edgy".     Ok - so they try to shock you to get your attention.   Or they make a boob joke and think they're creative geniuses.   

Hey, I'm all for humor in ads.   But I see more and more advertiser pushing the line to try to get attention by being "cutting edge".    That usually means more sex, more adolescent humor, or other techniques designed to "get attention". 

These techniques do work.  They get attention.  But do they sell products?   

Read more about the difference between edgy and creative including a look at Bluefly vs. TJ Maxx.

Fewer Women in Web Design?

There's still a big gap between women and men in the IT field.   Would it be a good thing to have more women in IT, and specifically, in web design?  I think so.   But if you're designing a website for women, does the gender of the designer matter?   

check out the debate on Grokdotcom.

Websites for Women - Common Mistakes - Part 2

Let's say you've just met someone.  They seem nice enough. They tell you a little about themselves.   You start to build some rapport.   You seem to have some common interests and values.   Then they ask about you -

"What's your name?"

"My name's Holly"

"What's your last name?

"Buchanan" I answer, though with a little hesitancy.

"Where do you live?" Ok - now I"m feeling uncomfortable.   I am very security conscious and don't often give out that information unless it's to a trusted source.

"What's your phone number?"    "How much do you earn?"    It gets worse and worse.   I just met this person and they are asking me for all sorts of information.  It's creeping me out.

When you ask people to submit information on your site, keep this scenario in mind.  How much information do you absolutely have to have?   Don't ask for anything more, or if you do, make it optional.

Let's look at our Allmomsgotoheaven.com example.