Don’t Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy

by Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned (10500)

Despite the fact that women make or influence more than 80-percent of all consumer purchase decisions, very few corporations purposefully attempt to tap into this vast market. To make matters worse, those that do attempt to target the buying power of women often end up doing something ineffective, stereotyped or superficial — like offering their product in pink or pastel colors to make it more appealing to women.

The real key to targeting the $2 trillion dollars a year in women’s consumer spending is to do three things very well:

1. Understand the buying behavior and preferences of women

2. Use insightful segmentation of the women’s marketplace

3. Enlist women as your marketing partners

On the strength of these three keys, you can then begin to move your marketing away from pink thinking towards the more productive side of the women’s marketing spectrum:

Pink Thinking The same products as before but in pastel or flowery colors. Marketing materials for these products were overly sentimental and had unrelated storylines.

Gender Neutral Marketing The same products are offered to men and women without any thought being given to differences in styles of thinking or preferences

Visible Women’s Marketing These products are obviously for women. They make it clear they have been designed with the women’s needs and requirements in mind.

Transparent Women’s Marketing Campaigns Products have been developed for women but they are not marketed as such. Instead, the products are treated just like any other.

Hybrid Women’s Marketing These products are marketed through a mix of marketing techniques — some visible and others transparent. This maybe a brand within a brand approach.

Reaching women consumers is not a trend. It’s the lucrative future, for anyone who grabs it. Slightly tweaked male-oriented products or marketing offers will no longer do. Once you’ve examined your brand by peering through a women’s lens, the need for different ways to reach them as consumers will become clear — and as you re-examine and re-connect with the women who are your current customers, the changes you will need to make should emerge fairly quickly. Re-entering into conversations with your best and most influential customers is the best way to create products and services that resonate, and the best way to expand on their trust in your brand. Learning to see from a women’s perspective is the key.

–Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned

Don’t Think Pink