If you don’t have anything nice to say, post a review instead.

Marketing to women can be a little tricky when it comes to getting feedback on your product or service. My last post included video interviews with women about bad haircuts and brand loyalty. The quick message for those who are marketing to women:  just because a female customer doesn’t complain, doesn’t mean she’s happy with you. Chances are that if she’s not satisfied, you’ll be the last to know. Her friends and any YELP readers will be the first to hear about it.

So, what’s a brand to do?

That was certainly an issue for the COO of a successful flooring company I spoke with recently. It is company policy for all of her installers to ask the customer (and the customer is usually a woman) if they are happy with how the floor looks and the way the job was completed. The woman usually says yes and even signs a statement saying she’s satisfied.  So far, so good. The problem raises its ugly head only days later when the manager gets an unhappy call from the woman’s husband. Turns out women are typically so averse to confrontation that they wait until their husband is available to voice concerns. In the meantime, they’ll politely smile and say thank you.

Deal with it by getting smart.

1) Take a deep breath and remember that unhappy customers can become your biggest fans and most vocal evangelists if you respond quickly and work earnestly to fix the problem. Smart brands will tell you that responding appropriately can earn you more good press and word-of-mouth than traditional advertising ever could. This is more true than ever in an economy that makes us think hard about forking over our hard-earned money.

Turn an unsatisfied customer into a very happy one and guess what happens. She’s got a great story that will be told again and again and again. And guess who’s the hero? You are. The word of mouth that results is the stuff branding director’s dreams are made of.

2) Find another way to solicit honest feedback. Face -to-face is uncomfortable for most people and is particularly tough for women who are literally hard-wired as gatherers to keep the village working together. So make it easy for people to give their reviews anonymously (if they choose) and on their own schedule.  Allow for ratings and reviews on your site.  For large companies, a service like BazaarVoice is the gold standard for monitoring customer reviews online. If your pockets aren’t deep enough to hire those guys, get creative. Send an email after the purchase asking for their input. Make sure to keep it SHORT. Link to an online survey that asks 5 questions or fewer. Let it be an OPTION for the customer to give their name or contact info. Allow a field for them to write a more complete comment if they choose.

3) Ask for opinions in YOUR voice. Don’t just send a standardized “your feedback is valuable to us” missive with an equally canned survey. Let your brand personality and EARNEST desire to do a better job ooze from every detail. Consider that even your email asking for their feedback is a form of marketing on your part. Work it.

4) Act on what you learn.

4) Act on what you learn.

4) Act on what you learn. Yes, the repeat was intentional.

This is the step that separates the success stories from the Chapter 11s. Do not hide from the bad reviews. Bad reviews are a roadmap for getting better. As Chris Brogan pointed out in his presentation at GR2L last week, the tools for listening to consumers are there. We’re just not acting on them. Chris reminds us to use OODA: Observe, Orient, Direct, Act.  It’s the Directing and Acting where most companies drop the ball.

The beautiful thing about having women as your customers is that they will tell you exactly what you need to do to succeed. You just have to ask them the right way and listen with both ears and your heart.

Top 5 Questions About Marketing to Women

Well, it’s happened again. Just as it does with every new client with a product that’s used by both genders. They’ve got research in hand that shows their customer satisfaction among women lagging compared to their ratings with men. They seem to be losing women to online and/ or competitors.

Actually, ignoring them will make them (and the their money) go away.

They know they have to do something, but there is a fierce and palpable resistance to doing it. I have been in meetings with C-level executives who have reliable research in which customers give their stores and service a lukewarm review, and I am still asked, essentially, why they should really act on this information.

 

Change is scary. But in this economy, many brands need to do it quickly and smartly or die.

Here are some of the top questions I get when brands realize they need women but don’t really want to evolve.

Q: Does marketing to women mean excluding men?
A: No. Of all the harmful marketing-to-women myths out there, this is the one we need to sacrifice first. Improving your marketing to women doesn’t require painting your product pink or excluding men or being “for women only.” Often the only thing required is to be a bit more human. To look a little closer at the details. To simply respect a woman’s intelligence rather than ignore her existence. 
It means inviting her in. She’ll reward you with her loyalty if you do it right. And she generally brings her friends and family with her.

Q: Why worry about women if you’re marketing to both genders?
A: Because the steps you take to make your brand and product more desirable to women will make it more desirable to everyone. Women are the world’s toughest customers. Please them and you’ll please all. I call this MARKETING TO GENDER 2.0. It’s the next phase. It’s where brands like Apple already are.
 It’s why Best Buy is the last big box electronics store standing. It’s why Wii was the game to buy this past Christmas.


Q: I have lots of information and insights about women. Isn’t that enough to make my marketing to women effective?
A: No. If information were all it took, there would be more success stories like Apple and Best Buy and Curves and Dove. What’s required is to place just as much passion and energy into crafting messages, ads, and communications as you do uncovering the insights that inform that creative. Research alone will not create a great brand campaign. Knowing what a woman wants doesn’t mean much if you can’t communicate that fact to her. And women do have a language all their own. Details matter. There is an art to it. Inspiration, intuition, and talent are required. It helps to think like a woman, laugh like a woman, love like a woman. And yes, it can help quite a bit to be a woman. Research is where you start, but translating it properly is how you finish.

Q: Are you anti-male?
A: No. I’m pro common sense. Here’s my logic. The vast majority of women don’t feel they’re portrayed accurately in advertising (they’re not), and many are actually offended by the very advertising that’s supposed to entice them. I really believe this is an indictment of the way U.S. advertising agencies operate. 97% of the creative directors are men. Think about that for a second. That means men decide what gets presented and produced and all the details inbetween. And here’s the ugly truth – if those male creative directors decide an idea won’t impress the awards show judges at Cannes (who are overwhelmingly male), that idea will never get out the door to you, the client. You won’t even have the honor of seeing it. 

So, remember that great insight you finally unearthed? The nugget that practically guaranteed a favorable female response, provided it was served up properly? Sadly, it probably won’t get served up at all. This is not an indictment of men, but of the way ad agencies have always been run. 



Q: Why make a big deal about gender? Shouldn’t we be beyond that by now?
A: I couldn’t agree more. We should be talking to our own tribes of customers regardless of chromosomes. But, it is a scientific fact that men and women get excited by different things, laugh at different jokes, and travel different paths during the decision making process. Until marketers learn to invite women into their brand and pay attention to the details that matter to them, they’ll continue to lose a very valuable consumer.

Now for the bonus question. This is the one I’m often asked when people find out I specialize in marketing to women.

Q: Why women? Isn’t that a rigid niche?
A: Women are not a niche – they control 80-90% of every consumer purchase decision being made right now. 

Women control seven trillion dollars in spending – roughly equal to the entire Japanese economy. 



Women are TWO for the price of ONE: Impress a woman, and the husband and family comes with her. Turn a woman off and the husband and family goes with her. 



The Economist cites women as the single most powerful force in the global economy. 



What makes a brand more appealing to women usually makes it more appealing to everyone. 



According to Tom Peters in his book, TRENDS, (which gives a very very compelling story about why marketing to women is smart) says women make the BIG purchases: 
personal computers – 66% 
consumer electronics – 60% 
vacation decisions – 89% 
home furnishings – 94% 
new home sales – 75% 
kitchen appliances – 88% 
healthcare purchases – 80% 
new cars – 60% . And these are old stats. The percentages have actually grown, but I always site Tom and encourage people to buy this book because the message carries more weight when it’s delivered by a guru.



Women are loyal and vocal. Other women trust them. They have book clubs. Everybody knows that’s where the important stuff is discussed. 



Honda vs. Dell: Humanity vs. Hubris

I just happened to see two new campaigns launching two new products and my response to each could not be more different.

Honk if you're human.

I think this a great example of a brand who knows who it is versus one who has lost its soul. Honda is launching a new car and the commercial, which was covered by Eleftheria Parpis at AdWeek, makes my heart go pitter patter. In a good way. First, in the interest of full disclosure, they are using a song I love. In fact, it’s one I’ve used in two campaigns. Once for Levis and once for Curves. “This Little Light of Mine” is the ultimate upbeat, musical metaphor and it is beautifully covered in this new spot. 
 

Want to FEEL the difference between a brand that connects with real humans versus one who just likes to look at itself in a mirror? Watch the Honda spot again. That’s the good one here. Though certainly not the best creative they’ve ever done, Honda is appealing to what is best in all of us and linking it to what is best in their brand. They are showing a true understanding of and connection with their consumer in the process. I like the car before I even see it. Now, take a look at Dell’s new print campaign for Adamo. Granted, we are comparing print vs. TV here but, how do you FEEL as you look at the Dell campaign? In typical Dell fashion, they are putting forth a campaign that alienates half (or more) of the population. After spending years on advertising that indicated they were only interested in college age males (Dude, get a clue) this new launch seems to go after the Gucci crowd. But here’s the main reason it fails. It doesn’t have a soul. Honda the car company knows what it stands for and we can feel it when they “speak” to us. What does Dell stand for?

Until they know, we’ll feel nothing.

One more thing. It is notable to me that the Creative Director on the Honda campaign was a woman, Sue Anderson. I’d be interested to know if Dell’s agency, Enfatico, has a woman at the CD level on their brand? If you happen to know anyone there, I’d love the chance to interview them.

Ode to Apple

I think that I shall never see,

A brand as lovely as Apple can be.

OK, so what I lack in lyricism, I make up for in loyalty. Apple gets my vote as the brand to deliver perfect Gender 2.0 service and marketing and overall gestalt.  First, a disclaimer: I’ve been on a Mac since the first day Macs were on a desk, so I am biased.  

But I’ll also be the first to admit that they have certainly had some missteps (the original ipod battery debacle was a crappy way to treat early adopters.)

Recently, however, Apple is simply blowing me away with brilliance and immaculate follow-through.

1st, let’s take the whole “I’m a Mac” campaign. They took what could be a dry, product points-based, geeky messaging platform and personified it in a way that’s immediately understandable, relevant and lovable. They achieved what I would tell any brand to do if they wanted to win over women. They humanized themselves. In fact, they humanized the whole Mac vs. PC debate. In fact, they humanized this entire technology. It’s worth noting that, as far as I can see, they did it without alienating young men.

But what I really adore is the follow-through in the stores. It does not matter one iota that I am a middle-aged woman when I walk into their store. I am greeted immediately and warmly and when my appointment comes up at the Genius Bar, I am talked to as an intelligent person who really matters.  Perhaps you have to be a middle-aged woman to understand how rare and wonderful this is in a tech environment, but I don’t seem to be the only one who appreciates the service. On a recent Sunday, I was in the store and took a cursory inventory of customers. The ratio of men to women was roughly equal. Notably, so was the ratio of young to….well, lets just say, more experienced.  There were twenty-year olds and seventy year-olds playing with products. I watched a 60-year old woman learning how to put pictures from iphoto on to her website and blog in the One to One training area.

 But here’s what really wowed me. This past Saturday evening, I opened  my MacBook Pro and discovered that the screen had died. It had just gone black.  I immediately went online to make an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar for 10:45am the next morning. At 10:48 Sunday morning I handed my computer (my life) over to Aaron at the Genius Bar and braced myself for the worst. Aaron was cool and calm. He backed up my data to my external hard drive while I grabbed a coffee next door and then he packed up my laptop and told me it was covered on my Apple Care plan and that they’d have it back in 5-7 days. That was Sunday. It arrived today — 4 business days later – and they’d fixed what ailed it and then some. No charge.

Genius, thy name is Apple.

 

 

Close your wallet. Raise your voice.

A few nights ago, I spoke at the National Charity League. This is a group of women who are used to making a difference through volunteering and giving with their daughters.  My goal was to show them a way to impact how women (and our girls) are portrayed in media by closing their wallets and raising their voices. No large donations or hours in a soup kitchen required.

The Super Bowl was still fresh enough on everyone’s minds to use as  a talking point , so I asked which ads had stuck out as particularly insulting to women. And of course the winner was GoDaddy.  So should we just roll our eyes and shrug it off?

No. Essentially, when you see advertising and marketing that is detrimental to us as women, don’t give that brand your money. Do send them a message and get all of your friends to as well. Start a discussion about it on a blog or website.

Word gets around. People talk. Look what happened to Motrin. If only the same would happen to GoDaddy. 

I spend a lot of time trying to get big companies to treat women more respectfully in their advertising. We’ll see how it works to get women to start demanding that respect.