The facts are amazing: Even though women still earn less money than their male counterparts (78 cents for every dollar a man gets), women make more than 80 percent of the buying decision in all homes. No wonder infomercial advertisers strive to capture the attention of females. But what complicates matters for marketers is how women shop. Unlike men, women research items more extensively and are less likely to be influenced by ads. This means marketers need to fine-tune their advertising messages and be seen in marketing venues that women deem credible.
Today, companies are paying more attention to the style and form of their products in an effort to appeal to women, and marketers are shifting away from only running television ads in favor of promotional efforts in venues women trust, such as reviews in women’s magazines and spots on TV shows like Oprah and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Such activities prove that marketing today is getting more fragmented. What used to work in the past won’t necessarily work today. So in order to have your product or service reach the female market-even if it’s not a female-oriented product-you need to view marketing a bit differently than you did a few years ago.
A recent article in Advertising Age magazine details how women spend their leisure time. In it, columnist Mike Vorhaus asked women of all ages to identify from a list of activities their favorite leisure activity. What he found in the female category impacts all drtv advertisers who have a product that targets women-or who simply want to get a piece of the buying power that women possess.