THIS ARTICLE BY MARK DI SOMMA IS TITLED:
Femonomics must change the way we sell

It’s extraordinary how so much has been made of the emergence of China and India and of the impact of new technology on the world’s economic wellbeing – and yet a factor bigger than either of these dynamics has been largely ignored.

The rise in the participation of women in the economy through full-time work has contributed more to economic growth than either the region or online globally, and yet the attention this has received pales in comparison to the space devoted to Silicon Valley and the rise of the subcontinent and the Red Dragon.

In the US, the input of women in the paid workforce has risen from just 20 percent in the early 20th century to close to 50 percent today, and it is still rising. According to Gerry Myers, American women now alone earn, control, and spend trillions of dollars annually. In fact, they are responsible for a whopping 80 - 85 percent of all purchasing decisions.

So it’s amazing that so many senior male marketers still regard marketing to women as akin to catering to a niche market. As Fara Warner, author of The Power of the Purse, points out, when you recognise that women are not just the majority but actually the vast majority of consumers, and that their power is only going to increase, it completely changes the commercial urgency of getting to grips with women buyers.

I’m no economist, but those of you who’ve attended my presentations will know that I like to look for the clear marketing implications in economic shifts. This, women and gentlemen, is probably one of the biggest shifts we will ever see. It’s happening right before our eyes, and yet the response by traditional male marketers has been mooted at best, and dismissive at worst.

Here are just some of the changes I believe that femonomics will generate.

First, the sales process itself. Because the way men tend to sell is transactionally based, male marketers can easily confuse a softer sell with an easier sale. They think that because women often buy in a more considered, relationship-based way, that means they’re going to be easier to convince. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Femonomics demands not just products that address women’s priorities but also a complete rewrite of the sales process. Forget the old direct marketer’s catch-cry of lifetime value. Valuable relationships are going to be increasingly derived from their women-time value. In other words, a level of relationship around the sale that women feel comfortable giving their in-demand time to (before, during and after they part with their cash).

Second change: the way we sell. According to Michael Silverstein of Boston Consulting Group, women shop very differently from men. They research more extensively and are less likely to be influenced by ads. All of which makes for a very different marketing style. And a very different sense of what’s valuable.

Heavy media campaigns alone won’t cut it, because women increasingly look for endorsement of the products they prefer through the magazines they read and the sites they visit rather than just awareness. They want detail before committing. And they are more interested in the indirect selling style of product placement, sponsorships, and editorial.

To sell successfully to women, companies need to look at more careful building of their brand equity, a greater degree of emotional intelligence in the way they position their products, greater reliance on diverse media to lift awareness and much more thought through, holistic and engaging shopping experiences generally.

Thirdly: who we focus on selling to. While many marketers still seem obsessed with talking to Gen X and Y consumers, the most powerful women financially are baby boomers.

This is a group who, trendspotters say, will continue to travel more and more, which is highly motived to continue working and therefore earning after retirement, that is amongst the highest proportion of internet users, and who are likely to be in charge of unprecedented wealth. All of this makes them a substantial force to be reckoned with, and an audience that marketers need to be talking to with enthusiasm and intelligence.

This is also a group with strong community motivations and a much more ethical take on what they will purchase. Corporate social responsibility is a rising influence in the femonomics age, as consumers become increasingly aware and politicised around their spending dollar and look to spend money with brands that express points of view that they concur with.

Marketers need to rethink their definitions of age, and look to include a wider range of consideration factors, including aspects like fair trade and environmental impact, if they are to capitalise on this young-at-heart, wealthy-in-pocket market.

Finally - how women are portrayed.

Traditional male marketers, whether they admit or not, still seem to see empowered and achieving women as a novelty act, and really struggle to sell to them intelligently. Let me give you my hypothesis as to why. While men are often single-minded and switch in and out of modes at set times, women span a much wider range of roles across any given day, and they bring their experiences, education, background, motivation and beliefs to every one of those.

That might explain why so many male marketers believe that the only way to talk to women in the home is to fill their ads with women in “traditional” roles, and why they really struggle to understand that the woman who is home looking after her sick child this morning could well be in a boardroom, or on the phone this afternoon making decisions worth thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars.

Time for us guys to reconfigure how the single minded proposition is going to fit women’s multi-faceted lives.

All up - it's time for a rethink.

Addressing the economic power of women astutely and smartly means responding to femonomics with even more enthusiasm and resource commitment than organisations have thrown at globalisation.

That in turn requires male marketers to step back from the cut-and-thrust machismo of negotiating smart deals or aggressively countering a threat from emerging markets, and take a think-again look at the very ways they assess and reshape their company’s appeal, reputation and relationships.