Collaborating with women to build a brand online

With greater accessibility, rich content and a communal environment, digital media has become an indispensable component in women’s lives. Women’s engagement with digital media encompasses consuming, sharing and producing and, as such, these women are potentially a very lucrative audience for marketers if approached in the right manner. We have identified three key areas of note:

Firstly, over more recent years, women have adapted to progress their own careers in conjunction with taking care of their families. One of their rewards for this dual role is greater spending power. According to Mintel (2011), women make over 70% of the buying decisions in their home, which highlights the importance of this audience to marketers.

Secondly, women tend to voice their real opinions more readily and digital technology offers them a real-time opportunity to express themselves via blogs, forums and websites (think Mumsnet in the UK). Their smartphones further facilitate this behaviour, alongside staying connected with their inner circles and keeping their busy lives organised.

Attitude towards technology is the third area to note. With increasingly busy lives, women need to see how technology can help them accomplish their tasks and enhance their ability to juggle their days. When women interact within the digital space, they are naturally drawn to personally relevant, well-designed and user-friendly and information and products.

Women are naturally receptive to ‘talking’ and ‘connecting’ and so are potentially the low hanging fruit for marketers in the digital space. Marketers can collect standard CRM data such as email address, date of birth, number of children and personal interests, etc. but the real challenge is to use these facts to build deeper relationships with these women.

It is crucial for marketers to evolve from having a one-way conversation with these consumers to asking for their opinion – building a brand through collaboration. Brands should first look at a situation from a woman’s point of view and then translate that point of view into an insight that makes the offering more valuable. For example, selling make-up to women can be translated into establishing a relationship about their look; selling an expensive designer bag could be about establishing a relationship that is focused on their social status and style.

Brand relationships with women are not built overnight; influencing women to connect with brands can take some time and marketers should be prepared to invest in this time. If a brand can start to offer women ideas that reflect their tastes and lifestyles, rather than just hard selling the product/brand, it shows those women that the brand cares about them longer-term, which in turn can help to build engagement and loyalty.

rosita.wijngaarde@maxusglobal.com

For more information on how Maxus builds deeper relationships between brands and consumers, please visit the Relationship Media page of our website or download a pdf summary