Preface

The fact that women make or influence the majority ( roughly 80 percent) of consumer purchases today is old news by now. But how do you leverage this information? What portion of the women's market truly is your market? How can you develop strategies that are authentic for women and relevant in their lives?

This book will show you how to see through the eyes of womenwherever they are in their buying process. Part of this marketing mind training involves learning how women's minds work and what may be influencing their buying behavior. Then comes the really hard part: meeting your women customers on their own terms and forging lasting relationships with them over time.

As marketers, we are schooled in how to read the data and when to hold focus groups. We can quote "the customer is always right", while at the same time trying to develop a marketing strategy from inside the product out. But, becoming a part of the conversations of women as they go about their daily routines is only possible if we return to the roots of good overall marketing and examine our task from a customer-centric perspectivefrom inside the customer out.

Over time, it's possible to lose touch with who really buys your product, why they buy it over other brands, what is going on in their lives when they choose to make the purchase, and how they feel about their interactions with your customer service staff. Reading this book will help ground you in the strategy development process by getting back to the basics. If your data says your customers are mainly educated women between the ages of 25 and 45, that just isn't enough information on which to proceed. You need to dig in deeper and examine how those women live, what roles they play, what life stages drive them, what cultural experiences influence them, and much more.

Though the book's topic is gender specific, much (if not all) of what we propose herein will serve as a useful reminder and re-training manual for marketing to any of the customer bases in your industry. Understanding the types or profiles of your customers (in this case, women) is keyas is paying attention to their technology confidence levels, and, ultimately, learning to reach them transparently .

Your brand and your marketing team must be authentically interested in, and connected with, the women you serve in order to develop the most resonant products, services and marketing campaigns . The idea is to know your prospective and current women customers so well that you can place your brand right where it needs to be and ensure that your products or services will be readily accessible, in their minds and on the shelf, just when and where they need them.

Reaching women consumers is not a trend. It's the lucrative future, for anyone who grabs it. Slightly tweaked male-oriented products or marketing efforts will no longer do. Once you've read this book and examined your brand by peering through a woman 's lens, the need for different ways to reach them as consumers will become clearand 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 woman's perspective is the key.