U.S. Women and the Internet, Part 3
Seven immutable laws of online marketing to women.
Seven immutable laws of online marketing to women.
Earlier this year, I wrote about how U.S. women consume online ads and how they respond to those ads. Since then, many more reports about how women should be marketed to have been released. In setting about to update this series, I took a look at new data, conducted an informal focus group of my own using Twitter, and synthesized my findings here.
Where the Women Are
Women continue to wield a growing amount of influence online, particularly in social media. According to a RapLeaf study cited by “BusinessWeek”, there’s a growing social-media gender gap and the future “is going to be all about the women.” RapLeaf reasons that unlike women of all ages and status, men over 30 tend to be married and therefore are “not hanging out on social networks,” with the exception of LinkedIn where they dominate, using it for business transactional purposes. Women’s behavior online, however, is “less transactional and more relationship-driven.”
Relationships and Trust
Even when women’s behavior is transactional, it’s often influenced by some kind of relationship. For example, a BlogHer study found that 64 percent of its users have made a purchasing decision as a result of a recommendation or customer experience posted on a blog. “The New York Times” just released a study describing how the online behavior of affluent, influential wired women affects purchasing behaviors. These women, “marketing multipliers,” are twice as likely to actively communicate satisfaction or dissatisfaction and to about twice as many people. Marketing multipliers value their reputation and will not pass on information unless it’s from a trustworthy source; 71 percent say that the site the ad is on is very important.
A study of online moms, “Living La Vida Rapida: Today’s Parents Living a Double Life at Double Time,” by Platform-A and OMD, backs this up. The study shows that digital ads, like banners, mobile, and text messaging, scored far lower on the trust and “ad acceptability” ratings scale than TV, radio, and newspaper media.
Seven Immutable Laws of Online Marketing to Women
Our survey and focus group findings, combined with our analysis of other studies, have led us to create a business report based on the following list of immutable laws:
There’s so much information about wired women and too little space. As you can tell, I enjoy this topic, so look for more about it from me in the future.
Join us for a Consumers and the Influence of Blogs: What It Means for Your Marketing Mix on November 20 at 2 pm EST. Find out how online consumers discover blogs and navigate between them, what kind of opportunity blogs represent for advertisers, and much more!