When advertisements positively portray women, there is an increased likelihood of having a positive impact on long-term Brand Relationship as well as short-term behavior change. The role and portrayal of women in advertising can influence attitudes towards the evaluation of an ad.
If your business or brand’s target demographic skews female (and most do), then strap on your learning goggles, because this post is for you! After all, women have a purchasing power in the US that ranges between $5 and $15 TRILLION annually and control over 60% of all personal wealth in the U.S. For most brands, women represent the bulk of their customer base. It begs the question: why are so many brands marketing to a female demographic with ineffective, outdated tactics?
Here are a few insights and tips from Spark on effectively marketing to women in the digital age.
We Don’t Stereotype or Generalize Your Marketing Messages
This might come as a bit of a shock, but you cannot create one type of message and expect it resonate with all women around the world. The good news is, most brands know this already and split their messaging into buckets like “new mothers” and “single mid-20’s urbanite”, but even that level of targeting can often be too broad. A new mom in a small town in rural Kansas is going to have different expectations, experiences, and needs than a new mom in downtown San Francisco.
We’ve narrowed our marketing demographic to be as specific as you can possibly get: developing content and messages that speak to a more refined educated, business-inspired and/or entrepreneurial female audience.
We Market Where Your Audience Lives … Online
We’re exclusively an online medium for women. We engage social media influencers to help market our message and draw audiences back to our website. A recent study by Bustle found that 81% of female millennials said social media was the best way for brands to reach them. Of those, around half said Facebook was the platform of choice, while the other half chose Instagram.
We Create Compelling Content
According to a NewsCred study,
30% of women refuse to read content that doesn’t either entertain or inform
60% of women will only share content that is thought-provoking and intelligent
70% of women will share content that makes them laugh
If our content is neither entertaining nor educating, we won’t even think about publishing it.
We are creative experts on creating advertising campaigns and individual adverts. We are a team of graphic designers and creative professionals … which is why our site is darn attractive, right?
We Tell Women’s Success Stories
One of the easiest and often most overlooked strategies when it comes to marketing to women is telling women’s stories. Integrating women’s stories into the messaging of your branding can help your brand reflect and connect with women in and outside of your target niche. As you know, every person’s (including women’s) journey is totally unique. Women encounter all sorts of challenges, triumphs, and tribulations that are often never shared or highlighted. When a brand brings together stories from women across all different races, demographics, and socioeconomic statuses, it increases both its reach and awareness. Additionally, it provides invaluable insight that you would otherwise never be able to capture.
We Embrace Today’s Female Demographic
The modern female audience is savvy, smart, and doesn’t need to be pandered to by outdated patronizing marketing tactics. Brands need to focus less on the general idea of a female customer, and more on the specific needs of a target market that just happens to be female. To be successful, brands need to create content that resonates, entertains and educates, then use influencers of all sizes to help share that content on relevant social media networks.
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Ready to tap into the sharing power of your current customers and strengthen your marketing to a female demographic? Complete the form on the right and let’s spark the possibilities!
