Marketing WITH, Rather Than TO Women
Though the now-common parlance for describing this field of study is ‘marketing to women,’ I struggle with it. Isn’t the whole point of being guided and inspired by your women’s market to be marketing WITH them?
Here’s my thought:
Marketing TO seems like a ‘push’ approach – as in: ‘This is the product and these are our marketing strategies, oh valued female customer. We expect you to like it all, and buy our latest product soon.’
Marketing WITH seems like an inclusive and interactive, connection-based approach – more like: ‘Here is a product we suspect women like you may need, and the marketing strategy that we propose go along with it. What do you think, oh sought-after customer and marketing advisor? We’d love for you tokeep us up to speed on your evolving needs.’
(Of course, I wrote a longer-winded description of the latter, because I am not so subtly steering you to that as the ‘correct’ choice.)
The transparent marketing approach introduced in my book, Don’t Think Pink, includes steps that would only lead to a more WITH style connection with your female customers. For example:
- Getting to know your customer community intimately (can’t do that WITHOUT women)
- Gathering and using regular feedback (again, this is not a TO women possibility)
Now, I know the phrase ‘marketing to women’ is much too embedded in today’s business language to change. It makes sense because, traditionally, marketers have thought of the ‘push’ approach as the rule.
However, changes in the competitive landscape for brands focusing on ANY consumer segment have forced the issue. Customer-driven this and customer-generated that are taking over ad campaigns and product development. Brands are seeing the beauty of WITH, whether they are calling it that or not.
This is good news. So, let’s do the same with the women’s market: keep it women-inspired and guided, and you’ll end up being very WITH-it, whether you call it that or not.
