My eBrandMarketing post on the new book by Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen just went up. Whether you THINK “social change” concerns your brand or not, it does. Mark my words – and read The She Spot. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from my post:

Interestingly, part of the particular strength of women in “encouraging” change comes from their years of practice in becoming very savvy consumers. Women have long demanded a much higher standard from the brands they buy, and NOW, they can put all that “demanding” practice to its ultimate challenge: the funding and development of causes that will greatly and positively affect society for years to come.

Leveraging all the collective knowledge on reaching women for world-changing reasons has been on my mind for some time, but it is the new book by Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen that really got me going (and ever more hopeful). In The She Spot, the co-authors start right out by stating the case and showing why women are so heard in the nonprofit sector, particularly.

Here’s an excerpt:

In the early twenty-first century, savvy consumers and voters are past marketing to women 1.0. Instead, they expect that brands, whether consumer products or politicians, will deliver 2.5 level wares and marketing.

Flashy “look at us, we love women” efforts are mere distractions from the bigger, common issues of most Americans. Whether we are shopping for a house, car, President or Vice President, each of us needs to take responsibility to compare, contrast, read deeply into the web site, and explore the brand’s history and past successes and mistakes. With that due diligence behind our votes, the country will end up with the best leading team.

Interestingly, if marketing to women is your task, you have likely long been using this sort of granular process to tap the minds and buying habits of your female customers. In fact, “marketing to women” is not what any of you actually do. Rather, marketing to a very specific micro-precinct of people who may tend to be female is.

Any brand that has been using the micro-precinct approach (even without knowing Zogby’s term) has already been putting itself at the center of passionate conversations about the issues/problems its products might be a part of solving. Such brands have realized that when they do what they do, and well, their very unique and interconnected, action-oriented customers will do the rest.

But, what is one thing that can be done with little or no budget to keep a high profile and gain some goodwill in these downtimes? Present your brand’s knowledge and experience in a way that makes it the industry’s obvious marketing to women resource.

I recently wrote on what this might look like for eBrandMarketing:

Given the bulk of great general marketing to women information out there, all it would take is a commitment to sorting, compiling and packaging the files your marketing department may well already have on hand. The content exists, and with a little industry filter, the why and how of applying the latest knowledge becomes that much easier – and sharing that creates powerful community goodwill.

Could such an effort be the ultimate win-win? I think so.

Others may make the same products or sell the same services, but the brand that takes the steps to lay out all that they’ve compiled on marketing to women will be noticed and praised by competitors and other interested parties (future customers) alike. A willingness to risk competitive vulnerability to this extent will go a long way toward making that brand the most trusted and turned-to expert on marketing to women.

Andrew Ettinger also addresses this shared information = advertising/marketing concept in a recent MediaPost column

If a brand provides relevant information, it mitigates the need to advertise. Instead, consumers will seek it out. The product becomes less of a commodity because it serves a larger purpose. People want solutions to their problems, not sales pitches. Ultimately, they migrate to credible information sources.

Brands need to be thought leaders.

It may sound insignificant in comparison to the glam and buzz of, say, a huge Olympics campaign, or great coverage in the business press about your clever new social network initiative, but thought leadership can position your brand so uniquely that the competition won’t know what hit them.

Thought leadership simply breaks the marketing mold. By developing, curating and sharing quality information, thought-leading companies can both gain industry credibility and get the positive attention of existing and new customers.

Times are indeed trying, but what do we all have? Files upon files of marketing to women information we’ve gathered while doing our own research over the years. If those otherwise occasionally used files can be leveraged for good among our peers and our customers – for a very small compiling/editing budget – why wait another day?

Here’s a clip:

Share the wealth – we’ve all heard that phrase. But, for traditional industries slowly starting to understand and commit to serving women, therein lies an especially great opportunity: Becoming your industry’s marketing to women resource.

Why? Because, the first in your industry to step out, proclaim a women’s market commitment, DO something with what is learned (i.e. make noticeable changes to how you do business) and then… wait for it, share as much as possible of what you’ve learned with others (gasp), will win B-I-G. Counterintuitive, I know.

The fact is – if you’ve been reading my blog and the many others about how to reach the female consumer, and then applying that knowledge to to your own industry, you likely DO know more than your competitors. Lots of people can read up on marketing to women, but how many actually take steps, evaluate and progress on their own, smart paths?

I commend you for your active study!

For those of you who need a little editorial inspiration/assistance in creating your future M2W resource, let me know. Building knowledge banks to share is one of my passions.

P.S. If you are inclined to comment on the topic – it’d be great to see it both here and on eBrandmarketing.com

Dare I say it – for this pursuit, getting “outside the box” is all the more important.

Here’s a clip:

I firmly believe that marketing to women is something anyone can learn to do better – even the most unaware man or woman on the planet. It starts with open-mindedness, which was also the topic of Janet Rae-Dupree’s “Unboxed” column in the July 6th issue of the New York Times . In that piece, Rae-Dupree cites Mindset , a book by Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, that explores the difference between those who approach life with a fixed mindset (sometimes this is a person who is considered a natural talent or genius, interestingly), and those who approach life with a growth mindset, believing that their own abilities can expand over time.

Challenge and change is the modus operandi of our world, so guess which mindset is most effective in that environment? Survival depends on your having the will to continually learn.

My latest post for eBrandMarketing.com comments on a recent study showing CMOs have some catching up to do.  Here’s a clip:

It may well seem more complicated and perhaps scary to leave your fantastic marketing strategies vulnerable to human influence, but – as marketers may be discovering even more in this faltering economy – the humans at (consumers) or close (distributors) to the receiving end of any product or service transaction have the insights your brand needs most.

Think of the small businesses of yesteryear (or the few that still exist in your life now). The owners knew nothing of “branding,” but they talked with customers every single day. No policies, mid-level managers or half-day meetings got in their way. Consumer and distributor insights would have been their only resource then, but now they are less likely to be considered by those businesses that need them most.

My latest eBrandmarketing post considers whether we should hold up these two successes as step-by-step campaign models, or see them as case studies of well-done consumer research that will then inspire (but not necessarily guide) our own more deliberate approach to reaching the women we serve.  You know my choice…

Here’s an excerpt:

The people behind the Dove campaigns have obviously been doing a great job since they began to use real women, not models, a few years back in their ads. Still, the brand remains tight lipped about it successes, which may well be because they don’t want to give the competition any extra information. However, could it also be that the brand is uncomfortable being held up as an industry trend-setter? Does that invite too much scrutiny and much too high expectations?

There’s an interesting corollary in all the hubbub about the new Sex and the City (SATC) flick, and whether or not THAT should be the ultimate way to develop/market a movie “for women.” Rachel Abramowitz wrote about this for the Los Angeles Times recently, and her observations, and the words of some established producers, have broader implications.

I wrote about this in my latest eBrandMarketing post.  Here’s a clip:

Beyond the food-shopping arena, women’s daily traffic patterns are also changing a lot. They may be quitting their health clubs to save money and gas, and riding their bikes for errands. They may be grouping shopping trips more consciously, and so be out and about less often. Overall, and for a variety of reasons, a lot of men and women alike are tightening their daily living and buying paths to a more local scale.

Green interests, and the struggling economy are certainly having an effect. But, no matter what the root cause, women’s buying paths can be seen changing course mid-way, adding or leaving out stops altogether. Are we as marketers paying attention?

***

In a perfect world, everyone could ignore the bad economy and shop strictly according to their own preferences ( whether that be their particularly favored brands or their general environmental interests, for example).  In the immediate term, price may be the ultimate bottom line for a lot more people.  However, smart brands will will keep an eye on how their customers ideally want to shop, and be ready for their buying paths to shift quickly.

Here’s a clip:

In the marketing realm, there is much evidence of the same sort of fear of the “foreign” – particularly in the way the women’s market is approached by so many traditionally male-dominated industries. Spa parties and nail polish give-away type campaigns tend to be the default female shopper attraction, despite the fact that such methods are akin to talking REALLY LOUDLY in a country where you don’t speak the language. Irrelevant and cringe-worthy.

The better way to handle such a foreign exchange, if you will, is by mixing it up. Don’t stand in a corner using data analysis or focus group discussion to try to figure out how women – or any otherwise unfamiliar market segment – on the other side of the room, make buying decisions. Instead, engage and interact more intimately, human to human, and avoid inadvertent polarization. Mixing company helps the “language” barriers fall and the consumer insights rise to the surface.