Why Marketing to Only Women May be Your Best Move This Year

Image by freddthompson via Flickr

 If you have been around real estate anytime at all then you know that the women pick the house. In fact, women have become a major economic force in our society.

Not only are they earning more. Married and Cohabiting women making 80% of all buying decisions. Women also make half of all business purchases. Women spend $5 trillion a year!

Not only that unmarried women have more money than ever. This is in part because women make up 66% of all College campuses and 46% of the workforce.

My goodness the women even wear the pants in my beloved sport of football! Yes that's right.  80% of all NFL purchases are made by women who are only 40% of the fan base.

Marketing to Women Rule #1
The rule is when you market to women you get the men!

Marketing to Women Rule #2
A Woman scorned by an industry is an industry in decline. The beer industry has traditionally been male and has watched the female market move to spirits and wine as this industry has been more appealing to women. Subsequently, men are also now drinking less brew and more wine and spirits.

What is happening in real estate?
As mentioned earlier any agent that has been around the business knows the woman picks the house. However,  new buying trends reveals a larger market dominated by women.

For example single women are buying first homes at a rate of 2 to 1 over the past ten years.

So Why Target Women?

Well many women would be offended by the word "target" which we will review later. So lets rephrase that and ask why would we want to build a relationship with women consumers?

Reserve the She Factor Now.

The Joint Center for Housing Studies say:

• More than one in five home buyers is a single woman.
• Twice as many unmarried women are buying homes than single men.
• Single women make up more than one-third of the growth in real estate ownership since 1994.

 "The large pool of unmarried individuals reduces the social weight of marriage, in economics and politics," says Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. "It creates tastes, habits and expectations, as well as voting blocs not tied to the role of wife or husband."

• Unmarried women have more money than ever.
• The best-educated woman in America is 28 years old -- the best-educated man in America is 56
• Among 25-to-34-year-olds,  about 35 percent of women are college graduates, and just 28 percent of men are college graduates.
• Women buy more online than men.
• In cities where jobs are concentrated in information , young single women are making as much as 120 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts.

So how do you do business with this hot emerging market?

Men are hunter gatherers and Women are relational and communal. Thus women consumers do not seek quick decisions rather they seek a relationship first.

In order to attract women consumers you must soften the corners.  Engage in relationship instead of hype and a quick sale.In the average metropolitan market, single women in their 20s are earning 105 percent of what their single male counterparts are bringing in, according to James Chung.

James Chung of Reach Advisors and co-author of "Demographics: A Glimpse into the Postcrash Environment says, "Women want a sense of security, physical and social. The 'lock and key' kind of stuff, yes, but also, do they feel safe if they take a run in the early morning or evening?"..."Women want to be with other like-minded, educated women. How can you create a hub in that community that draws these women?" James Chung says.

"There's a higher level of sophistication in terms of trade-offs. The men want everything and are willing to pay more for it despite having less income." Joking, .."men really want a basketball court in their rental."  

How should your marketing material be presented?

Just like a home with exposed steel beams, fully windowed walls with sharp corners are often called "male". Softer corners in your marketing material can feel more inviting not just to women but also to men.

In fact, many of the concepts that expert Lorrie Morgan Ferrero discusses in her video and study course are what good marketing is all about. Many of the soft corners and colors you might see in Web 2.0 websites are a great example of feminine design.

Also, the relational side of Social Media as well as good drip marketing is a terrific start to building a relationship with your women audience. Ferrero covers these issues in her new course:

She Factor Marketing

The She Factor Marketing System -- a complete 'do it yourself kit' for online and offline marketers. Women make 85% of all purchasing decisions... Isn't it time you learned how to grab your share of the female market?! .

Comments

[Jane Hajo]

That is so true, good that somebody said it out loud :-)

www.realestateplayzone.com

[elmo033057]

This article really nails down the old marketing adage, "Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one." If these stats are correct the it will be important to know everything about how ladies think regarding the decision making process. After being married for 28 years and watching my wife select things from shelves my only thoughts are; good luck with all that!

If there were a course on how to address the decision making process of omen it would be a very very large course at least 5000 pages long. A man's would be about 2 pages because whenever I make a decision, I scratch my butt and grab whatever.

God Bless,

Mark Ellis
www.expertrealtorweb.com/blog