Marketing to Women: 5 Effective Ways to Reach a Female Audience

March 27, 2022March 2, 2023 Sono

Over 60% of purchasing decisions women make. Whether for herself, a spouse, or her children, women are the final deciders when it comes to shopping.

In fact, female purchasing power worldwide is estimated at $32 trillion dollars! 89% of women reported controlling or sharing in household purchasing decisions.

If women are making all the buying decisions, why is marketing to women still so misunderstood? Only 29% of women in America believe companies that market to women accurately portray the female audience they aim to reach.

Want to know what women want? Below are five effective ways to market to women.

Table of Contents

1. Have Women on Your Team

It only makes sense to have women tell women’s stories. The current split between marketers and advertisers in the U.S. is about 50/50, with women making up a slightly larger portion of the workforce.

Hiring a diversity of women brings humanity to your team. It’s not about gender stereotypes, it’s about bringing on women with unique experiences who are able to connect with your target customer.

2. Share True Stories

There is nothing more encouraging than a best friend recommending their favorite brand. You can incorporate women’s stories into your brand in a variety of ways. Create a referral program that connects women with other women.

You can also try a less direct approach and use customer testimonials from different women in your marketing campaigns. In sharing these stories, you instill trust and give women an opportunity to see themselves as someone who can use your brand.

â€œTrust is the most powerful component to any form of marketing or business transaction”, as Stephanie Burns once stated.

3. Collaborate with Women

Work with women who embody your ideal customer. Influencer campaigns, celebrity endorsements, PR placements, and gifting are easy (albeit sometimes costly) ways to place your brand in front of lots and lots of women.

Whoever you collaborate with, make sure they aren’t a woman for woman’s sake. Make sure they are well-established in the space you are trying to break into. Research their audience and what gets people to trust their opinions. Is it their taste in clothes, food, books, or something else?

4. Market Intersectionality

No two women are the same. And even each individual woman goes through seasons in her life that ultimately create fluctuating needs and beliefs at certain stages. For example, marketing to a 22 year-old post-graduate versus a 40 something with three children is extremely different despite if it were the same women.

While a business should never try to be “for everybody,” it is still important to be inclusive and cater to different women at different stages of life as much as possible. While your target consumer might be “women” the way you market to subgroups of women will be different.

5. Empower Women

Marketing to female consumers means making them feel heard and understood. They will champion a brand that is there to add value to their lives.

Many successful brands of today have a beautiful feminine website design that resonates with women’s needs. But these brands also challenge past stigmas surrounding “womanhood.”