CYBERSPACE — Despite a growing number of studies indicating women consume Web-based content and products more frequently than men, marketers remain perplexed about how to attract society’s distaff side to their wares.Hollis Thomases, a marketing guru and the founder of WebAdvantage.net, has taken a particular interest in the disconnect, being a woman herself. In a recent column at the ClickZ Network, she revealed some interesting results of formal and her own informal research into what Web-savvy women want.
According to a RapLeaf study, women are taking over social media. With the exception of LinkedIn, a network dominated by men primarily in the marketing fields, women are flocking to social networks. Women, it seems, are able to combine personal and professional networking under the banners of online communities men appear to view as “leisure-time activities.” According to Business Week, women’s online behavior is “less transactional and more relationship-driven.”
That represents a sort of danger zone for marketers, because women are exceptonally wired into each other online — and, at least according to a New York Times study, they’re twice as likely as men to communicate both positive and negative experiences to twice as many people. A BlogHer study found 64-percent of women surfers had made a purchase based on a review or recommendation they found on another woman’s blog.
Even when they respond to online ads, women expect their owners to be a part of the community. Overall, according to a study of online moms by Platform-A and OMD, women are more likely to respond to advertising on television and radio or in newspapers unless the ad appears to come from a trustworthy online source.
Studies like those convinced Thomases there are seven immutable laws of advertising to women online.
Chief among them is that women will respond to worthy causes. Both Thomases’ own research and a behavioral study conducted by Cone and Duke University in 2008 indicated women harbor a strong belief that advertisers should expect less return on investment and be willing to give back to the community. That’s only natural, as women feel like they give an enormous amount to the community themselves.
Women also want to be in control over every aspect of their online experience. They want advertisers to give them options about everything from pre-roll videos to how and when they share personal information. Most women in the studies had changed their cookie settings in order to keep advertisers from gaining information without their knowledge.
More than half of women said they expected ad content to be relevant to whatever else they were doing at the website. If it the ads help them research products, so much the better.
Women don’t want to spend all day wading through ads. They’re busy. Platform-A found after 8:00 pm the hours during which women responded most favorably to all advertising.
They did not, however, respond well to “busy” ads or ads with too many bells and whistles. Sounds, videos and other interactive components tended to turn off 90-percent of women in the studies. The same 90-percent showed a clear preference for subtle imagery and soft-sell techniques. Another significant percentage said they preferred clever text or text-centric ads, especially ones that offered coupons or discounts.
Women in the studies also reported a large disconnect between sites they visit often and their favorite sites. Favorites tended to be blogs, community sites and shopping sites; frequently visited sites included news, weather and traffic information.
