Let me ask you a few questions—-

Are most of your clients women?

And do you find yourself scratching your head on who they really are and how they buy?

Well, there is now a marketing book that is focus is on the subject of today’s female consumer, who she really is and why she really buys. That book is called The Soccer Mom Myth, co-authored by Holly Buchanan and Michele Miller.

I would like to share with you a few marketing lessons (out of many) I received from reading this book. Some lessons I learned created the infamous, “Aha moments”. Some lessons were reconfirming things that I was already aware of and other lessons I read and shook my head and stated, “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

In the first part labeled effectively, How to Market to Women. Quickly I was introduced to the importance of this book.

Right off the bat they bring up one of the biggest reasons why marketing doesn’t work for women—businesses aren’t speaking to us, women that is. I so agree with that! And women who are moms on top of that.

This lesson is important for any and all businesses….be sure that you are speaking your customer’s language.

I will share with you a recent experience that I had in my local office supply store that illustrates this point to a T (hehehe—to a T, Teresa). Sorry, I got a little off there. Here is the situation that occurred to me.

About a month ago, I went into my local office supply store to pick up a few items. I needed to get some paper, look for this really great pens I picked up about a month prior and feel in LOVE with them and also some organization folders for my business receipts.

Well, first, I went back to find these pens that are made by BIC. I had bought a set of them about a month ago and fell in love with them because they write so smoothly. As I was sorting through the peg rows of pens searching for these lovely pens, a lady had came up to me and asked me if I found what I was looking for. I kindly told her that I was seeking this smooth writing pens and she began helping me look for them.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have anymore…but she went on to tell me that pen manufacturers do “try” out different names and types of pens to see if they will “stick” and if they don’t after a certain period of time, they “retire” the pen and move on to the next one. Even though I was disappointed about not finding these particular pens, she did share with me two things that made a BIG difference to me AND created a purchase for the store. She stayed to help me look for the pens I wanted and when I didn’t find those, she told me about some other pens I might enjoy using. Also, she told me that if I wasn’t happy with my purchase of these new pens, I could bring them back and get a refund. Now, I pretty much knew the the bit about the refund, however, at the time I was only thinking about find those particular pens. I wasn’t focused on trying to see if some other pens might be just as good. HOWEVER, since she reminded me about the return/refund policy–I figured I had nothing to lose, so I purchased a new set of pens. I thanked her for her time and she went on to help another customer.

I went to another isle to find some folders to hold my business receipts and as I was going towards the front of the store, I thought, “Hmmm, let me see about what laptops they have and the features.” **Little more in depth information for you the reader. I currently have a laptop, however, I am looking for a new one for myself, so I am able to give this one to my daughter who is currently using a VERY old desktop computer.**

So, as I was walking in the direction of the laptops, a gentlemen stops me and asks me if there is something he can help me with. I think, “This is great. Good customer service in this store. The lady was nice and very helpful and this gentlemen wants to help me with looking at the laptops.” So I proceed to say, Yes, I would like to look at some of your laptops. Can you tell me about some of them and the features they offer?” He replies, “Yes, sure I can.”

Then he proceeds to lead me to the front of the store (the laptops were on the side wall lined up), so I was wondering where he might be going. However, I followed in kind. He proceeded to go to where the store circular was stacked in a bin, opened the page to show me the computers and said, “here you can look at this” and walked away.

Well, that really got my goat. I mean had he taken the time to tell me about even one of the laptops and tell me the features and such, he would have had a sale. However, for whatever reason, he figured I wasn’t in the mood to buy (big mistake) and so it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t take the time to talk to me about the laptops. I had questions also and he just acted as if what I wanted and was looking for didn’t matter. Needless to say, I haven’t been back in the store since.

So what does that tell you? 1) he wasn’t speaking my language (don’t treat women as if you KNOW when we are going to purchase and when we are not) 2) don’t act like we don’t understand or don’t matter (hello!!! women make more purchases than men for the household) I believe this is true however, I am not aware of the statistic.

I wanted to say thank you to Michele and Holly for the wonderful opportunity to help share this book (and its wit, intelligence, point on statements and business marketing savvy) with others by being a part of their marketing/online promotion team.
Ready to get your own copy? Well, it is pretty simple, click receive the book that will allow you to properly marketing to women.

Also, let me tell you, you can have the great pleasure of listening to a special interview of Holly and Michele at Virtual Woman’s Day, a FREE event by Heidi Richards and The WECAI Network on March 15th.
Holly and Michele are amongst the list of coveted speakers at Virtual Woman’s Day at 2pmEST.