Women make up to 80% of the purchase decisions in the US and are therefore highly likely to be key decision-makers on products and services consumption. So it is not surprising that companies across a wide variety of categories actively market to women.
When marketing to women, you can’t simply include the ‘stereotypically female’ colour pink in your brand guide, especially in today’s world of awareness and inclusivity. You must ask women what they want to see. At my company, we use insights from our community of over 250,000 women to advise companies on how to best reach and talk to women.
As the Founder and CEO of Influencer Marketing Agency SheSpeaks, I launched the company over 15 years ago after spending a decade at American Express, learning from some of the most skilled marketing professionals in the industry. As I looked at how brands across categories marketed to women, I found countless examples of brands missing the mark with women and not understanding what motivates women to buy a product.
Tapping into the largest demographic of consumers
With women controlling so much of the consumer wallet, it is critical to consider the unique perspective of women when assessing product design, messaging, and targeting.
I have worked with leading companies including P&G, The Hershey Company, Fidelity, Walmart, Kit Kat, Huggies, Heinz, and The Coca-Cola Company to create female-focused marketing campaigns. Across industries, we’ve proven that creating campaigns that speak directly to women drives results.
Influencers help tap into the women’s market for brands
So, why does influencer marketing work to tap into the women’s market? It’s simple. Women often trust other women.
Over 92% of women have purchased products based on recommendations from friends. It is perhaps then not surprising that the majority of social media influencers are women. According to Shopify, 84% of all social media influencers are women. This makes influencer marketing a crucial way for your brand to connect to the female market.
We have seen the power of influencer marketing grow and change over the years, from mom blogs to Instagram Influencers with millions of followers. We’ve seen influencer marketing successfully drive awareness and sales at scale across multiple product categories from salsa, deodorant, bread, to even mobile services and financial annuities. The key is ensuring that you have a thoughtful strategy and sound execution plan to ensure influencer marketing success.
Tips for influencer marketing success
When planning a solid foundation for your influencer marketing efforts it is important to keep these tips in mind.
- Define clear objectives: Outline what you are looking to achieve from the influencer marketing campaign. Understand what you want this effort to accomplish so this is kept in mind when the creative pieces begin.
- Identify and recruit the right influencers: Ensure that the influencers you include in the campaign reach your target audience and have credibility on your category, product or service. Most influencers are able to provide insight into their audience so be sure to discuss whether your audiences align with creators as well.
- Content creation: Brief the influencer and allow them to weigh in on the right approach. Make sure that the influencer understands your target, message, and tone that you are trying to achieve with content. Keep in mind, the influencer is the expert on their audience and their own content. Allow the influencer to share what will resonate with their audience for your product or service.
- Monitor and measure: Once influencer content is live, watch it closely. See which content is getting the strongest engagement and response. This is a great way to learn which content, platform, and messaging resonates with your audience.
- Maximise content: Once you have identified which content is performing best, then expand the audience by boosting and amplifying across multiple channels and platforms.
Engaging and building loyalty with female consumers
92% of women say that they get product and service ideas based on recommendations from people they follow on social media.
When influencers share a product or service recommendation with their audience, they focus on product benefits, including how this product fits into their life, or how it makes their life better, easier or more interesting. This is what makes influencer marketing unique. When you talk about a product or service in this manner, it is highly effective and resonates with followers.
When a woman finds a product or service she loves, she is likely to tell her friends and followers about it. Her friends and followers hear benefit-driven descriptions of a product or service and quickly understand how this product would fit into their life.
Scale mixed with the credibility and the effectiveness that female influencers offer to brands makes it an important strategy for companies seeking to win with consumers.
