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You are here: Home / Brand Matters / Marketing to Women: 2 Examples

Marketing to Women: 2 Examples

November 12, 2009 •

After blog­ging about “the female econ­omy” as the world’s biggest untapped mar­ket oppor­tu­nity, I’ve been on the look­out for evi­dence that com­pa­nies and brands are mar­ket­ing specif­i­cally to women. I’ve seen a cou­ple of exam­ples recently, an encour­ag­ing sign.

Both offers focus on help­ing women over­come the gaps in our under­stand­ing of mechan­ics – things most fathers don’t teach their daugh­ters. Both exam­ples are post-sales ser­vice offers; one will imme­di­ately drive incre­men­tal rev­enues (via auto repairs), which I under­stand is one of the higher-mar­gin aspects of the auto indus­try.

Tactics for Local Markets

The two exam­ples I’ve seen most recently tar­get women in local mar­kets.

  • Bikes: My local bike shop offered a spe­cial clinic to teach women cyclists basic road­side repairs (tire patch­ing, cable fixes, etc.). My secret has been to rely upon the gal­lantry of male cyclists to help me patch tires when cycling by myself. But it would be less embar­rass­ing to know how to make sim­ple repairs myself.
  • Cars: A BMW dealer in Mass­a­chu­setts is offer­ing a “women’s only tech ses­sion” this week­end, focused on diag­nos­tics and expla­na­tions. This will undoubt­edly drive up ser­vice rev­enues and also poten­tially sell branded acces­sories.

The idea of edu­cat­ing women about what’s involved in main­tain­ing our cars and bikes is prob­a­bly very sound. Many women treat their cars like “black boxes,” so who knows how many undi­ag­nosed prob­lems are lurk­ing, just wait­ing to strand moms when they’re already late for day­care pick-up.

What’s under the hood has always been a mys­tery, so I rely on my car’s on-board diag­nos­tic com­puter to alert me when it needs ser­vice. I also pay atten­tion to obvi­ous sig­nals like rough starts or unusual noises… As for my road bike, I can put the chain back on the dérailleur on the rare occa­sions when it falls off, but that’s about it.

If the offers had been deliv­ered in way that seemed like they’d be fun, I might have tried one (if not for my sched­ule con­flicts).

Spon­sor­ing women-only clin­ics may also help with sen­si­tiv­ity train­ing for the sales­peo­ple who work in the deal­er­ships. I know I’ve often felt invis­i­ble when walk­ing into a dealer’s show­room, for bikes or cars… It’s a humil­i­at­ing expe­ri­ence – espe­cially when I’m the buyer.

BMW Example: Good Idea, but Execution…?

BMW-women-event

The exe­cu­tion of this tac­tic by the BMW field mar­ket­ing team in Mass­a­chu­setts leaves some­thing to be desired. For exam­ple, the email address is mine, but the per­son­al­ized mes­sage is addressed to my hus­band, who is nei­ther female nor the car owner.

More­over, the copy­writ­ing is prob­a­bly a bit off-tar­get for a female audi­ence. What the heck is “the DIS/Modic Computer/GT1?” Is it a chip in my elec­tronic key, or a device at the shop?

I’m not sure I really care – but do appre­ci­ate the fact that BMW main­tains a log of fault codes that helps them deter­mine what aspects of my car need ser­vic­ing.

Improving the Execution

The visual design of the email has a nuts-and-bolts indus­trial feel – prob­a­bly not too appeal­ing to most women. But at least the designer didn’t fall into the trap of using pink.

If BMW is going to take this women-only tech clinic tac­tic to other mar­kets, they should rethink their exe­cu­tion. Among other things it might be a good idea for their brand team to work with the field mar­ket­ing team on a visual lan­guage that’s true to the BMW brand while being more com­pelling to women if we’re the pri­mary audi­ence…

They also missed the oppor­tu­nity for women to reply with a “good idea, but I have a sched­ule con­flict. Can I go at a later date?”

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Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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