Advertising agencies are notoriously male dominated, which is a problem when the majority of your customers are female. The fact is that rising female spending power is causing a shift in how products are designed and sold. And it will be those able to deliver marketing that’s appealing to women who’ll prosper. Those who continue to think we only live in a man’s world will fade away.

A few facts:

• 85% of US household purchase decisions are made by women (National Federation of Woman Business Owners)
• Women spend 10% more on the internet than men (Verdict Research)
• 91% of women say ‘advertisers don’t understand us’ (Martha Barletta, in ‘Marketing to Women’)

The web turns female

At ad:tech London, this week, a consultant from trend forecasters The Future Laboratory announced that the web turned female last year, meaning that there are now more female users than men.

So with female spending power, influence on buying decisions and prevalence on the web on the rise, marketers must consider whether their campaigns need to be adjusted.

How can marketing be made more appealing to women?

Does marketing need to be made more feminine?

Well, according to Martha Barletta, in ‘Marketing to Women’:

“Men and women don’t communicate the same way, and they don’t buy for the same reasons…He simply wants the transaction to take place.  She’s interested in creating a relationship.”

Other experts on feminine marketing have suggested that women take longer to reach buying decisions than men. They tend to research more and are less influenced by advertising. This means marketing needs to find subtler approaches.

Word of mouth marketing

When discussing feminine marketing, Tarek Mady (chair of the Marketing Department at the American University in Dubai) said:

“Women are the most powerful brand builders and the most dangerous brand killers due to their tendencies towards information sharing…In Dubai they are six times more likely to use word of mouth than men because by nature, people talk about products they are satisfied with.”

Perhaps the rise of the female shopper means it’s time to focus even more closely on subtle approaches, such as word of mouth and viral campaigns, rather than traditional advertising.

When it comes to feminine marketing the trap is falling into dated stereotypes, delivering marketing that’s patronising and treating all women as a single segment. So creating campaigns that are more appealing to women certainly poses a challenge, but it’s one marketers can’t afford to ignore.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

According to a recent study many of the top brands struggle when it comes to being loved. In fact, none of them scored above 30% at the ‘love score’ amongst customers, based on criteria such as whether the brand ‘makes time to reward me’, ‘relates to me best’ or ‘cares about me more than just money’.

So what’s gone wrong with the top brands’ love lives? Why aren’t they creating the emotional connections that are supposed to come from millions spent on marketing?

Well, the low levels of affection for brands have been blamed on a lack of personalised engagement. After all, you need to make people feel special if you want them to love you back.

Internet dating is about relationship building

Internet dating is like marketing in many ways. There are two main approaches:

• You can send the same message to as many potential partners as possible
• Or pluck nuggets of info from their profile about their passions, hobbies and interests to drop into personalised messages

So which approach do you think works best? Yep, you guessed it – taking the time to show an interest in people as individuals is the best way to get a conversation going in the internet dating world.

Once you’ve started a dialogue you can then keep asking questions to make your messages more relevant before reaching a conversion in the form of a date. Where you go from there is the subject of a different blog entirely.

So what does internet dating teach brands?

If brands want to be loved they should try mirroring the tactics that work so well in internet dating, and deliver campaigns that are personalised to match the interests of individual prospects.

Thankfully, we now have the technology to build these campaigns.

With Purls (personalised URLs) we can create websites customised for each individual prospect, and then use variable data printing to send them personalised promotions based on every click and page view.

Boots, for example, could reward its customer better by sending them personalised print and online promotions based on their purchase history. Not only will this cut down on the printing costs of sending an entire catalogue, but will also deliver marketing that’s more relevant and better received.

Brands need to remember that people are individuals, with their own interests and preferences. So, as in the internet dating world, they need to treat customers as unique individuals if they want to be more loved in return.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Andy looking surprisingly good in lurid green

Big congratulations to Andy who completed his second Great North Run yesterday, raising £480 for Leukemia Research UK. Shaving five minutes off his 2008 time, Andy completed the half marathon in a highly respectable 1 hour 57 minutes.  He finished in 9,819th position, leaving 44,181 other runners behind him in the dust.

We’re impressed, despite the fact that he was overtaken by someone wearing a Scooby Doo costume on the home stretch!

Thanks to everyone who sponsored Andy  and don’t be surprised if he tries to hit you up for some sponsorship for next year’s London Marathon ….

How can you make money from a user base that hates advertising and doesn’t want to pay for content?

Well, that’s a puzzle all media companies seem to be struggling with at the moment. Whether it’s newspapers, commercial TV or Facebook, no one has yet worked out how to monetise content with advertising people are happy to receive.

But that doesn’t stop them trying…

ITV gets the law changed

Commercial TV has, at least, been thrown a lifeline (albeit a thin one).

Almost exactly a year ago we discussed on the bda blog ITV’s ill fated experiments with ad overlay technology, which could have had viewers spitting out their tea when ghostly slogans started appearing on walls and on people’s foreheads. Thankfully these experiments are unlikely to reach our screens now that product placement on TV has been given a tentative green light.

It’s predicted that product placement could earn UK commercial TV companies £125 million a year. Whilst mere pocket change compared to total TV ad revenue of nearly £3 bn, the decision to allow product placement reflects how advertising has to become more inventive if it’s going to survive in our anti-ads culture.

UK commercial broadcasters will have to tread carefully though. They don’t want to shoehorn too many mentions of Aston Martins and lingering shots of iPhones into the script. Any product placements will need to be done subtly, otherwise viewers will vote with their remotes.

Twitter changes its user agreement

Finding the right balance in how many times you mention brand names is something ITV and Twitter have in common following Twitter’s announcement of changes to its user agreement, which “leave the door open for advertising” to its 45 million users.

Grumbles of discontent at the news are already spreading on blogs, in forums and on Twitter itself. So Twitter, just like ITV, will have to be careful in how it introduces its new advertising model. It will need to find a way of delivering ads people are at least accepting of, in exchange for a service they value.

As with all marketing, the answer lies in delivering advertising in a way that’s useful, relevant and welcomed. But unfortunately this is a puzzle few, if any, have been able to solve.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

A couple of weeks ago we offered a few tips on driving traffic to your website using pay-per click ads. Now, driving traffic is one thing, but you still need to know what you’re going to do with visitors when they arrive. So here are bda’s 8 vital website conversion tips for turning more clicks into sales:

1. Help people find what they’re looking for

People on the web have the concentration spans of goldfish. So if they don’t quickly find what they’re looking for they’ll be gone before you’ve had a chance to reel them.

• Provide a clearly labelled navigation bar using familiar section names
• Align elements so they flow in a Z pattern and mirror how people scan web pages
• Avoid too much clutter and space elements evenly
• Use arrows to direct visitors along a clear path around the site
• Break up long blocks of text into sections to aid skin reading and so they don’t appear too daunting to read

2. Use your ‘About’ page to build trust

As the old adage goes, ‘people like to trade with those they know and trust’, which is why the ‘About’ page can have a big impact on sales.

On the web you don’t have the luxury of introducing yourself in person, so the ‘About’ page is the next best thing. Use this page to tell visitors about your company’s history, what you’re passionate about and about your brand’s message.

The more people know about you the more reasons they have to trust you. It can also differentiate you from your competitors who stay anonymous.

3. Answer questions that might block a sale

In the bricks and mortar world people can ask questions to decide whether a product solves their problem and if it’s the best solution for them.

In the digital world you don’t shop assistants to respond to questions, and you can’t expect people to email or pickup the phone. So instead you have to answer queries through your content.

Write a list of the questions people might ask before they’re ready to buy. Then write blog posts or an faq section in which you answer them in an open format. Include links on the relevant product pages and you’ll be removing hurdles that might otherwise have tripped up a sale.

4. Invest in high quality images

Avoid clichéd, stale stock photography. Instead, invest in high quality shots of your people, products and your workplace. Give people the visual reassurance that you’re an established, professional company, and not a fly-by-night organisation that’ll vanish once they’ve placed an order.

If you’re selling software include screenshots. And if you’re feeling ambitious, you could record a video talking about your company and to show off your products. After all, isn’t video supposed to be the next big thing in online marketing? So get a head start on your rivals.

5. Choose your words carefully

A mistake a lot of business websites make is to complete the design stage first and then crowbar in the words (a.k.a. copy) wherever there’s space.

This is a mistake because it’s the words that do most of the selling. It’s your words that speak to your customers and will persuade them that buying your product is the smart thing to do.

As in the real world, people buy things based on two triggers: emotion and logic. Hard hitting copy using time proven copywriting techniques appeals to both these triggers and hammers home your USP.

In fact, your website’s copy is the most influential element when it comes to selling the benefits of your business. So don’t leave it as the last element to tick off the list.

6. Offer free content

Software companies often give away free limited versions of their products so that users invest time in them before buying the full upgrade.

Even if you don’t sell software, you can mirror this tactic by giving away free content, such as an eBook, newsletter or podcast. If you offer free gifts in exchange for an email address you can maintain contact with visitors and build a relationship long after they’ve left your website.

People are also more likely to reward you with their business because of the psychological impulse to reward generosity.

7. Remove nasty surprises that cause shopping cart abandonment

It can be agonising watching the number of people visiting your site, filling up their shopping basket and then abandoning it at the checkout till.

One way of minimising cart abandonment is to eliminate nasty surprises. Consider offering free postage, by including it in the original price, and reassuring customers they can get a refund due to your ‘no quibbles’ returns policy.

8. Test, adjust and test again

The beauty of the internet is you can endlessly test every element to improve clicks and conversions. So experiment with different font sizes, calls to action, images and copy.

If budget allows, invest in usability testing to see how easily people can find their way around your site and whether they’re persuaded to buy your products.

Use analytical software to track what pages your visitors are interested in and which send them fleeing. Continuous testing will highlight your site’s strengths and weaknesses, and, ultimately, show you how to convert more clicks into sales.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Facebook continues to be an untapped goldmine struggling to extract cash from its users. People love the service, but aren’t prepared to pay for it.

So advertising remains Facebook’s main source of income. But in its rush to deliver targeted, contextual ads using its members’ data, Facebook needs to be careful it doesn’t upset its users in the process.

And it’s not just its own advertising Facebook needs to be concerned about.

People consider personal data private

It’s no secret that whenever you take part in a quiz or download an app you’re handing over your personal information, and that of your friends, to Facebook’s third party developers.

What they then do with your info is anyone’s guess. But it’s unlikely they create quizzes and apps for your entertainment when there’s money to be made.

In fact, it’s predicted that Facebook’s developer community could soon be earning more than the site itself. It’s estimated this year they could pocket a combined $300-$500 million from sales of virtual goods (e.g. tommy guns in Mafia Wars and poker chips), branded sponsorship and, of course, advertising.

The problem is that some of these developers are misusing people’s personal information. And Facebook needs to step in before the abuse gets out of hand.

Misusing customer data will lose their trust

Facebook is already facing a spate of privacy lawsuits, cases of applications recording people’s login details and a man seeing his wife advertised as a ‘hot single’. And recently a number of applications had to be suspended for flouting Facebook’s user privacy policy.

So Facebook does, indeed, appear to be at a crossroads: it can either start doing more to protect how its members’ data is used or risk losing their trust and loyalty. You only have to look at the demise of Friends Reunited and falling popularity of MySpace to know how quickly fickle online crowds can move onto the next big thing.

Last week, Facebook announced it would be making some changes to give its users more control over their data. In the future, developers will have to specify what information their applications need to use and users will also be able to block applications from scraping their friends’ profiles.

But it will take at least a year before these changes come into effect. So Facebook will be hoping that, in the meantime, there aren’t more cases of people’s private data being misused. Or there might be a rush of its members logging out for good.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.