Successfully selling to women today requires a whole new set of tools.
So says Pittsburgh’s Kelley Skoloda’s whose fast-selling new book,
“Too Busy to Shop: Marketing to Multi-Minded Women,” says goodbye to the era of the “multi-tasking” female and purely commercial messages. Women today are “multi-minded,” says Skoloda, mental jugglers who move seamlessly from family to career to self-care.
With 85 percent of all consumer purchases and a growing segment of business buys made by women, marketers need to rethink the female buyer, she says.
“One of the things that came through loud and clear is women want to be talked to holistically, not just online, but through word of mouth conversations and the real things happening in their lives.” Skoloda is on a whirlwind national tour promoting her book, released last March by Praeger Publishers. “They want to read about it in traditional media, magazines. Things can’t just live in the online space, there needs to be a well- rounded effort.”
Before women shop, they CROP, says Skoloda. They seek CRedible OPinions from friends, family, experts, local news and magazine reading. Word-of-mouth and influencers are the hot marketing crossroads for women today, tools they use to trim research time and make buying decisions.
Skoloda culled her research from her 20 years in the marketing business, her job as Global Brand Marketing Practice director at
Ketchum and her
blog. She will be featured in a BBC-produced television show, “Beat the Boss,” which is airing in the winter and spring of 2009 on the BBC.
“Marketers need to rethink their ideas about a 24-hour day and find an appropriate place for their messages. And given women’s buying power, if marketers aren’t targeting women in this economy, they’ll lose. It’s an exercise in listening, how they deem something trustworthy and credible. Not one size fits all approach.”
Writer:
Debra Diamond SmitSource: Kelley Murray Skoloda
Image courtesy Kelly Skoloda