| Women as consumers are different from men
as consumers in so many ways! Men are more direct-driven to their destination goal, while
women meander and enjoy the journey. Women are multi-taskers and jugglers trying to stay
in control while working hard at many different things in their life.
As a healthcare marketer, you must first understand women
as healthcare consumers. You must know why health and wellness is important to them in
their multi-dimensional roles as consumers, caregivers, career women and community
leaders. Gone are the days when most women were stay at home moms or at least similar in
their life paths and stages. Today’s women are interested in health for a variety of
reasons that relate to their multi-dimensional lives.
Here Are My Top 4 Essential Strategies to Reaching and
Engaging Women as Healthcare Consumers:
1. Involve women in “co-parenting” or creating
your messages with you.
Informal, interactive research providing springboards for
spontaneity helps create a more transparent, empowering and compelling messages your
audience (women) wants to hear and trust. This is one of the most intuitive, and most
effective marketing to women strategies. Remember, women love to share ideas, spontaneous
feelings, dreams, fears an most of all information. Today’s women are seeking
information and readily sharing what they have read in health or self-help books,
women’s magazines and on the Internet.
To create a dynamic exchange of information and ideas and
to maximize spontaneity, host these natural “gatherings” in settings such as
coffee lounges, spas and wellness centers, living rooms and restaurants. You may even want
to create a mini “TV talk show” and discover salient issues that can propel your
marketing efforts and build your business.
2. Position your health, lifestyle or healthcare message
in a woman’s “peripheral vision.”
Neither a full frontal attack nor splashy, expensive
product or service-focused advertising will capture a woman’s attention and loyalty.
Marketing to women successfully requires a careful consideration of their beliefs and
values. This includes:
- Identifying creative approaches to connecting with the
social and community causes that are important to women
- Aligning your brand’s essence and key messages to those
social and community causes
- Reinforcing the role of a total wellness and lifestyle
solution, rather than a product-centric or service-centric brand approach
3. Target women in “life stages”, not “age
stages”.
Identify the life stages, your targeted women prospects are
living in today. For example, your targeted women prospects may be in their fitness phase,
-- the phase that usually takes place early in a woman’s life when it’s all
about her own healthy body. Your prospects could be in their “family-centric”
stage, which normally ranges from the early 20’s to the 40’s, when family comes
first and children are growing, or she could be in the discovery stage which is more about
the woman refining and expressing who she is. Or, your targeted women prospects may be a
seasoned woman who is experiencing a surge in vitality in her love and sex life after 50.
4. Think mother-daughter bonding.
Strong intergenerational influences can be found between
women and their daughters, and between women and their mothers. Information and advice,
especially related to healthcare, is solicited. It flows freely from one generation to
another. Reinforcing this idea, Medelia Monitor Research recently revealed that 64 percent
of women surveyed talk with their mothers on a daily or weekly basis. More than 41 percent
say their moms are their best friends.
Final Marketing to Woman Thoughts:
Spark Dialogue, Inspire Action & Profit from
Women Consumers
Remember, women are newly empowered decision-makers,
purchasers and influencers. You can leverage that empowerment to your advantage. Building
a brand, enhancing an organization or company’s reputation, and building trust takes
more than sending out controlled messages that speak to women in their multiple roles.
Winning their minds and hearts means connecting with them and with their influencers. This
will give you greater credibility, visibility and involvement in your targeted
prospects’ lives. Whether you are providing products or services that help women at
home, work or play, you will be able to break through the spin to build trust and profit
greatly from women consumers, if you take my advice and connect to them at all levels. |
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