4 DON’Ts when marketing to women
Once upon a time, I worked with a lot of big Wall Street banks (I still do occasionally). All of these banks collectively, around 2016, started talking about women and investments. This just so happened to coincide with some of the headlines about how women are acquiring more and more of the world’s wealth. (Though we’re still well below half so don’t get too excited.) After years of building programs targeted at women, and seeing what works and what doesn’t, I’ve consolidated a few of the most common mistakes for you below, and tips for how to avoid them.
Don’t tell women about their problems
Financial firms base any marketing they do toward women in research. And that is great. But summarizing the research for women isn’t really helpful, or the point. If women need help with investments, they don’t necessarily need to be TOLD they need help with investments. They just need to be helped.
DO: Instead of recapping the problem, offer a solution.
Don’t ignore the challenges women face
While you shouldn’t tell women about their problems, it’s essential that you ACKNOWLEDGE the reality that women face unique challenges. They make less money, they have more family obligations to spend that money on, so even though they’re good at saving, they have smaller nest eggs, and oh by the way, they tend to live longer than men.
So… how can you acknowledge these realities without committing the cardinal sin laid out in step one? First, focus on the solutions. Create content about how to get long-term care insurance for their parents so nursing home bills don’t come out of their paycheck. Show them financial projections about outliving their money so you can solve for longevity. When you present these solutions, you can acknowledge the realities that require you to write this content.
DO: come from a place of listening and trying to help, versus “well research says.” The latter takes you, if you’re male, into that most dreaded of territories: mansplaining.
Think about it in terms of race. If you’re a white man or woman, you’re not in a position to tell a person of color about the unique financial challenges they face after decades of discrimination in finance. But you can acknowledge it and try to help.
Don’t pink coat things
Don’t do it. You’re going to be tempted to… but don’t. Ok, now that you know not to do it, let’s talk a bit about what I mean.
In regular (non finance) land, this is the tendency to make something seem more friendly toward women by putting a pink Breast Cancer awareness ribbon on it, known as pink washing. Then, there’s the pink tax, where companies take a men’s product — maybe a razor — and make it pink, then market it to women with a higher price tag. I’m using pink coating to in general mean treating anything marketed towards women as “other” or “different” because it’s for women.
In finance, we tend to pink coat things by addressing “lady money problems” rather than just problems. After all, it’s not like female money problems are rare, we’re half of the population. And we tend to pink coat things with the images and characters we choose in our marketing. We show women who are frazzled because research says they “struggle to multitask”… or we show women surrounded by kids to demonstrate that we know family is important to women. Or maybe, we use marketing images full of sassy women in high heels to show we “get” the single, “Sex and the City” lifestyle. But this can feel trite.
DO: Remember that women deserve the same diversity in imagery, products and marketing as men do. Try to remember that women come in all forms… there are women who love football and those who roll their eyes at “sports ball.” There are women who live in high heels, and those who swear they’re a symbol of the patriarchy. All of these women have the potential to become clients.
Don’t talk to women as if they’re men
This one most commonly comes across in language and the way we write. Let me use an example. Tech firms love to say they don’t hire women because there aren’t women out there who want these jobs. (That’s a refrain we hear a lot.) So a research firm looked at the jobs tech companies were posting. They found that these tech firms were looking for people to “tackle” problems or “do whatever it takes.” Female job searchers found these phrases off putting. Firms like Facebook and Apple now use words like “empathetic” or “our family” in job postings with early research indicates might lead to more female applicants. These things may feel intangible but their effect is very real. So what does this mean for your content?
DO: Instead of tackling problems, solve them, handle them, approach them, consider them. And when in doubt, stick with neutral metaphors.
This doesn’t just apply to language, either. Keep this philosophy in mind when you’re planning in-person events for your clients (or potential clients). I golf… but I don’t particularly like it. I’m not going to favor a financial advisor who wants to host a golf outing. Now, if you’re hosting a wine tasting, that might attract more women. And the crazy thing is, men may enjoy it too.
DO: Consider creating a variety of events. Create a few with women in mind and a few that are pointedly neutral. See how your turnout is affected, and whether men show up, too.
Finally: before you say that all these dos and don’ts are too hard to remember, that it’s too hard to market to women if you have to follow all of these rules … think about how diverse men are, and remember that we (you!) have been able to market to your services to them for a long time. It might require a bit more effort to retrain your brain regarding how to market to women, but you can absolutely do it.
OK, that’s all for now. I packed a lot into those 4 topics, and there’s probably more to say… but I’ll leave that for another posts, and for you all to sound off in the comments.
Tell me: What’s biggest challenge marketing to women? Is there advice in here you hate? Something you want to know more about? Let’s hear it!