Mind the Gender Gap

We all know that men and women are different… but one of the differences often overlooked are the ways each evaluate products and services. Another article from UK’s Internet Retailing magazine (also lending its title to today’s post) talks about key traits to consider when marketing to men and women. For instance:
Women appreciate the context, how the product/ service will organize or fit into their life.
Women consider the altruistic qualities – how socially responsible is the brand?
Women also appreciate the aesthetics, similar to the context of product they consider how it is packaged, presented and how the end-product will look once in its place.

While there are some similarities, men are on the opposite end of the spectrum:
Men want benefits – what makes the product bigger, better, faster or more competitive.
The buying environment can also come into play for men; they want to be dealt with fairly and efficiently – nothing extra.

Two other items to highlight from the article are the product score and up-sell opportunities. The product score is a name that I’ve assigned to the evaluation criteria – for example, if a man is evaluating a product and it has two of his three evaluation criteria, he is likely to buy. Women on the other hand are more willing to continue the search until they either find a product with all of their criteria or until they justify that no product contains all points they’re seeking.

Finally the item of up-sells, due to a women’s propensity to multi-task we’re more subjective to up sells – all the way up to the check out. Men are more linear in their thinking and are therefore less subjective.

While entertaining facts, these are also interesting segmentation strategies that could be incorporated into your email campaigns – provided you know who’s who.
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