It's no secret that consumers (read women) are economizing because spending power is eroding. Marketers are confronted with similar issues. Their budgets are dwindling as well and there is more emphasis than ever on accountability and making every dollar work harder.
By focusing on your most important customers, women, you can do just that. She's the one making the decisions on where to spend, what to buy and what can wait. Shift your communications strategy to address her current concerns. If you aren't clear about where your brand fits in or what you can do to be relevant given her current concerns consider qualitative research like GirlFriend Groups. It's a cost effective peek into the minds of your customers and you may even pick up a few cost cutting measures to incorporate into your messaging.
While there is no one size fits all fix for all companies here are a few suggestions to keep her buying your brand or shopping at your store.
Manufacturers -- Shift your marketing messages to focus on the bright side of "home-cooking" - return to the family, bring everyone together, teach your kids what a kitchen is. Work with retailers to make it easy for her to make it herself. Create "my favorite recipe" displays with tear-off recipe pads and all the ingredients together.
Retailers -- While you are working on the plan-o-grams and end caps to accommodate those manufacturer displays, don't neglect the great customer service you've been offering all along in an effort to trim costs. She's still looking for clean stores (and bathrooms), hand sanitizer and help loading her car. If everyone is running similar sales this remains a great way to differentiate yourself.
E-tailers - Online shopping saves her time and money and offers plenty of opportunities for comparison shopping but she's looking for more. Free shipping, returns at your bricks and mortar outlets and "save my shopping cart" features in case she is called away from the computer are key.
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While overall US retail sales dropped 2.8 percent last month from the previous month, the steepest decline since 1992, the only relatively bright retail spots were grocery and food stores. Sales there were up nearly 5 percent from a year ago and held steady from the previous month, and health and personal care stores, which saw a 4 percent gain from last October. (Here’s a link to the article with those stats: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...s.business
Food and personal care items are staples that will always hold their own in a recession. That fact that sales in the grocery area are increasing certainly indicates that women are the driving force behind “back to basics” with food and dining. It’s likely coming at the expense of family restaurants, so they’ll have to sharpen their marketing game plan to appeal to women from the money side, not just convenience.