In this keynote excerpt, Marti Barletta answers the #1 question about marketing to women: Are women worth it?
The answer is a resounding YES! Marti delivers important statistics about women, including income, education and participation in investments.
Her speech is titled, "Building Business with Affluent Women" and focuses on financial planners and the investment market.
Watch the video: Answering the #1 Marketing to Women Question
Watch the video: Answering the #1 Marketing to Women Question
Boomer Women’s Secret Weapon to Mid-Life Happiness (And How it Should Influence Your Marketing Plan)
Today is the conclusion to my series on what marketers should know about mid-life for Boomer women. We've covered Boomer women's increased control and her support networks. Her third secret weapon to avoiding a mid-life crisis? Menopause.
While a woman no longer has reproductive fertility, researchers have found that in menopause a woman enters a time of enhanced psychological and creative fertility. Margaret Mead coined the term postmenopausal zest to refer to the surge of energy and excitement accompanying this release from what could be termed the biological burden of womanhood. She found this elevated spirit manifested in midlife women across cultures.
It may be fueled in part by the change in ratio of testosterone to estrogen. Perhaps it's what writer Isak Dinesen was talking about when she said, "Women, when they are old enough to have done with the business of being women, and can let loose their strength, may be the most powerful creatures in the world."
So all in all, while the Boomer woman certainly is going through the human development stage known as the midlife identity transition along with her male cohorts, she is fortunate to have more time and flexibility to cope with it, a strong social support network to help her emotionally and a biological bonus of post-menopausal zest.
I don't call that a crisis, do you? In their marketing and sales strategies, companies need to embrace and celebrate this zest Boomer women entering mid-life feel for life. Marketing methods that try to attract Boomer women with appeals to extended youth and excessive nostalgia just won't work with this generation. Boomer women are looking ahead and excited about what they see.
We're continuing my series on mid-life for Boomer women. Marketing and sales professionals should focus on the many reasons Boomer women have to celebrate mid-life. The next reason mid-life is such a revitalizing time for women is that women have built a support network throughout their lives, which only strengthens them as they age (The first reason is that Boomer women are in control).
Women bond with each other by talking. Oh, there may be an activity involved-dining, shopping, working out-but it's all a background to the conversation. They like hearing another person's stories and problems because it builds an empathetic connection-it's one of the things women are wired for. Women friends are great when you're feeling low; they're like your own personal psychotherapist.
When things are rough, like when she's going through a mid-life crisis, a woman has a whole network of personal therapists to draw on. And this network can be a lifesaver, as some of the participants in our research said:
"My friends and I meet and walk for an hour five days a week. We all try to touch base and be our own therapy group. It's so healthy for me. We have helped each other out." - Lynn, 50
"My friends... without them, I would be a basket case and much, much lonelier." - Anne, 54
Research shows that friendship lowers blood pressure, boosts immunity and promotes healing. It may help explain one of the mysteries of medical science: why women, on average, have lower rates of heart disease and longer life expectancies than men.
A focus of your marketing to Boomer women strategies should include the importance of friendship and networks. Communicate the Boomer woman's strength through her network, and how she is strong for own her friends.
As companies and their marketing teams strive to understand Boomer women, we must realize that mid-life for Boomer women is much different than the stereotypes indicate. As I wrote last week in "What Do New Year's and Menopause Have in Common?", there are three aspects to the revitalizing effect mid-life has on Boomer women. Today, let's discuss the first: they have more time and more control.
To understand this, we have to start when Boomer women were younger. Despite the fact that fathers these days are helping out more with shopping, chauffeuring, cooking and housekeeping than their fathers did, in an average household, women still spend almost twice as many hours a week on these tasks as their husbands do-27 hours and 16 hours, respectively.
In addition to chief cook and bottle washer, most women are the family's health guardian, school liaison, housekeeper, vehicle upkeeper, home services coordinator, inventory manager, bill payer, chief purchasing officer, travel/vacation planner and social scheduler.
Most men keep their lives a little more streamlined: in addition to their job outside the home, their responsibilities around the house typically include lawn care, home and care maintenance, everything electronic, sports coaching and... oh, right: barbequing. (Did I miss anything?)
When the kids get older and more independent, and especially when they launch households of their own, the demands on mothers' time drop significantly. But because of the nature of their chores, and because they put in fewer hours in the first place, fathers' commitments and schedules are relatively less affected.
So while both mid-lifers are thinking longingly about what they coulda-woulda-shoulda done with their lives, only the women get an "empty nest bonus" of extra time to look into new options, interests and activities.
Perhaps this is why research shows that men's "dream fulfillment" peaks in their mid-30's, while women's "dream fulfillment" increases with age, reaching the pinnacle as they reach 50-70 years of age. Just a reminder-that age group currently describes Boomer women!
Your marketing communications to Boomer women have the opportunity to build on the story of dreaming big... and fulfilling those dreams. That has the potential for some compelling marketing messages, right? Much more so than advisements about slowing down and becoming less able (The old "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" advertisements come to mind).
When I was growing up, the common understanding was that only women had a mid-life crisis. It was called (s-h-h-h) the change of life, which was code for menopause. Sounded awful. Apparently, women went crazy-mood swings, crying spells, all kinds of erratic behavior. Since then, it's become generally accepted that men have their own "mid-life crises" as well-and it's certainly not pretty, either.
But we can celebrate this New Year with a new outlook on mid-life for women. Because for most women, the middle of life is like a new year, a time of awakening and renewal.
Women generally have a better transition from youth to midlife than men do. In Sex and the Seasoned Woman, Gail Sheehy describes mid-life for women as dynamic and full of vitality. Ravenna Helson, the lead researcher of the Mills College study into women's transition into mid-life, reported that while "people generally describe personality change in middle age as a mid-life crisis, with all its negative connotations... in the Mills' women, the change was positive-a reorienting, not a crisis." This confirmed what Helson had found in another study, which revealed that women moving into mid-life become more self-sufficient, more decisive, more self-assured and secure, and less critical. These positive changes were accompanies by increased coping skills and increased comfort and stability.
Why is the mid-life experience so different for women?
I believe the difference in men and women's mid-life experience is not rooted in a difference in underlying human development, but rather stems from three simple circumstances: more control, more support, and believe it or not, menopause.
Over the next few weeks, I'll delve into each of these three topics, explaining how each contributes to the revitalization of mid-life for women... and communication strategies to use when marketing to these Boomer women.
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