Unless a company has a leader with a vision around how to talk to women in a way that doesn't have them screaming for the mute button, the proverbial needle will never move. Companies typically try to reach women in the most traditional of places: women’s magazines, television, and radio.
However, I (and many others) live on the web. As a mother, writer, researcher, and business owner, for me the Internet has become my lifeline to sanity in the form of information when and where I need it. Because I do so much, I need speed, efficiency, and relevance. Companies, for the most part, still don’t have a clue as to how to connect authentically with women.
The Internet ranks as a favorable source of information for women, who now constitute half of all shoppers online. Yet nothing will send me to the chocolate cupboard faster than a poorly designed website that wastes my non-existent time. Companies need to understand what motivates women to go online and check them out, and how women actually surf the web, in order to create what I like to call a gender intelligent online experience.
When women go online, they alternate among three distinct need states. It’s interesting to watch them individuate or morph among the Greek roles of Artemis the Hunter, Demeter the Gatherer, and Hestia the Socializer.
When online women operate as Artemis, they are primarily task driven: They want to answer a specific question, solve a problem, pay a bill, book a trip. Artemis values well-organized websites with intelligent search engines that give her the information she needs in two or three clicks.
When online women operate in the Demeter persona, as the Greek goddess of agriculture, grain, and bread, they are primarily knowledge driven: They want to learn something new, acquire skills, or expand their knowledge on a specific topic. Demeter the Gatherer likes home pages that provide everything at a glance. She is looking for useful, comprehensive information from a reliable source, and appreciates the ability to drill down on a specific topic of interest.
The third state women display online is that of Hestia, Greek goddess of house and home, the family and civic hearth, and the sacrificial flame. When women operate in this need state, they are relationship-driven. They want to strengthen their bonds with friends and family, expand their circle, or learn about what other people think or do. Hestia values features such as “Talk to an Expert” or “Share With Friends,” anything that provides an authentic human touch.
Online (and arguably, other places), men primarily operate under the Hunter need state, whereas women tend to alternate among all three: the Hunter, the Gatherer, and the Socializer, sometimes switching from one to another during the same surfing session. Bottom line? You need to please all three goddesses to become a destination website.
In light of wanting to become a top Canadian online lifestyle website destination, food giant Sobeys learned a little Greek. To ensure they were offering what women were looking for, Sobeys asked us to conduct research on its websites.
Artemis the Hunter enjoyed using sobeys.com’s powerful search engine for recipes, and found it easy to find the store nearest her home or workplace. Demeter the Gatherer loved sobeys.com’s bright colours and appetizing food pictures. She was pleased with the rich information content on both sites and the detailed “how-to” sections she could consult to hone her culinary skills. Hestia the Socializer loved the human touch provided by Chef James and Chef Ryan, as well as the “Send-a-Friend” feature available with the recipes.
In the end, successful strategies that actually reach women do not succeed in a vacuum. Advertising is intrinsically tied to successful product development, which is tied to merchandising, which is tied to the store environment, which is intrinsically tied to the salespeople, which is tied to human resources, which is fundamentally tied to leadership, which needs to be tied to gender intelligence if any of this is going to work.
Joanne Thomas Yaccato is author of The Gender Intelligent Retailer (Wiley), co-authored by Sean McSweeney.
Photo by Chris Hall. Courtesy of Creative Commons.
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