Using Feminine Strengths for More Successful Marketing by Louisa Bird

We know that increasing numbers of women are starting businesses, but what will ensure that these numbers keep rising, and what will keep these women business owners in business?

As a marketing coach, I admit I'm biased here, but I feel that one of the essential keys to women breaking through in business is using successful marketing techniques that exploit uniquely female skills and capabilities.
Indeed, studies have also shown that effective marketing is what separates a successful company from a failing company.

So what marketing activities should women focus on to produce the best possible results, whilst maximizing their innate talents and inclinations?
Decades ago, there were fewer products and services available for consumers to choose from than there are today, so marketing was a simple equation – advertise, and customers buy; advertise more, and customers buy more. Perhaps it’s a hangover from those simple, heady days, but marketing is still often equated with advertising and selling. In that context, women can often see themselves as being at a disadvantage.

The research shows that a common complaint among women wanting to start their own business is a perceived lack of confidence. I would suggest that an important part of this is that women often feel uncomfortable at the thought of selling and promoting themselves and their companies, perhaps because of this misplaced perception that marketing equals selling.
Self-promotion (and let's face it – when you're self-employed, you pretty much are the business) is something women frequently struggle with. Throughout childhood, we are invariably taught to be demure and passive and wait for things to come to us. Business owners of either gender just can't afford to wait around for business to come to them; we have to get out there and start spreading the word. Women are taught as children to do precisely the opposite, and this is reinforced in popular films and literature (just look at all the "heroine waiting to be rescued" stories we are presented with - from Sleeping Beauty to Pretty Woman). Men, on the other hand, are programmed to be the pursuer, and so had an easier time of it in the old marketing model.

In today’s sophisticated and choice-laden buying environment, though, the "advertising = sales" formula no longer applies. Consumers are completely overwhelmed with marketing messages (some sources suggest we are confronted with several thousand marketing messages every day) and we have almost more choice than we know what to do with.

These days, effective marketing is not about being brash and shoving your message down people's throats and it's not about shouting about how great you are to anyone and everyone who'll listen. It’s about creating authenticity and company values that people in your target market can relate to, and most of all, it's about building relationships.
Relationship marketing is seen as the key to penetrating the overpowering and seemingly inescapable background noise of marketing and advertising, and to building successful businesses in the 21st century.
What is relationship marketing? Seth Godin, in his book "Permission Marketing", describes it as the process of "turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers". At its core, it’s about turning customers into regular customers, and finally into raving fans who will spread a positive message about our companies for us (remember, word-of-mouth advertising through recommendation is the most powerful form of marketing there is).

This relationship-building approach is a more sophisticated and more long-term process than the outdated "hit 'em and run" method, but I feel it’s one technique that women-led businesses can master and integrate into their operations with relative ease. After all, what are women traditionally good at? Building relationships. As the saying goes, strangers are just friends you haven't met yet. Perhaps a useful analogy in marketing would be that non-customers are simply customers you haven’t built a relationship with yet.
The traditional, masculine selling style was to cajole and convince the prospect to buy, by whatever means possible and whether they really needed or wanted the product or not.

Today, good sales practice focuses on listening to the potential customer and understanding their needs first, before you offer something which meets those needs (or if you haven’t got what they need, act with integrity and give them details of someone else who might be better suited to their needs – again, the long-term approach).

How do you start using this concept of relationship marketing in your business? First you have to get members of your target market to "put their hands up" in the marketplace. One way of doing this is to offer an appealing free or low cost product related to your higher-priced products/services. For example, a web designer might offer a free report on "8 Questions You Must Ask Before Hiring a Web Designer". Once they have registered their interest in what you have to offer, you keep in contact with them, perhaps via a newsletter, offering useful information that you know will be of interest, and making occasional offers.
Keep delivering value as the relationship and trust grows, and some of these customers will go on to become "advocates", raving fans of your company who will recommend you to others. That, of course, is the ultimate goal, and the way in which your business can produce sustainable growth.

Successful marketing means a successful business, and women have special strengths that enable them to be at the cutting edge of effective marketing methods. Learn everything you can about relationship marketing, build on your strengths and get creative in establishing and deepening your relationship with your customers.