Want to Annoy A Lot of Women? Just Add Diet, Fashion and Sex Tips
Because I still see examples of it, I feel the need to occasionally return to the dangers of making assumptions about your female customers. These assumptions are reflected in the brands that seem to be trying desperately to reach more women by adding nail polish, diet tips, sex advice or fashion guidance into their marketing efforts, no matter what the product. What happens then? The public relations team may get a lot of one-time event or launch publicity, and maybe a few new customers will stick around. However, it is also likely that a percentage of the existing customer base has been annoyed enough by the dilution to think twice about the brand the next time they shop.
Those customers, after all, first found the product/service, and have remained loyal, because it is a perfect solution for their needs. Stray too far from that focus, and the disconnect will be noticed and dealt with. Here are a few ways this "message-diluting assumptions" game might play out:
Make a new car launch into a spa or nail party, and voila - the girls will go wild! Does it matter that more serious customers - women and men - will be turned off? Or, how about beefing up a fitness magazine’s content with sex advice or more "lifestyle" fashion stories? That surely means that all women everywhere will read the publication, in addition to the hundreds of others out there that already cover such topics, right? Then again, your core readers, with their passion for fitness, may start to let their subscriptions lapse.
Assumptions lead to dilution. Real consumer insights (the kind that you can only get from really doing your research and actually interacting with them) generate fine-tuned, effective marketing programs. While one approach looks very sexy from a mass market perspective, without core passion behind it, failure is a big possibility. In comparison, the other approach can look so.. well… small and boring from a marketing perspective ("we can’t get any reporters to cover it!"), but it is actually bound to make more loyal evangelists from existing customers - who then spread the word to the best sort of new customer.
Let’s acknowledge that by 2008, consumers the world over know where to go for the diet, fashion and sex tips they need. What consumers can do without, these days, is seeing less-than-relevant fashion pages in a cooking magazine or nail polish application or spa treatments connected to their car purchase decision.
On a final note, there are plenty of "women’s" web sites and blogs out there that started on the right track: with a narrow focus and timely/relevant content for their core markets. However, as the sites expand and/or are acquired by larger media entities or brands, many become diluted with the presumed women’s fare and lose their initial energy and purpose. I know you’ve seen those examples. Don’t let it happen to you.
Think a while before you add diet, fashion and sex to your mix. Once diluted, there is no going back.
