Web Segmentation - Understanding Female Audiences

Engineering the Future of Payment SolutionsEngineering the Future of Payment Solutions
What women Want
Course Code: Thuy Hoa Eva Vuong
Course: Introduction to Contemporary Business Communications
Course Code: CCMN 279 DJO
Instructor: Susan Cody
Web segmentation - the female
perspective

AGENDA
1. Introduction
2. The Boomer Women
3. Teen Girls
4. The Female Entrepreneur
5. Moms
6. Conclusion

INTRODUCTION
When segmenting on the Web we can break down usage by gender. Does it
come to anyone’s surprise that men and women use the Internet differently?
Today we will explore “What Women Want” when it comes to the Web, from
boomers to teenagers and moms to entrepreneurs. You will learn from this
overview that women have very distinct preferences when it comes to the Web.
You will also learn that women face the same challenges trying to secure capital
for web-based businesses as they do for other kinds of business endeavours.

THE BOOMER WOMEN
Not all women are created equal – or should be appealed to in the same way on
the Web. Just as different products appeal to different women, so too do different
marketing strategies.
The Boomer demographic is widely regarded as the piece of the population pie
with the most disposable income now and into the near future. This makes it an
enticing target for many marketers – some whom include web-based marketing in
their strategy to attract this group. However, based on what research is learning
about Boomer women, it may be advisable to use the Web more as a source of
information for them than as an online distribution channel if your expectation is
to increase sales revenue.

THE BOOMER WOMEN
Boomers by definition include those born between 1944 and 1964 and the group
includes subgroups at different ends of the career and family care spectrums.
Some are actively planning their retirement while others are still immersed in
careers, overseeing families and managing Millennium and GenX workers. 1
Because women live longer than men, they will comprise an increasingly larger
portion of the Boomers as they age making their gender group even more
attractive to marketers.

THE BOOMER WOMEN
While the Web has emerged as the dominant marketing tool of our era, it has not
been universally embraced by all female Boomers. Online purchasing in
particular is underused by them compared to other age groups. Enid Burns notes
in ClickZ that among adults 65 years of age and older 34 percent of older men
use the Web, compared to just 21 percent of women in the same age group. 2
She also notes that not only do women use it less, but they use it differently. The
question for marketers who wish to appeal to this group through the Web is how
and why do these differences exist and what are the implications of this on their
marketing strategy?

THE BOOMER WOMEN
1. Delayed Exposure to Emerging Technology:
Although there are many theories, there is general agreement that one of the
main reasons that a percentage of women in this demographic have been slow to
embrace regular use of the Web is that many were introduced to computers at a
later stage of life and with less frequency than males in the same age group.
This was partly due to the types of careers available to them at the time they
entered the workforce and the fact that a percentage of them dedicated
themselves to working in the home where they had less exposure to emerging
technology. According to Jennifer LeClaire in TechNewsWorld, it takes about
three years of regular Internet use before people become comfortable enough
with the medium to engage in shopping online. 3 It stands to reason then that
late and infrequent exposure to the Web would result in a lower percentage of
online purchases by women. Marketers would be wise to acknowledge this and
not rely exclusively upon their web site as the only means to influence this group.

THE BOOMER WOMEN
2. Trust in Historical Marketing Mediums:
It’s hard to erase a history of conditioning. Both men and women from the
Boomer population grew up under the influence of traditional marketing materials
and they continue to demonstrate a preference for tangible mediums such as
printed material – at least as an initial point of influence. The Forrester Marketer
Report cites statistics that not only are Boomers fond of print media, but they
display a higher degree of interest in visiting sites that come to their attention via
print media, product labels, television or personal recommendation. 4 Women in
particular tend to start their journey of influence through traditional media. They
do use the Web, but it may not be the first medium they seek out. This would
indicate that marketers to this segment would be wise to promote their website
through traditional media as the first means of exposure to Boomer women.

THE BOOMER WOMEN
3. Motivated by a Desire for Emotional Connection:
Women as a group display a preference for web-based applications that allow
them to extend and deepen their relationships. Because of this, email still
continues to be the preferred application of 94% of them. 5 Boomer women in
particular have embraced email with a vengeance. However, other forms of online
applications have proved to be less successful with the group. The application
that appears to be the least favoured among females aged 55 to 64 years old is
online video. It manages to attract a mere 39% of them weekly. 6 Those that
use it regularly tend to seek out news and entertainment based videos. The
lesson here for marketers to plan the use of technology for this segment based
upon their demonstrated interest – not based on what other age groups are
using.

THE BOOMER WOMEN
These three examples just scratch the surface of the many ways that Boomer
women use the Web differently than other groups. Marketers who wish to appeal
to the group would be wise to step back and consider how they include the Web
in an integrated marketing strategy that does not depend on the Web as the sole
source of contact or influence. This group is not web-resistant but they are
unlikely to embrace a product or service that relies exclusively on the Web as a
single source of information or distribution.
As a marketer, take your time to figure out how to appeal to them and Boomer
women can become your very best customers.

TEEN GIRLS
Are teenage girls going to take over the Internet? Yes, they are! How, you might
ask, through social creativity. In a study released by PEW/ Internet, “Teens and
Social Media”, Girls between the ages of 12 to 17 are outpacing the boys when
contributing to the Internet community. Girls are leading the pack through content
creation of web pages (32% of girls compared to 22% of boys), blogs (35% of
girls compared to 20% of boys), and connecting through social networking sites
(70% of girls compared to 57% of boys).

TEEN GIRLS
As known for years, men and women are completely different and this is easily
witnessed through the Internet habits of the teen group. As suggested by Dr. Dan
Peters, a clinical psychologist who practices in Napa and San Ramon, he
explains the virtual gender gap is due to the fact that:
“Females are more into interpersonal connection, communication and are better
at expressing their thoughts and feelings generally than males. Within the
teenage culture, obviously the Internet has become a primary mode of
communication and affiliation. It’s no surprise that female teenagers would
gravitate toward that modality of connecting, expressing themselves and sharing
their feelings.”

TEEN GIRLS
In the New York Times article “Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain”, written by
Stephanie Rosenbloom, Stephanie shares the stories of Martina Butler, 17, the
first teenage podcaster to receive a major sponsorship from Nature’s Cure, an all
natural company providing acne medication. Martina records her indie music
focused talks from the basement of her San Francisco home posting her podcast
every Sunday on Emogirltalk.com.

TEEN GIRLS
Sandra Clearly, 14, and Lauren Renner, 16, are one of the thousands of female
participants who share the typical teenage ups and downs on the popular
interactive e-zine page, Agirlsworld.com. This site is written for girls by girls, and
allows its contributors to generate extra spending money through articles
submitted and the creation of site activities such as Mother’s Day breakfast
recipes.

TEEN GIRLS
A 13 year-old, Nicole Dominguez, whose hobbies consist of designing free icons,
layouts, and “glitters”, creates sparkling animation that is used on the web and
sites such as Myspace.com. You can view her work on Sodevious.net where she
even posts her self taught pointers for HTML and CSS (Cascading style sheet).
These are defined by Wikipedia as a “style sheet language used to describe the
presentation of a document written in a markup language”.

FEMALE ENTREPRENUR
A study by Industry Canada has revealed that female owned businesses are a
large and growing force in today’s economic climate. It further states that nearly
half of Canadian small businesses are wholly or partially owned by women.
Though most female entrepreneurs focus on the service and retail markets, their
businesses extend to international markets, especially in the United States.

FEMALE ENTREPRENUR
According to Sandra Maltby, Vital Speeches of the Day. New York: Jan 1, 1996,
the main challenge facing female business owners is the procurement of capital
for starting and expanding their businesses. The root cause of this problem
stems from the misconception that female business initiatives are hobbies and
credit risks. This attitude by financial institutions towards females in business,
forces many women to turn to savings or personal credit for financing. Another
avenue for financing startup companies is non-mainstream groups such as
National Angel Organization and Maple Leaf Angels, which bring individual
investors together and thereby, assist in making financing accessible.

FEMALE ENTREPRENUR
Entrepreneurs both male and female are driven by risk and uncertainty. Banking
surveys have indicated that women repay loans and continue in business at the
same ratio or exceed that of their male counterparts. They also show that there
is no additional risk or uncertainly in extending credit to businesswomen. Then,
from a logical standpoint, one must ask the question, why?

FEMALE ENTREPRENUR
However, the changing structure of competition within the banking industry has
resulted in the decline of banking dominance in the financial market place. This
has created a bridge between Banks and small businesses, enabling better
communication. Institutions such as The Business Development Bank of Canada
(BDC) have recognized the importance of women in business today and have
tailored programs, which are geared towards the needs, skills and talents of this
vital segment. The Government of Canada Website also has regional
information, which is geared to specific women entrepreneurs.

FEMALE ENTREPRENUR
The formation of trade associations such as Women Presidents’ Organization
(WPO), a nonprofit membership organization with thirty-one chapters located
throughout the United States and Canada, boasts a membership which includes
women who head companies with revenues ranging from $1 to $2 million. This
association gives a voice to women in business, as well as benefits such as
mentoring, camaraderie, strategic planning and a Membership-at-Large program
for women who do not have a WPO chapter in their community.

MOMS
In the 20thcentury, women are no longer any less “technology savvy” than men.
A recent study shows that there are more than 32 million of them online in the
U.S. alone, and the number is expected to grow to nearly 37 million by 2010 (
Wegert). One can see that women’s use of the Internet and their online presence
is enormous.

MOMS
Generation X/boomers and Millennial moms
First of all, we can categorize moms into two types: generation X/boomers and
millennial moms. According to Mary Sullivan Cooper, the founder of the
MommyMixer, a site which helps moms to find nannies or baby sitters says,
"Older moms tend to be open regarding banners, but our Gen Y moms are as
digitally plugged in as most of our sitters! Their online behaviors are just more
advanced, so we are pursuing more mobile and social channels to grow our
relationship with them even more.” From that we can see millennial moms who
are well versed with technology are making use of the Web as their tool to help
them to save time from doing something which had to be traditionally done by
offline networking (Wegert).

MOMS
Moms empowered by the Web!
DoubleClick Performics, worked with Microsoft and ROI Research to study the
usage of search engines among 1,000 moms online. The study found that 26% of
moms started using the Internet to search for information online in 1993 or
earlier. They are the heavy users of search engines with online and offline
purchases, researching travel, comparing products and many other planning
activities. Also, the study reveals that the “Searcher Moms” use the Internet
regularly for extended periods of time. More than one-third of those studied (35
percent) spend three or more hours a day online. Three-fourths spend more than
an hour a day online plus watching television. Nearly 90 percent are online at
least twice a day, for an average of at least 16 minutes per session (DoubleClick
Performics). It suggests that busy moms nowadays rely heavily on the Web to get
many family and household things organized.

MOMS
Nielsen Online report also points out that “(Power Moms) women online ages 25-
54 with at least one child are nearly twice as likely as the average Web user to
provide frequent advice about Parenting/Family, Non-food Household Products
and Beauty/Cosmetics”. For example, a women targeted website like
iVillage.com, is a very resourceful site which offers moms resources and advices
from health and beauty, pregnancy, parenting, food, home and gardening and
entertainment. A mom can find many useful articles and resources that interest
them, but they can also to build a social network through the web message
boards and share comments and opinions with others.

MOMS
In addition, Chuck Schilling, Research Director, Agency and Media Analytics,
Nielsen Online identified the moms behavior online, “Women are using online
avenues like email, online forums and social networking Web sites… as
information seekers and relationship builders. Moms, in particular, look to the
Web to connect… for tips and support, and… this group is nearly 25 percent
more likely than average to author a blog” (Loechner).

MOMS
From all the studies and findings, we can see that the mom is definitely a
demographic who has so much room to grow; especially the “Millennial moms”
who embrace the efficiency and resourcefulness of the Web. Their wants include
everything from grocery shopping, travel and family activities planning to personal
enrichments on education, personal care, parenting and getting peers support
group online.

CONCLUSION
The overriding conclusion of this report, is that customer segmentation is critical
to the success of any marketing strategy and even more so when it involves the
Web as part of an integrated strategy.
Women are not created equal. They can be further segmented by variables such
as age, education, parenting experiences, and exposure to different forms of
media at different stages of their personal development. Any one of these
variables can and will affect how different groups of women are likely to use the
Web as a marketing medium. Marketers should take this into consideration when
developing strategies to appeal to this sector because unlike pantyhose ‘one size
does not fit all”.

THANK YOU!

Web Segmentation - Understanding Female Audiences

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