How to sell to women on the internet - Building Gender Balanced Business

By JOANNE THOMAS YACCATO

As with all parts of a company’s internal “ecosystem”, unless the company has a leader with a vision that enables him or her to talk to women in a way that doesn’t have them screaming for the mute button, the proverbial needle will never move. When companies want to talk to women they typically try to reach them in the most traditional of places – women’s magazines, TV, and radio.

However, I (and many others) live on the web. As a mother, writer, researcher and business owner, the internet has become my lifeline to sanity in the form of information when and where I need it. And because I do so much, I need speed, efficiency and relevance. Companies, for the most part, still don’t have a clue how to connect authentically with women. However, when done right, The Internet, the great leveller, can give marketers an opportunity to redefine how they talk to women.

The internet ranks as a favourable source of information for women, who now constitute half the shoppers online. Again like most women, nothing will send me to the chocolate cupboard faster than a badly-designed website that wastes my scarce time. Companies need to understand what motivates us to go online. They need to investigate further and look at how women actually surf the web in order to create what I like to call a gender intelligent online experience.