We all know that women differ from men in ways that impact how companies market to them. The question when marketing to women is “how” and what does a company do to successfully reach these key decision makers to expand markets and improve ROI. Read on as marketing and healthcare communications expert Kelley Connors give some key strategies in marketing healthcare to women.
Women as consumers are different from men as consumers in so many ways! Men are more direct-driven to their destination goal, while women meander and enjoy the journey. Women are multi-taskers and jugglers trying to stay in control while working hard at many different things in their life.
To power up your ability to engage women in healthcare decisions, you must first understand the multi-dimensional roles women play as consumers and influencers of healthcare To suceed with your healthcare communication goals, you must know their therapeutic goals, lifestage considerations, demographics and how health fits into a bigger picture in their life.
Here Are My Top 4 Essential Strategies to Reaching and Engaging Women as Consumers:
1. Involve women in “co-parenting” or creating your messages with you.
Informal, interactive and conversational marketing methodologies provide springboards for spontaneity to help create a more transparent, empowering and compelling messages your audience (women) hear and trust. This is one of the most effective marketing to women strategies. Remember, women love to share ideas, spontaneous feelings, dreams, fears and most of all information. Today’s women are seeking information and readily sharing what they have read in health or self-help books, women’s magazines and on the Internet. In fact, women are a marketer’s secret weapon for creating conversations that spark dialogue, inspiring others to consider a new product or service.
To create a dynamic exchange of information and ideas and to maximize spontaneity, host a “conversational marketing” forum in intimate and comfortable settings such as coffee lounges, retail outlets, spas and wellness centers, living rooms and restaurants.
2. Position your lifestyle, health or healthcare message in a woman’s “peripheral vision.”
Neither a full frontal attack nor splashy, expensive product or service-focused advertising will capture a woman’s attention and loyalty. Marketing to women successfully requires a careful consideration of their beliefs and values. This includes:
• Identifying creative approaches to connecting with the social and community causes that are important to women
• Aligning your brand’s essence and key messages to those social and community causes
• Reinforcing the role of a total wellness and lifestyle solution, rather than a product-centric or service-centric brand approach
3. Target women in “life stages”, not “age stages”.
Identify the life stages, your targeted women prospects are living in today. For example, your targeted women prospects may be in their fitness phase, -- the phase that usually takes place early in a woman’s life when it’s all about her own healthy body. Your prospects could be in their “family-centric” stage, which normally ranges from the early 20’s to the 40’s, when family comes first and children are growing, or she could be in the discovery stage which is more about the woman refining and expressing who she is. Or, your targeted women prospects may be a seasoned woman who is experiencing a surge in vitality in her love and sex life after 50.
4. Think mother-daughter bonding.
Strong intergenerational influences can be found between women and their daughters, and between women and their mothers. Information and advice, especially related to healthcare, is solicited. It flows freely from one generation to another. Reinforcing this idea, Medelia Monitor Research recently revealed that 64 percent of women surveyed talk with their mothers on a daily or weekly basis. More than 41 percent say their moms are their best friends.
Final Marketing to Woman Thoughts: Spark Dialogue, Inspire Action & Profit from Women Consumers
Remember, women are newly empowered decision-makers, purchasers and influencers. When creating your healthcare communication message you can leverage that empowerment to your advantage. Building a brand, enhancing an organization or company’s reputation, and building trust takes more than sending out controlled messages that speak to women in their multiple roles. Winning their minds and hearts means connecting with them and with their influencers. This will give you greater credibility, visibility and involvement in your targeted prospects’ lives. Whether you are providing products or services that help women at home, work or play, you will be able to break through the spin to build trust and profit greatly from women consumers, if you take my advice and connect to them at all levels.
With an extensive background in healthcare public relations, marketing, advertising and medical education, healthcare communications expert, Kelley Connors can help your company or organization create conversational marketing programs with women and their influencers. She has become widely recongized for her development of TalkTankTM, an interactive forum that helps companies spark dialogue with consumers, caregivers, patients and healthcare professionals, especially women. If you’re a pharmaceutical company, medical device, or health and wellness company looking to secure market share and influence, go to http://www.kchealthcarecommunications.com
