New Data on "the Power of the Purse"

Some interesting and powerful stats on marketing to women from an article by Mayo Seitz media. Full article can be found here:http://mayoseitz.com/media-monitor/The-Power-of-the-Purse.aspx

Women are in the driver’s seat when it comes to the economy.
- Globally, they control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, a figure that may grow as much as 40% in the next five years. In aggregate, women represent a growth market more than twice as big as China and India combined.

Just how powerful is the female market?
- In the U.S., women decide $4.3 trillion in consumer spending each year
- Women comprise 51.4% of the U.S. population, but make or influence 85% of all purchasing decisions
- Women make 80% of healthcare decisions and 70% of travel decisions
- Women purchase 65% of new cars and 53% of used cars
- Women make or influence 57% of all electronics purchases
- In 31% of the marriages where women work, they out-earn their husbands
- Single women buy homes at 2.5 times the rate of single men – one out of every five homes purchased (20%) is by a single woman

Are Your Marketing to Multi-Minding Women Aged 35 - 55?

If so, some great insights here: http://blog.clickbooth.com/2010/02/22/marketing-to-women-ages-35-55-part-1/.

This article covers single women, stay-at-home-moms, working moms, married without children and single without children. Family is a central theme to many of these women. And, let's remember a factor that cuts across all of these women -- they are so busy multi-tasking and multi-minding that they have little time for commercial messages and are almost too busy to shop.

Does Social Media Sell to Women?

A recent article in BRANDWEEK Magazine, http://tinyurl.com/yg9s6dc, asks "Does Social Sell" and focuses on return of investment, ROI, and how social media measurement continue to be the single greatest challenge to social media adoption by companies.

Many of us are working on ways to better measure social media for clients and just as the industry is evolving so will measurement. In the mean time I'd ask, what's the return on non-investment in social media. The measurement for that one, I think, is easy. It's zero, at best, and loss, of some sort, for sure. Brand that are not part of the social media conversation will be by-passed by brands who are, regardless of proper measurement in the short term

That concept rings true especially for brands that are targeted to women, which covers about 90% of the brands out there. According to research that I feature in my book, http://www.amazon.com/Too-Busy-Shop-Multi-Minding-ebook/dp/B002DYMB7G/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2, women turn to friends and family, both real and VIRTUAL, 90+ percent of the time for recommendations when they want to make a purchase. If a brand is not a part of the conversation that 90%of its target consumers are having, they can't help but lose, no matter the measured ROI.