Women like interactive marketing, and it may be tricky to figure out how to approach them in a selective manner. For the most part, that can mean encompassing any or all of these marketing strategies:

1. Using interactive games, stories, forums, blogs, and/or social media.
2. Openly requesting feedback from women in your target market. And then, listening to what they say.
3. Lurking…at blogs, Twitter, social media sites, or webinar/teleseminars.

Let’s talk about that last one: lurking. When blogs hit the net in a big way, just a few short years ago, it was their ability to create interactive conversations, beyond the email box, that had everyone buzzing about them. While blogs are really just another form of website, their open, friendly (usually) nature – and the enticing ability to create real-time connections (you blog, I read, I comment, you read, and comment back) – made them a virtual playground for the social butterflies of the net. Which gender brings to mind social butterflies? Yes, women. In short order, we discovered that blogs were a way to amplify our voices – all over the net.

And so, the blogosphere went its merry way – with the early adopters (early on it was more men than women, but that has changed) talking to each other and to every other new blogger who happened upon Typepad, WordPress or Google’s Blogspot. New blog tools, supporting the conversations buzzing across the net, popped up all over and the language of doing business online got more interesting. It wasn’t long before blogs went mainstream and with them came trackbacks, and permalinks, and finally, widgets. Let’s talk about widgets another time. As the blogosphere grew, so did the women’s voices using these new tools. Social media became the new coffee klatch, the new meeting place (where you didn’t have to change out of your PJs, if you didn’t want to), the new social order of the day.

And yet, in the background, hidden by insecurity (or privacy issues), were the lurkers.

Diehard bloggers knew they were there, not because they announced themselves! Heavens no! We knew they were there because we could see their silence. Bloggers checking their traffic stats would count the visits and comments and … when they put two and two together, the numbers didn’t add up. The only conclusion was that a whole lot of their readers were visiting regularly, but not commenting. They were lurking. For instance: here, here and here.

Lurkers follow a blog or a blogger (and likely do so via Twitter, these days), but never comment. Never acknowledge their presence. Never really get into the conversation. Why are they there? Because, frankly, they can be. Also, it’s because they want to be part of the story, but they aren’t always comfortable helping create the story. In the world of business blogging, lurkers are equivalent to window shoppers, or browsers. They have their favorite places to go…but they don’t feel a need to announce themselves. They want to see what’s going on, to hear about what you’re doing, and while they generally won’t voice their opinions on your blog or website comment form, they often go off and talk to their friends about you – sometimes on a blog of their own!

The reason lurkers are important to you, and why I’m writing about them in a marketing to women online column for an interactive marketing publication is because – there are hundreds of thousands of them – and by virtue of the fact that more women than men are online today,
more of them are women than men. Not to mention that…more women are blogging, than men. So, your lurker is more likely to be female. Do understand that some lurkers add a select comment here and there – using their ‘handle,’ which is usually a name you cannot really identify them by.

“But,” I can hear you thinking, “women, LOVE to talk! Why would they lurk?”

Yes, we do love to talk. I’m quite fond of reminding people of those good old days when little boys taunted little girls with, “Telegraph, telephone, tell a girl!” because everyone knows girls can’t keep secrets. Today, the phrase converts to, “Telegraph, telephone, tell a woman blogger.” And yet, our coffee klatch chit-chat, our meetings at the well, our church social events, and other female gatherings over the years do not account for the lurkers among us – primarily because in the old venues, the lurkers were visible even if they weren’t saying anything. Today’s lurkers are truly the unique of the unique.

It pays to understand these silent women. Lurkers who do not join in your conversation, may well join in mine. Never doubt that lurkers have something to say – they do! But, they seldom say it to the world; instead, they share their thoughts in a small, trusted circle of friends. That circle might be a social media group, a few bloggers, or an email newsletter group. Be aware that while the lurkers are not necessarily passing along your marketing message in an open forum or a public blog, they are sharing it. And, because of that, lurkers can be great word of mouth marketers. They will pass the word, good or bad, without you ever knowing it. It may be that one or more of the women in their inner circle is a popular blogger or even a mainstream media journalist. You just never know.

Maybe you (or someone on your staff) should test this out. Become a lurker, yourself.

Visit blogs and read but don’t comment. Watch conversations on Twitter but don’t reply. Create a Facebook page and join groups, under your own name, not your company’s logo; always be watching and learning. As you take your silent perspective of what’s going on in the busy social world of Internet chatter between the women who talk and the women who don’t, you will learn how to get women to buy from you, and you may uncover some “real” lurkers that just can’t keep quiet – about your great new focus on understanding your female customer.

In fact, your lurkers may just get you moving on that hip new game you’ve been planning to implement for the ladies. Or, that contest – offering a 3-day cruise as the Grand Prize. Or that sweepstakes with passes to the set of Heroes. Wow! I bet those items would out some lurkers!

As for me, I’m lurking about…watching. And waiting. Catch me if you can.

Back in the day, most do-it-yourself people were male. In my day, growing up in the fun Fonzi days of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, we gals wouldn’t be caught dead with a hammer in our hand. Most of us opted for aprons and Tupperware. Our dads and brothers and uncles handled the garage, the basement, and anything that required a drill or a mitre saw.

Those days are long gone. The rise of the Internet, and the decision to put off marriage and children, created an environment for women to become homeowners – and, by virtue of that accomplishment, to take up the challenge of DIY home improvements. Today, women of all ages are stepping up, wielding hammers, mitre saws, 2X4s, and more, with the eager expectation they once used for mixing bowls, cake batter, and pot roast. These are not the daughters of the women born in the baby boomer years – these are the baby boomer women, and their daughters, and their best friends. Somewhere in the 90s, women got the bug. We realized that home improvement was a lot like baking a cake. If you had the right ingredients, and you had the know-how, you could create masterpieces.

Understanding why women participate in DIY projects today can be an education in interactive marketing. After all, DIY projects are interactive, on-going, and sometimes a bit addictive. Over at Doityourself.com, writer Margareth Montenegro writes, “With the help of home improvement shows featuring women carpenters and designers, women become informed about the type of tools needed for specific home improvement projects and how to use them.”

The Tomboy Tools gals have a site designed to cater to the DIY woman, complete with home Tool Parties! I’m not sure they had to go so over the top with the pink tools, but these women are front and center in this space, and they could be your ticket to meeting high-energy women in need of…whatever it is you sell!

At Today’s Modern Woman, the forum thread flows freely, with questions about “washing superglue from your fingers,” or “improving the insulation of lath and plaster clad exterior walls”! These are women asking questions of other women, and getting the right answers!

What does it mean for your interactive marketing campaigns aimed at your female customers? It means opportunity. It means tapping into today’s woman’s need to be independent and self-sufficient. It means being creative – sponsoring an event that invites women to learn how to reface their kitchen cupboards, and oh-by-the-way, maybe you’d like to consider some plants and flowers for your new room (if you’re a florist). It means being at the next home-improvement show, even if you sell insurance! Hey, doesn’t she need insurance, if she’s going to be playing around with saws and hammers and that stuff? (NOTE: I am NOT one of those DIY gals; I still call it “stuff”…but, I hang around a number of DIY gals, so…don’t dismiss me; I have influence.)

DIY is an activity much like gardening, to some women. There is a high level of accomplishment when you’re done. You have a masterpiece to show off and admire; a work of art, perhaps. One that will last for decades. Unlike those cakes and casseroles of yesteryear that were gone in less time than it took to cook them.

Your job is to tap into that excitement – find a way to engage these women and discover what makes them tick. All of the reasons they accept the challenge of a kitchen or bath remodel, or of doing their own landscaping, may be reasons for them to buy your products or services.

As I look around my office, which was recently redesigned, btw, I see my computer monitor and my PC. Do you sell electronic equipment? Think you can sell me an update by approaching my inner electronic whiz? Think you can sell acknowledging that I’m smart enough to understand geek talk? Or, help me understand geek talk by hosting a coffee klatch with my friends, so we can all learn how to take better care of our electronic equipment? With all the home businesses today, any company able to build an interactive relationship with the woman at the top is sure to be a winner.

It doesn’t matter what you’re marketing. Get interactive with your female customers by acknowledging their inner need to wield their own tools. We’re movers and shakers – we ladies of the 21st century. Shake us up. Move us to action. Get in the game. If you’re lurking around, wondering how to do this – you’re in danger of dropping the hammer on your foot. Understand that in a DIY world, you must look us in the eye, never ask where our husband is, and respect the pink in our world, but don’t confuse it with softness. Pink drills make big holes, pink hammers wield power, pink tool belts just might hold the keys to your success.

As Harriet Beecher Stowe once said, “Women are the real architects of society.” Join us. We like company.

Are you preparing your 2009 budget for the “must attend” conferences and webinars you’ve been gathering info on for months now, in order to meet your marketing to women online goals? How about newsletters, blogs, and white papers that showcase the marketing to women market – are they high on your list to subscribe to?

What about your interactive marketing focus for the New Year, which will be on us before we know it – is that centered around the fair sex, and getting more feedback from women online, in order to serve them better?

If you’re keeping your fingers to the keyboard creating great content to appeal to your women customers, and your are eyeballs stuck to your computer monitor devouring all the advice from marketing to women columnists all over the net – let me give you some advice: STOP! Step back! Drop those hands! Blink your eyes and read on…

The truth is: the whole marketing to women focus is over. That’s right, it’s over. We don’t want you to market to us. We never wanted you to market to us. We endured you, but we never accepted you. In 2009, we aren’t even going to do that.

Did I hit a nerve? I hope so. Because at the heart of this movement are groups of women who know they call the shots. These are women who are tired of being marketed to – of being singled out, as if we’re sheep adorned with pink ribbons in our hair. We’re tired of being referred to as a demographic. Oh sure, a few smart marketers looked at the women’s market and created a nice pie chart – separating us into groups; boomers, Gen Xers, tweens, teens, Senior…in an effort to get personal, and that’s not a bad thing. The problem is – none of those labels stuck. As hard as marketers tried to stick them on us, we peeled them off and crumpled them into paper wads for target practice.

Women don’t want to be labeled. We want to be recognized. That’s right – recognized for our differing personalities; differing likes and dislikes; and even differing opinions that don’t always fly with our core group of family and friends. Stop lumping us into some demographic last year’s Harvard grad students created for their masters’ thesis. The old marketing to women way tried to lure us into buying products and services as groups; it was just easier to consider us a crowd, and to use the crowd mentality. If she’s a boomer, she likes “this.” If she’s a Gen Y, we have to do “this.”

That’s over. The labels aren’t working. It’s not the demographic, anymore. It’s… the individual – and her peers. Let me share some new insight with you, and get you on track for 2009.

For the last five to seven years the idea of women as the primary shoppers, both online and off, has been swelling to a tidal wave. I was at the forefront – telling marketers to stop marketing to Dick and start marketing to Jane. “Jane,” I told you, “has the money and the power to buy whatever she wants, today. She doesn’t ask Dick’s permission to buy a new laptop, or a lawn mower, or a set of tires for the car. She takes care of those things herself. And, she may be the defining vote in whether or not Dick gets to buy any of those products.”

That hasn’t changed. Jane is still very much in charge (yes, that’s a bit of a pun – Jane is quite fond of using her charge card, online and off). As others have told you, Jane is into electronics, and shopping online for cars, and joining social networking sites to get the best feedback on where to buy the household things she’s responsible for (think kitchen, bath, and garage.) Jane has a system, today. A system called “what does So-and-so think?” – where “So-and-so” isn’t her next door neighbor or her sister, anymore. So-and-so is likely someone she met online. If you’re not engaged in that conversation, if you aren’t part of her community of resources, you’re invisible to her.

In 2009, the focus is on reaching your female customer on her level, on her playground, at her request. It’s on word of mouth – at its most basic level; woman to woman via Twitter, Facebook, individual or group blogs, and video email. These are the tools women are comfortable using today. These are the tools you should be mastering – in order to reach your female customers. Women of all ages, from all walks of life, are participating in these social media tools. And their voices are traveling the web at the speed of light – forget the speed of sound!

Your female customer is out there sharing video reviews of your product with her friends, male and female. She’s Twittering her latest fab purchase. She’s sharing a touching email note, viral marketing like crazy. Check out the chatter on the Society for Word of Mouth, where friends invite friends to comment on conversations – and where they recognize the power of customer reviews . Ebay and Amazon may have started that ball rolling, but women have taken the concept to the next level by dominating social media and the blogosphere.

Your female customer is no longer divided by generation or technical skill. Don’t depend on last year’s labels to reach out to her. She’s embraced the power of community in a bigger way than ever imagined. She’s following savvy teens on Twitter, and taking cues from her text-messaging business contacts – discovering new ways and new places to shop. Without being marketed to. Head’s up – here are some places you’ll find many of your female customers. www.janeoutofthebox.com, www.savvyauntie.com and www.askpatty.com.

So put those marketing campaigns away. You can’t get to know your female customer by marketing to her “demographic.” You need to get pixel2pixel with her. And then, find a way to get face2face – with information that’s worthy of her time.

p.s. face2face does not necessarily mean…what it used to. Stay tuned.

The lie is this: Interactive marketing to women is part of the “new” social media focus.

The operative word in that sentence is “new.”

The truth is: Yes, interactive marketing is part of the “new” social media focus, and yes, as Martha Barletta and Michele Miller and Mary Schmidt will tell you, women dominate all things social, but interactive marketing as a tool to reach women is not new. It’s been around a long time and you should be exploring all of the interactive options available, if you really want to reach women.

I recently returned from a two-day seminar on marketing to women where we learned a bit about women’s brain chemistry and how women are designed to be interactive, from birth. Women, we learned, really are better at multi-tasking, because we use both sides of the brain at the same time. Women aren’t really more talkative than men, but we use more words when we do talk, hence, we’re seen as more talkative. When you see us, heads bent in chatter, as we move across a club or restaurant on our way to the ladies’ room, it’s not because we get lonely. It’s because we like each other’s company. We like being interactive.

That’s why we’re the dominant sex participating in social media, today, and why your interactive marketing should include social media. However, that does not mean you should forsake all other interactive marketing opportunities. It does mean that you need to create interactive campaigns that work – online and off. This requires finding out where the women you need to reach hang out. Once you know that, the next step is to get out and meet them there!

I’m betting you can find a majority of your women customers online at Facebook, or Twitter, or on their own or someone else’s blog. But, I will bet my shoe allowance that they also hang out at … the local Starbucks, at the food court of the mall, or on their best friend’s deck (this being spring, and all). Women hanging out together, talking (about you) is nothing new!

Companies with real insight recognize the power in learning how women act when they’re together. They understand the value of combining different methods of reaching women, using our innate desire to hang out together.

For instance, Method products, which offers cleaning products to detoxify your home wanted to get attention from Moms, those super-hero gals of kitchen and bath, but they were so new to the world of “green” that their limited budget did not include TV (still a viable marketing tool, folks), nor did it include the cash needed for a major direct marketing campaign.

Their answer was to reach out to Mommy bloggers in a blogger out reach campaign. But wait; even after a successful campaign engaging Mommy bloggers to test their “green” products and blog about them, they recognized opportunity to do more. Method created offline meet-ups. In Chicago, Minneapolis, and several other cities, they invited the Mommy bloggers to meet each other face-to-face, and to bring friends – to exchange toxic cleaning products for more earth-friendly Method cleaning products.

Success? You bet! There isn’t a Mom alive who would turn down an invitation to meet their online Mom-buddies, offline. Whenever you can get the social media thing – the blog thing, the Facebook thing, the MySpace thing – to spill over into the real world, you have happy women. You can read more about Method here.

In the end, the truth about interactive marketing to women isn’t that we like hanging out together. It isn’t that we’re multi-tasking queen bees and that we’re so social we dominate the net. It’s this: women can’t do anything without being interactive. Even if that means being interactive with the dog (yes, we talk to our dogs as if they were human); being interactive with our plants (yes, we talk to our plants as if they were human); being interactive with the laundry (no, we don’t talk to the laundry, but we know it likes being folded just so).

If you can’t create a good interactive marketing campaign that engages your female audience – you aren’t trying very hard. Get to us where we live (some of us live online), create a good reason for us to go to your store or your website where you’re introducing product or your new toy and make sure there’s something special there for us when we get there. Something we can share. When you do this, you will uncover ambassadors – those women willing to chat you up to family and friends just because she likes you.

Once you understand that women are interactive by nature, you should be able to engage your women customers by meeting them on their terms. The old adage, “telegraph, telephone … tell a woman,” still works. Try it.

Let’s talk about that – about all the ways women use the Internet and why capitalizing on the blogging movement should be part of any company’s interactive marketing push.

I just returned from Blogher Business in NYC, and it was exceptional this year. For those not in the know, Blogher is one of the largest women’s blogging community sites online. They boast over 1,500 women bloggers writing on any and all topics. This year’s business conference was their second, for women who blog for business. It was attended by bloggers and non-bloggers, and agencies wanting to learn more about blogging. In July, they will host their fourth women’s blogging conference, in San Francisco. You can learn all about it on their Web site: www.blogher.com.

Blogher Business is a great place to learn about women and the net, and how we’re using it. For instance, the final panel of the conference, moderated by Blogher’s own Elisa Camahort, was, “You Can’t Manufacture Buzz, or Can You?” and featured three “famous” women bloggers who spoke to the buzz issue. If generating buzz isn’t part of your interactive marketing, you’re missing a great way to connect with women.

Melissa Anelli from the Harry Potter fan site, The Leaky Caldron talked about how hard it was to convince major media that her site was worth paying attention to. No overnight “buzz” for her – just great content that finally hit the mark. Her message: write good content and the world will find you. Today, they are one of the top fan sites online, with great content, great design and a great readership. So great that they often scoop major media.

Kathryn Finney, a blogger from the early days of blogging, shared her experiences writing about budget fashion at The Budget Fashionista. She admitted that her original purpose was to stay connected to family and friends. Writing about budget fashions was just her way of sharing. Today, the site commands major media attention and Finney is in the middle of writing her first book. To her, the buzz came gradually, without expectation, because… you guessed it, of the great content. Content, she mentioned more than once, that paid attention to feedback from readers. “We give the readers what they want,” she said.

The third panelist was Kerry Miller, she of the Passive Aggressive Notes blog, which some people find funny, and others… don’t. Kerry was pretty mild and soft spoken for someone who writes a blog that causes such a stir. She works for a major media company during the day, covering small businesses and start-ups, so one wonders how she finds time to contribute to her blog, but she does. And, again, when it comes to success, she spells it the same way Kathryn and Melissa do: content, content, content… in response to reader comments and feedback.

What these three women have accomplished is nothing short of phenomenal, except that… they were just doing what women do. They were talking (online, in a blog) to peers, who talked back. They did not set out to become famous, nor did they think their writing would command the attention of millions, but that’s exactly what happened. And it happened because they understand the “interactive” part of marketing. Each one of them openly shared insight into how and why she started writing her blog, and admitted that the goal, from the beginning, was to engage readers. It was never about THEM. It was always about us, their readers. And it still is.

What is your interactive marketing about? When you’re out there courting the women’s market, how interactive are you, really? Let’s test your knowledge of how to communicate with women, via the blogosphere. Here’s a little quiz…taken from a study conducted by Blogher and Compass Partners… no fair cheating…don’t check your answers to the actual study until AFTER you take the quiz…

1. How many women in the U.S. actively participate in the blogosphere every week?
15 million — 20 million — over 30 million?

2. True or False: Over 50% of women who blog would give up alcohol before they would stop blogging.

3. What percentage of women who blog, are writing in their original blog still, today? 25% — more than 50% — almost 80%?

4. What percentage of women is watching less TV, because they are blogging? 24% — more than 50% — almost 80%

5. True of False: Women who blog read fewer newspapers.

6. What percentage of women says the blogs they read influence their purchase decisions? 15% — 50% — almost 80%

7. What percentage of women says they consider blogs a reliable source of advice and information? 15% — more than 50% — almost 80%

8. How many millions of women actually publish a blog post, at least once a week? 15 million — more than 20 million  — more than 30 million

9. What’s the favorite topic women bloggers write about? Food – Travel –  Their Family?

10. True or False? Relationship building is a major result of women’s blogging efforts.

In the world of interactive marketing to women, if you got an eight out of 10 correct, you’re a rock star. A seven out of 10 makes you a budding rock star. A six out of 10 makes you a wishful rock star. Anything less than six makes you a groupie. Find a rock star and study. In today’s world of interactive marketing, your inner circle should be online, blogging. See you there!

answers:      1) over 30 mill   2) true   3) more than 50%   4) 24%   5) true
6) 50%   7) more than 50%   15 million 9) Family   10) True

Learned quotes Kelly Mooney, president and “chief experience officer” of Resource Interactive. That’s a new twist in our corporate experience – the creation of the chief experience officer – and it’s a title that you’ll see more and more, in the coming Web 2.0 world. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s a shift that’s primarily driven by women because we require the “experience” to build the relationship. Learned shared these results from a gender study, demonstrating the differences in how women shop online, compared to how men shop online:

•    Women feel empowered. Men feel powerful.
•    Men’s inner shopper is awkward. Women’s inner shopper is enriched.
•    Men are enticed by product, then lifestyle. Women are enticed by lifestyle, then product.
•    Women scan. Men dig.
•    Women expand the mission. Men stick to the mission.

Here’s What It Means for Online Marketing:

Web 2.0 gives women the power to be themselves. Previously, when a woman had a question about a product or service, she would often disguise her gender, afraid of being talked down to. Today, she’s not afraid to ask questions. She knows there are millions of other women out there listening, and, they’ll give her honest replies. Those who want to market to women online should be tapping into that fresh confidence.

Web 2.0 has helped enrich women’s lives by connecting us with other women all over the world. Our collective voices are now heard above the general din. Lifestyle is part of the experience, and the reason places like Home Depot’s Do-it-Herself workshops exist. Their foray last year into telling true stories of women using DIY home-improvement methods, speaks volumes.
Speaking of lifestyle, that’s always been a given – women create life everywhere they go, embracing styles according to people and place. Being online offers new ways to vary that using color, product description and 3-D images — and by understanding that women don’t buy “it”, they buy what “it” represents: the coffee will keep me alert through a busy day; the shoes will match my bag, make my legs look longer, but not pinch my toes!

So, to make online shopping more of an experience – remember, women are all about the experience – today’s consumer will click into her BBFF’s blog (best blog friends forever) and see what’s up there. Fashion bloggers, pet bloggers, comic bloggers, shoe bloggers, all have a place in some woman’s heart, and she is going to see what they are saying, on a daily basis

Author Paco Underhill showed how this works in his book Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. His research revealed that women shopping in a housewares chain spent more time shopping when accompanied by a “female companion” than women with children, women alone, or women with a man. It’s the togetherness mentality. It’s why women go to restrooms together, it’s why women create coffee klatches, it’s why women are the church do-gooders; we like being with other women. Give us a place to experience that togetherness and sharing on your Web site, a place to talk, to you and each other, and you’ll be a favorite URL in no time.

About That Target Thing …

Entrepreneur magazine defines “target market” as “the group of customers your product is aimed at.” Aimed at? What kind of talk is that? Women have baby food, tears, toys, and all manner of unpleasant things aimed at us on a daily basis. We prefer not to have your marketing message “aimed” at us. Once and for all, we are not targets.

News flash: our foreheads (or whatever body part you’re choosing to “target”) are not tattooed with big red circles. When we hear the word “target,” it creates an image of war; of battle swords drawn, faces scowling in anger or fear. Is that how you want us to perceive you?

This is a prime area women I’ve talked to online and off, complain about – the idea that marketers continue to engage them using language from a previous century, full of jargon depicting a conflict that must be resolved with aggression. Women, for the most part, are not aggressive. Women are into collaboration. We’re into talking it out. We’re into using brains not brawn. When marketers slap that “target” label on us, we cringe, and wait for the arrow. To date, that arrow has missed its mark; especially online. Without understanding how and why women are online, it’s impossible to “target” them for sales.

Just Be More …

Why not just be more approachable; more accessible; more responsive? (Perhaps you’ve heard that before? That’s because we seek the same things in our online experiences that we often seek in our personal lives). Know that we go online not just to shop, but to relate, to connect, and to save time. There is convenience in shopping online – no crowds to fight, no parking space to lose, no bad weather to endure, no children to chase, and best of all, no bags to lug home. Click, click, click … we come, we see, we conquer, and then we’re off to Twitter our purchase to the world. If you’re shopping cart is that easy, you’re on the right path.

Never forget that there is an element of fun in shopping online – knowing we can click in and out of a dozen sites, window shop to our heart’s content, and fill our shopping cart to overflowing, then, move on to something else without actually buying. If you’re using Web 2.0, that won’t be a problem; you’ll save our “wish list” and offer us a deal when we come back to visit, later on. As Learned noted, shopping is a mission to the fairer sex. And we’re better than ever at it in today’s Web 2.0 world.

As it has been for eons, women are at the cornerstone of all that is interactive. If you’re not engaging us in conversation, we’re not hanging around, because it’s not about you, it’s about us. Perhaps the most important message of all is that our daughters are watching and learning. And, it really is ALL about them.

Isn’t it?

The interactive world of Web 2.0 has given women freedom; freedom to be whatever they choose to be. And they choose to be who they are, openly and honestly. With the millions of Mommy bloggers chattering away online daily, often several times a day, and with the rise of the women’s blogging organizations such as Blogher.org, coupled with the realization that more and more women are starting their own businesses across the U.S. (see the Center for Women’s Business Research  ), it’s no wonder the world of Web 2.0 has become a dominant marketing focus for those who would reach women buyers.

We no longer accept nor rely on marketing messages that tell us what to do or think or say. It’s our world now and if you want to play in it, you have to first ask us permission, and second, respect our opinion.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

It appears from the continued creation of marketing to and at women, that too many marketers haven’t received the memo noting that women have come a long way, baby. Marketing online is going through a complete overhaul, thanks to Web 2.0 and consumer generated media. Somehow, though, many advertising professionals continue to cling to what they believe are tried and true methods of connecting to their “target” market – using pink, using language best reserved for second graders, or worse, questioning where the man of the house is. They’re left scratching their heads in confusion when their fancy creative ad misses its “mark.” Oh, but we’ll talk about that whole “target” thing later on.

Here’s the thunk upside the head; yes, today’s women are Moms in much the same way they were in those old Leave It to Beaver days. And as such, they are keepers of all things sparkling and shining. We are also still keepers of the refrigerator, the pantry, the medicine cabinet and the department store.

The disconnect comes when marketers don’t recognize that today’s women are also in charge of the garage, the basement, the driveway, the home office, the sports arena, and even the checkbook . Today’s woman truly fulfills Helen Reddy’s rendition of that old 70s song, “I am woman, hear me roar.” And roar we do, in voices heard the world over – on blogs read by all of our friends and family.

Google offers almost 50 million hits on the phrase “marketing to women online.” Close to fifty-million places a marketer can visit on Google to discover the answer to Freud’s nagging “what do women want” question. Here’s the rub: those hits on the first few pages are blogs, written largely by women. Blogs connected to other blogs, a veritable smorgasbord of women – all connected by the invisible threads of a broadband Internet cable. Why? Because women are tired of men telling them what to buy and how to think. Web 2.0 has amplified our voices and the din we’re causing is louder than a power drill. 

Yes, it’s all still in its infancy. Women adopted the blogosphere a little late. Men were blogging in bigger numbers, back in 2002. Back then women were content with our forums and online chat groups and email. We didn’t see the need for upfront, real-time communication. Wasn’t that what the phone was for? Yet, when women bloggers such as author Michele Miller, whose audiobook reveals that women are hard-wired for communication, started blogging, the rest of us took notice in a big way. Miller was a female voice talking about all the “stuff” we women are interested in, and she wasn’t using sports references or war jargon – target, indeed!

Miller talks the marketing to women talk on her blog, WonderBranding, with a clear focus on what’s important today, not on the ancient history of the pre-social media world. She’s big on discussing women’s proclivity for trying new things, for building community, and for delving into the traditional man’s world of sports and video games – and even home repair. In October of 2007, Miller was interviewed on CNBC, discussing Home Depot’s new National Do-it-Herself Workshops

“Women are responsible for or at least influence $.83 of every dollar spent in the U.S.,” Miller noted in the CNBC interview.

Old news, to be sure, and a quick visit to Home Depot’s website, following the link to their Home Depot’s Do-it-Herself Workshops, reveals that they may be approaching women home-remodelers with inviting content, but they’re not engaging in Web 2.0. The conversation is totally one-sided. Which leaves me wondering, “What are they thinking?”  Recognizing that women are interested in tools and remodeling these days, is only half the battle. The other half is engaging them in conversation, the real give and take that a blog or blog-like platform offers. Hello, paging Home Depot.

Today, women the country over are involved in the health of Mother Earth. That leads us to Toby Bloomberg, another woman blogger who talks marketing. In a recent post on her blog she asks, “Can Women Change the World through Social Media?” citing these stats from The Women’s Congress website:

FACT: Women influence 95% and make 85% of all consumer buying decisions.*

FACT: By the year 2010, women will control 60% of wealth in the U.S.*

FACT: Women-owned firms are growing at nearly twice the rate as firms as a whole.*

FACT: America’s 9.1 million woman-owned businesses employ 27.5 million people and contribute $3.6 trillion to the economy. **

FACT: Female entrepreneurs account for 70% of new business start-ups.*

FACT: Women comprise 46% of purchasing managers and 58% of wholesale and retail buyers.***

*Center for Women’s Business Research

**U.S. Small Business Administration

***U.S. Department of Labor

This, then, is the answer to that nagging, long, lamented “what do women want” question: visiting women bloggers and engaging with the women who visit your website. Web 2.0 has delivered on its promise by giving women the freedom to talk – openly and without worry. It goes to the concept of wanting “more”: more reality, more connections, more recognition; more respect.