Was 50/50 on writing this one but then I got this in response to my 3 ways to sell to men post. “Short question…So, how about if I want to sell to women instead?” So I figured what the hell.
The first thing you must realize is men and women are different. No matter how many Feminist Dance Theory graduates tell you otherwise. A 1998 study by Frederickson et al. (University of Michigan) called, “That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance” observed the following:
Randomly assigned college women and men to wear either a bulky sweater or a swimsuit. The men wore swim trunks, the women wore one-piece bathing suits. Each volunteer was seated in a small room: no windows, no observers. Each volunteer was then asked to take a math quiz. Fredrickson and her team then compared how women wearing swimsuits performed on the quiz compared with women who were wearing bulky sweaters, and likewise for the men.
What happened? The men who were wearing swim trunks did slightly better than the men who were wearing bulky sweaters. The women who were wearing swimsuits did much worse than the women who were wearing bulky sweaters: they got only about half as many questions right as the women who were wearing sweaters. And remember, the women in this study were in a closed room with no windows and no observers.
And we can go into all sorts of evolutionary psych reasons why this is so. But you don’t need to know the science behind the phenomena, the why. You just need to know they exist. If you want to sell to women your product and copy must do two things:
- It must save her from her boredom
- It must relieve her anxiety
“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.” – Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
In her youth, a woman wants excitement. To be saved from her boredom. So she dates the bad boys. As she gets older, her anxiety over starting a family and securing long-term stability for herself and her offspring kicks in, and outweighs her desire for excitement. So she marries the nice guys. Alpha bux, beta bux. Boredom and anxiety.
That’s enough for you to apply them in your marketing with this one important caveat: You must only use these techniques for GOOD.
If you’re one of the good guys and if you’ve got something worth selling… and if you need someone to help you sell it… I’m your guy. Let me know in the comments.