Learning consumer behavior is of prime importance for everyone working in eCommerce. The ways men and women react to the same offerings are different. Multiple factors also influence male and female purchasing behaviors. While men tend to make quicker shopping decisions, women need more time to think through everything, compare several offerings and only after that, make their choice. So, what are the key factors that we need to take into account when building a gender-based online marketing strategy? What approach would be better applied to men rather than women and vice versa? Let’s dig deeper into the investigation of this and some other questions.
Generally speaking, women take care of purchasing the various items required for the household. If a product that they have located doesn’t raise any queries, and a lady feels confident (and in most cases she DOES) about making a positive purchasing decision, then she will not hesitate to add that item to the shopping cart and place an order.
When it comes to men, they are more logic-oriented. If women can do shopping just for fun, for men this is a serious mission. They look for a particular set of products that they have listed in their minds or on a sheet of paper. Men are less likely to make impulse purchases. They are also more impressed with such utilitarian aspects as a detailed product description, its certifications, and warranties.
It would not be wrong to say that men shop smarter than women. They may spend less time on a site, but once they come across the right product, they acquire it and simply leave. Women are more likely to be distracted by brands that know how to connect with customers on a more personal level. As a result, they will spend more time on a site, add more items to the shopping cart, which will lead to a more expensive bill. For a lady, shopping resembles an interactive journey that is more often than not driven by emotions. As a result, ladies tend to make more impulse buying decisions.
Things for Marketers to Emphasize Based on Gender
We guess it’s evident that fashion and beauty shops are more female-oriented, whereas eCommerce sites selling tools, games and spare parts have a broader male audience. We will not dig deeper into the question of how you can better understand your audience and discover which particular group of people visits it more often than another. There are some cool online tools suited for the purpose. For example, you can opt for Google Analytics to get detailed stats on the customers’ behavior, location, gender, age, preferences and other factors. What we would like to focus your attention on are the factors that online marketers need to take into account when targeting different genders.
Thus, if your brand is more male-oriented, then you should know that:
- Men hate coming across metaphors and scanning through chatty phrases. Instead, they are more likely to enjoy obvious cues and a clear writing style.
- When browsing eCommerce sites, men seek automation in every detail.
- They will also enjoy humor and provocation in your texts.
- Sites selling products and services for men should put emphasis on beauty and youth. These may be models demonstrating your offerings, for example.
Speaking about the key factors that online marketers should remember when building sites for women, we would like to highlight the following (as opposed to the ones as mentioned above):
- Ladies hate insults.
- While looking through offerings listed on an eCommerce page, they appreciate personalization.
- Their attention is more likely to be captured by tiny product details, images, colors, and elegant fonts. Soft music in the background will only enhance their shopping experience.
- eCommerce sites for ladies should focus on ambition and physical strength. These may be male models demonstrating your offerings, for example.
Customer Assistance
Have you ever thought about gender-based behavior when providing online assistance to your clients? One of the biggest mistakes that we make is treating the audience as unisex.
However, if you pay attention to the types of questions that men and women ask you in a chat room or by the phone, and pay attention to their style of communication, you will notice a tremendous difference.
More often than not, ladies need more detailed explanations concerning the items in which they are interested. Before they make the final decision, women need to know more details about the material, design, touch and feel or whatever of a product they would like to acquire. Men, for their part, rarely ask for assistance. In those cases when they ask for help, they sound more concise and precise. As a rule, such questions will deal with the features of the offered products as well as the place from where they can be obtained. So, the approaches to providing online customer assistance should also vary. Moreover, when comparing the attitude of both genders with the way they place an order, women are more likely to enjoy being guided by a customer care representative throughout the entire process - from finding the right product to purchasing it. Men prefer speed. So, the simpler and more intuitively a checkout page is built the better.
Shopping on-the-go
It will hardly surprise you if we tell you that more and more often customers are shifting to handheld devices when they need to acquire something. For some time, smartphones were not that popular among women when it came to online shopping. Ladies were more inclined to order products from desktop PCs.Men are more tech-savvy, so it’s quite logical that they started using smartphones for making online purchases earlier than women. However, as time passed by, the technological progress didn’t stand still. Now, there is almost no difference in the number of male and female mobile shoppers. The stats are almost the same. So, whatever business you run, make sure that your site can be browsed flawlessly from handheld devices.
More Useful Stats
Customer behavior is constantly changing. With new innovative approaches to presenting content on the web, online marketers need to be aware of the way their target audience will react to their data. Here are some of the most useful stats that you need to learn more gender-based online marketing.
- Both men and women use smartphones for making purchases online. Males are more likely to use Android phones (34%) than females (27%). As for the usage of iOS devices, both genders use them equally (35% on the average).
- Smartphone apps are more popular among female customers than male. This explains why an average of 46% of US women make purchases via mobile software, whereas only 34% of men use smartphone software to buy something.
- Women are also more active on social media than men. Thus, judging by the use of Snapchat, ladies are 20% more engaged than men.
- Facebook has become one of the most popular places for women to discover video content that leads to completing an order. An average of 83% of US female customers discover videos on Facebook, which is 30% higher than on a traditional site (54%).
- Email marketing is an indispensable part of any online business strategy. In the US, ladies are more likely to open an email that is marked as "sale" (84% of females vs. 78% of males).
- The male audience is more engaged with emails that deliver information about new products (45% of men vs. 33% of women will open such emails).
- Emails that recommend products based on previous buying decisions are more popular with men than women (83% vs. 73%).
- As for the personalized approach to writing emails, this also appeals to males better than females. 71% of male shoppers are more engaged with personalized email correspondence in the subject line, as opposed to 66% of women.
Final Thoughts
No matter whether you target a male or female audience you need to remember that every customer is unique and requires a personal approach to solving their issues and answering their questions. When they reach you, do not talk like a robot. Listen to each client and hear exactly what worries him or her. By showing how much you care about their problems you will look more credible in the eyes of both male and female users, which will enhance your reputation as a brand on which they can rely.
Instead of focusing your online marketing strategy solely on products (though they are still of significant importance) bring the focus of attention to the person to whom you want to sell those solutions. By knowing your audience and understanding the behavior of customers of both genders, you will be able to build an online strategy that will be targeted towards both conversion and loyalty. Thus, you will establish long-lasting relationships with your clients and increase your income in one stroke.
