While local consumer electronic retailers grapple with structural change, a Spanish retailing Armada came 10,000 miles and showed us how to make Sydney women, amongst the most powerful shoppers in the world, queue for hours and take days off work to spend their money in the newest phenomenon, Zara.

Of course you may say, well that’s fashion and we sell electronics. True, but selling is selling: putting money in you’re till every day, every week, every year. And, as I wrote in my last blog the world’s leading CE retailer Best Buy is now using fashion as a theme to attract the female shopper!

At connectingtowomen we understand how difficult it is for retailers to make these changes. But we also understand that behind Zara is following one of the biggest threats to the Australian CE industry: Masters.

And they are not coming here because the retail landscape is tough, or because they expect to fail, they are coming here to take the dollars out of your tills. And they bring the magic ingredient that seems to be lacking in our local models, how to connect to women.

So, what can you do today to put some of the magic into your business before Masters arrives? Maybe you only need to take one step to begin the change.

Let’s look at it.

1.      A good beginning would be to understand the women’s economy which is bigger than the economies of China and India combined. Ask what does this meansfor me?(Start with this research ‘Women Want More’ from another global leader The Boston Consulting Group).

2.      Visit the Zara store and observe state of the art retailing to women. Ask yourself, “would any of this apply to my business?”

3.      Jump onto to Twitter and Facebook and read the female posts about Zara. For example what make this tweeter praise this business: caffeineinduced Angela “Zara is still insanely chaotic. I broke my spending ban with a Benefit primer. I’m soaked. Good times.”

Is it all in a name? Let me know what you think?

Marketers who are investing big dollars into celebrity endorsements may want to think again after a study released this week shows that women are more motivated to make a purchase by a blogger they trust (20%) than a celebrity (13%) and 47% of blog readers use these outlets for new trends and ideas.

The BlogHer‘s 2011 Social Media Matters Study (co-sponsored by Ketchum) was conducted in March 2011 and used two groups of respondents: a general population of 1,771 US adults and 2,861 respondents from the BlogHer network. The respondents were a mix of men and women with the number of women far outweighing the men.

The results of the study were released at the MarketingToWomen Conference in Chicago this week by BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort Page.  I trekked over to Chicago to find out the latest scoop on marketing to women and found myself in the middle of  a group of several hundred US marketing executives and businesswomen from Europe and Latin America.

A vibrant Camahort Page joined a list of leading US men and women who presented their insights into the growing muscle  of the already powerful female consumer.

As 80% of women make all household purchases including more than 60% of consumer electronics, companies looking to capitalise on this strength would be wise to take a closer look at the efficacy of the female blogger. Particularly as, the BlogHer study revealed, women are embracing mobile platforms with a passion.

New digital platforms, such as online and mobile technology, are making more people into early adopters, according to the study. A good example of this trend, is that, after only two years, sites like LivingSocial and Groupon are being used by 51% of women.

Meanwhile,  22% of women are using mobile gaming, and after a couple of years, 16% of adults online are using Foursquare and Gowalla, a milestone that took Twitter twice as long to reach.

Camahort Page stressed that while traditional statistical measurement  goes some of the way to describe the phenonomen, it is the “passion” behind the mobile technology use which is most relevant.

According to BlogHer, women are leading men in the use of social media tools and they are continually looking to them for trusted advice. The study revealed that  88% of women trust blogs and that 80% of the BlogHer population will make a purchase based on a blog recommendation.

“The blogger is both a media person and your customer, so she speaks with a true authencity,” Camahort Page said.
“The experience we see from the communities that are formed on our site, is that an issue isn’t proscribed as it may by traditional media, it just seems to bubble up from the genuine concerns of the women. They are then taking to it passionately and using their mobile devices as a preferred communication tool.”

“Marketers needs to start asking themselves: ‘How am I going to be with my female customer wherever she is?” she added.

Every year, hundreds of senior executives from the US gather  to hear the secrets about how they can significantly increase their revenue and lift profits.

Companies such as Mastercard Worldwide, Phillips Consumer Lifestyles, Best Buy, Procter and Gamble and the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, come to the Marketing to Women (M2W) conference because they know that reaching the female consumer in all her guises is the most important objective they can have for their future marketing strategies. This year I will be joining them in Chicago.

Also heading the list some of the newer females centric companies such as BlogHer Mom Central Consulting and Women on Course who have created business specifically to capitalise on the astounding growth in the ‘power of the purse’.

If you’re thinking that this is going to be a female focused gabfest where men are sidelined…think again. The opening keynote speaker on Wednesday, April 12 is Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow writes powerfully about the lessons of our lives. In his bestselling non-fiction book, The Girls from Ames, he looked at the 40-year friendship of a group of women from Ames, Iowa. Their story has led countless women to think deeply about their own friendships, their own life goals, and their needs as women.

Zaslow’s multi-media M2W® presentation is expected to delve into the recesses of our cultural psyche, and I hear that the results are surprising, funny and often extremely moving.

 He will also focus on the Ames girls, but will also touch on the lessons for women in his other bestsellers: The Last Lecture with Dr. Pausch, and Highest Duty, with Capt. Sullenberger.

One of the highlights for me will be meeting Marti Baletta founder of The Trendsight Group and author Marketing To Women and PrimeTime Women.

Barletta maintains that successful sales professionals know that women are the big spenders in just about every category, from cars and computers, to consumer electronics.

Yet because male and female communication styles and decision-making are surprisingly different, they may be missing major opportunities to close the deal with women customers. Her presentation will provide valuable information, new insights and practical applications including:

• Recognize and respond to the way that women communicate what they are looking for
• Describe your product’s advantages and influence women’s decision to buy
• Tap into women’s inclinations to buy more products and refer more business

If you are still fence sitting about the power of the women’s economy, stay focused.

As more and more women size up companies on the basis of their overall corporate governance and particularly on their gender intelligent quotient, Premier Investments decision to appoint Mark McInnes as CEO has reignited female anger at his behaviour at David Jones. And they are talking about it across their powerful social media platforms and face-to-face in their professional and community networks.

Retailers who may think the concern that Australian women felt about McInnes behaviour was transitory, will see a very different story when they read the comments posted onto the sphinxx website. sphinxx is a social enterprise committed to achieving gender balance and seeing women equally represented in leadership roles, in business and communities. 

 The response to Dalitz’ blog last week was strong “DJ’s ex-CEO is back in the retail CEO chair – with a salary of $5.2m – what’s your thoughts on that?” She notes that McInnes career revival is due to an all male board which, in the eyes of the women whom they would like to buy their products, seems to rate financial performance over values.

Dalitz also queries whether any focus groups were held with The Just Group’s mostly-female customer base about the McInnes decision, if not it is a decision they may come to regret.

No-one would deny Mark McInnes’ right to rebuild his career, however his behaviour was so serious to warrant his resignation and resulted his public humiliation and that of David Jones.

Anyone over the age of seven who has tried to change their behaviour knows that this doesn’t occur overnight. There was a track record to McInnes actions and it is not unreasonable to assume that some of it may have been triggered by the pressure cooker environment of senior management.

To place himself back into this environment without the necessary recovery period is treading on dangerous grounds and many businesswomen who are also mothers of boys understand that they need care and attention and continual discipline. Will McInnes receive this at Premier Investments?

Dalitz points out that the all male board may not be adequately briefed on these issues and, as a result shareholders may not be getting the best governance.

“We know from Catalyst research that the bottom line performance of companies is higher when there are more women on the boards – up to 35% higher in fact.  This is partly because when there is more diversity on the board composition there is likely to be different perspectives, greater innovation, more questioning and a more balanced approach to governance and risk taking,”  Dalitz adds.