Maybe we really are from two different planets after all …

It is impossible to “do” marketing without first considering gender. No matter how we try to equalize the sexes, there are distinct differences in how men and women make a decision to purchase. And the Internet is proving to be fertile ground (sorry, couldn’t resist) for some fascinating gender research. My friend Randy Cullom, a popular Moderator at the infamous High Rankings Forum and esteemed Internet marketer in his own right, has summarized his own findings quite brilliantly in a recent thread at the HR Forum. And, quite generously, he let me turn his posts into an article for my newsletter. Thanks Randy!

Check out Randy’s hard won research and tell me what you think. Are men and women as fundamentally different as their online behaviors suggest? It sure seems like it …

Men, Women and the Web: Ne’er the Twains Shall Meet?
Randy Cullom http://www.randycullom.com

June 2007

In both my own testing and research over the years, I’ve discovered one inescapable consistency: men and women behave and respond in very different ways when shopping online. From copywriting to design to color to images to the placement of those images and more, every detail of your website can literally make or break conversion rates—which is why my mantra is “Test, test, test. And when you’re sick of testing, test some more.”

I know what you’re thinking: what if I market to both men and women? Yes, you can construct a site to have high appeal to both men and women. Even men and women in slightly varied age ranges. We’re wired differently, but there are ways to satisfy both market segments. Interestingly, most of the response to these factors happens at the subconscious level. People don’t even realize what’s happening or why they choose one site over another.

So here are some quick hits regarding gender differences on the web.

When your target market is women:

• Women tend to be extremely visually oriented. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should just use pictures, but you need to use the right type of pictures. The fastest way to convince a woman to do whatever it is you want her to do on your site is to show a picture of another woman she can identify with doing exactly what you want her to do. Or show a picture of a woman who has gained the benefits you promise by taking you up on your offer.
• Women generally respond to a more informal tone in the copy. Think of it like two people chatting.
• Women rely heavily on their own past experience when considering whether to make a purchase or not. If they’ve had a favorable experience with you or something similar to what you’re selling, the level of fear and anxiety is greatly reduced. Thus the conversion rates soar.
• Benefit selling is especially important if your target market is women. Potential female buyers give priority to explanations that help them to avoid present or future problems (which is what benefit selling is all about when performed correctly).
• If a female prospect has little or no personal experience to rely upon, she will place significant weight on the experiences of others. Testimonials can thus be quite important.
• Despite #4, women avoid completely relying on testimonial to make their final decision. They will absorb the information and use it, but they will not believe it blindly like many men will. They know and accept that testimonials can be a self-fulfilling tool for the advertiser.
• Building on #4 and #5, if you can conduct an effective buzz marketing campaign and get it in front of women in your target market, it can be an effective marketing tool. Women tend to be heavily influenced by what can best be described as Gossip Marketing, or what some may simply call Word of Mouth advertising. This sort of consensus tends to carry more weight with women since not all of the opinions can be as easily manipulated.
• Women do not buy solely for the “Now” benefits. They are more calculating in their purchases, typically needing an answer to the question of how your product or service is going to help them 3 weeks or 8 months down the road. Women just don’t make immediate gratification purchases like so many men do. This is one of the reasons why you may see more women than men making repeat visits to a site prior to a purchase.
• Women tend to respond better to warmer colors including pastels; this applies both to images and text colors. I’ve also found that response rates increase if you use font colors to emphasize certain words or phrases in your call to action. A female oriented site typically also has more rounded corners and a free flowing feel.

When your target market is men:

• Men live in the moment and are therefore more susceptible to making an instant purchase or to accepting without question those seemingly obvious marketing shams that ask you to “Act Now” in order to get whatever deal.
• Men tend to base much of their decision on positive influences, often devaluing negative influences. This means that if someone else has had problems with the product or service, men will often ignore the negative and put more weight on the positive. For example, “Jim, Joe and Ed bought it and it didn’t work out for them, but I know I can make it work.”
• Even if a man has had a previous bad experience (as long as it wasn’t with you) he won’t automatically close the door the way most women would. Men are fixers and gamblers by nature, so they’re willing to take a shot that they can fix anything.
  4. Men can be heavily affected by descriptions or images of problems being solved by what you have to offer. Often this alone will subconsciously persuade them to make the purchase.
• Unlike women, men do not factor so called near term benefits (a few weeks) or even long term benefits (months) into their buying decision. They want something to fix a problem they have right now. (Have you ever seen a man run to the store to get a tool or part for something he’s working on, only to go back to the store an hour later to get another tool or part that he needed to complete the task?)
• Men will not purchase if they feel threatened in any way. Even if everything else falls into place, if they feel an abnormal amount of anxiety, they will not buy.
• Men respond to leaders, especially to depictions of male leadership. Whether that be an image of a male boss talking to his staff or words on the page that make him a leader, it doesn’t matter—though online the image is obviously processed faster and on a more subconscious level. An important point: if you’re using copy to depict this concept of leadership, be careful not to be too preachy. It’s easy to go overboard, and so it’s best to get the point across in a subtle manner.
• Men prefer stark or dominant colors, sharper corners with more straight lines and blocks in the overall page design. And this is pretty much what you’ll see on 80 to 90% of the sites out there—for some reason it just seems that more websites are designed with a male orientation these days.
• Men seem to respond better to a more structured, technical tone in the copy. Not all that chatty, just short bursts of information.

Now for the disclaimers …

The above very general information is derived from my own testing on my own sites, so I can’t claim to be basing my recommendations on acceptable sample sizes if you want to get all statistical about it. However, I do use my test results as a starting point once I’ve figured out who my target market really is. And by gosh, my tests match up pretty well with the things I’ve read from others involved in similar study.

I can also tell you that 90% of the site redesigns I’ve done over the past couple of years were because—being a male—my original designs tended to be more male oriented. It just happens. So most of my redesigns have revolved around making them more appealing to potential female customers. Thank goodness I have a couple of female web designer friends who can put their touches on my general concepts, helping me to clean up my mistakes.

There is absolutely, positively no substitute for testing. None. Never has been, never will be. So you’ll need to test any theories for your own site and your own market.

When I’m doing gender marketing tests I’m most often making use of CSS capabilities to conduct what most would call radical redesign experiments. A page layout site wide, or the layout of each page, is being completely swapped out for another. The text and navigation tend to stay the same, but in my radical redesign tests one site version almost never resembles the other aesthetically.

Examples of Gender Specific Websites

Female oriented websites:

• Jessica McClintock - jessicamcclintock.com
• Ann Taylor - anntaylor.com
• Liz Claiborne - lizclaiborne.com
• Nordstrom - nordstrom.com
• Jones Apparel - jny.com

Try to ignore the pictures, though they are certainly an important element. Instead, notice the use of different colors and lots of pastels, and how even when they’re in a straight line or block pattern, they soften the harsh edges. Also notice the use of different color text in set off sections of some of the pages as well as the colors of the dominant text itself in some cases.

Many of the female oriented sites out there (the biggies especially) make pretty good use of images of women or women’s products, good use of varied colors, good use of a warmer color palette in both images and text, and even do a decent job where ease of navigation and speaking in an informal language are concerned. But by the same token. most of these big retailers don’t do a very good job of creating a free flowing design or one that has rounded corners instead of straight lines and blocks which can be important factors.

Contrast the above with the current majority of websites, or take a gander at these male oriented designs:

• Exxon/Mobil - exxonmobil.com
• Ford Motor Company - ford.com
• Citi - citigroup.com
• IBM - ibm.com
• General Motors - gm.com

Notice the significantly greater use of straight lines and blocks, the starker lines in the overall designs, and the absence of softer colors.

Which designs would attract you more easily?

While somewhat generalized, these gender trends in web usage demonstrate how imperative it is to know if your target market is skewed more to men or women. Then you can more effectively create design and content that caters to your “natural” market(s). By doing this one thing, you will see your conversion rates increase dramatically. If you assume men and women behave in essentially the same manner online, you will almost certainly be leaving money on the table.

Karri Flatla is a business graduate of the University of Lethbridge and principal of snap! virtual associates inc., a consulting firm providing Internet marketing services to the progressive entrepreneur. Karri also produces Outsmart, the newsletter for small business with big purpose. Visit http://www.snap-va.com/newsletter to subscribe and get your free Copywriting & Usability Checklist now .

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