Men or Women: Which Makes a Better Target Market?
Posted by Andy on March 16, 2007
An interesting article was published in the March 12th issue of BusinessWeek entitled “Gender Gap A Tale of Two Inflations.” The article requires you to sign up with BusinessWeek, so here are a few key points if you don’t want to bother:
- The price of goods women buy over the past 18 months has grown 3.6% while goods that men typically buy has only grown 0.2%. This represents a significant gap!
- Single women spend a higher percentage of income than single men do, and women are staying single longer than ever before.
- Women spend more on themselves than men do.
The unknown that would make a huge difference for profitability of a venture is whether or not the costs for production and marketing are rising faster for women than men. My hunch is no, but sometimes just getting one piece of the puzzle can be very misleading.
Taking my common sense approach to finding my idea, I think I’ll focus on women. Besides the data that says they are willing to spend more on themselves, as a man I don’t know much about things that women regularly spend money on. I know they like shoes and bags and jewelry, etc. But to come up with a good idea, validate it, market it and deliver it in a way that resonates with the female population? That basically means I will either need to start studying real hard, which of course takes time, or I’m forced to follow rule #2 and #3.
Current Product Selection Summary:
My thinking is now being directed towards locating a tangible product for women possessing properties that would allow it to be marketed as expensive, luxurious and/or exclusive.
