Mad 4 Blog

Women are responsible for 85% of buying power. In fact, American women spend about seven trillion dollars per year. So if you think you do not need to dedicate time and money to address women in particular with your products and services, then you might as well be throwing money out the window.

Mad 4 Marketing can put those dollars to better use by devising advertising tactics specifically geared toward women. As a woman-owned and women-run marketing agency with an eye on the trends of gendered buying, we believe we know a thing or two about marketing to women. Here are just a few helpful tips:

Market to Women in a Modern World

One commonly made mistake is when companies assume that marketing to women means separating them according to attributes that were outdated about a century ago. Obviously, women are not black-and-white cookie-cutters of one another—and they should never be pandered to as stereotypes. Remember, women aren’t all mothers and housewives. Even though they make purchasing decisions for men and children, they have their own unique standards and don’t want to be addressed as conduits to the men and children in their lives. In fact, treating all women like Susie Homemaker can actually dissuade a female audience from working with your business. Women don’t just want kitchen appliances and pink products and handsome male models. When you market to modern women, you have to keep in mind relevant, recent analytics about what women are responding to in advertising and how they think about their purchasing power. Relying on research rather than creating a caricature of your female audience is essential.

Think About How to Market to Women – Not What

There is no need to market different products to men than to women. Assuming that a woman wants a silver minivan while men want a blue sports car means that you are alienating large segments of the population. Instead, marketing must simply speak in a certain way to its intended audience. The fact is that women communicate differently than men. Within creative, women want to see organization; for example, they are more likely to buy from a website that is easy to use than their male counterparts, who may linger longer on a less-organized site. Women also like strong, appealing visual design and are more affected by aesthetics than men, who may zero in on the product specs. Contrarily, women like to know about value rather than attributes. Most importantly, women want to build a relationship with your brand. Creating an ongoing bond—such as through membership or rewards for return business—may encourage the female buyer.

Since its inception in 1992, Mad 4 Marketing has focused on keeping the female perspective in mind, and we consider ourselves experts in marketing to women. The company devotes ongoing energy and resources to understanding how women think about buying and investing. Contact Mad 4 Marketing to learn how our insight about marketing to women can help your business grow like MAD.

When the economy got slammed, big businesses had to evaluate their budget and seek ways to trim expenses. One of the major ways that companies discovered they could save money was by reducing or eliminating their internal marketing staff and instead outsourcing this work to independent agencies such as Mad 4 Marketing.

Why Companies Choose to Outsource
The main reason that this option eliminates cost is because marketing is not a piecemeal endeavor. For any of the components to work successfully, marketing departments must offer comprehensive services. But when companies sustain a full-time, fully staffed internal marketing department, it can be extremely expensive to maintain. By outsourcing to a self-sustaining agency, business can rely on quality performance right when they need it.

Familiarity is another important perk to employing an outside marketing agency. Some companies choose to collect bids and hire freelancers each time they endeavor a new marketing action. Although you may save money by continuously seeking the cheapest options, specialists won’t have a thorough grasp of your business, brand or boundaries. If you use website developers, you’ll need to start all over again when you’d like to run a radio commercial. If you place an ad in the newspaper, you may need to find an entirely new agency when you want to rent a billboard. This strategy won’t benefit your business.

Eliminate the hassle by connecting with one agency that can provide all of the resources, connections and talent to composite any kind of campaign. Your frequent, return business allows them to understand your company, its history of marketing and all of your ultimate advertising goals. Every time you need anything at all, you can just pick up the phone and connect to a friendly and familiar voice, someone who you already trust to stay right on top of your unique business marketing needs. But your business won’t have to shoulder the ongoing operations and finances of an internal marketing department.

Why Mad 4 Marketing
Mad 4 Marketing is an ideal solution for the ongoing advertising needs of large and small businesses because we believe in and practice a concept called 360º Marketing. This means that we don’t just use isolated mediums to reach your audience. We make it our priority to understand what makes each brand unique and how to best approach its clientele. Then we creatively conceptualize campaigns that will reach out from several touch points to insightfully impact your audience.

We offer print, radio, television and nontraditional marketing (such as guerilla and viral marketing). Our interactive department can put your company online, encourage potential customers to visit your site and track responsiveness once you’re live. By utilizing all of these available outlets, your message fixes in the minds of its recipients.

It’s easy for laypersons to confuse the world of advertising with the world of public relations. Both are geared toward promoting and representing clients for the consumption of the public. And both are tools which a marketing agency like Mad4Marketing employs as part of an all-encompassing approach to selling a person, business or brand. There are, however, some very distinct differences which set dedicated advertising agencies apart from their PR counterparts.

The primary difference is that advertising agencies buy time and space to market their clients, while public relations firms are designed to generate free promotions and publicity. Buying ad space, such as television commercials, radio announcements and newspaper ads (or, in modern marketing, web space and web ads) gives an advertising agency ultimate creative control over the message. This includes where and when the commercial is aired, and how many times it runs. Contrarily, because public relations firms distribute information with the hope of complimentary promotion, it means that they have very little input about how or when their clients will be covered. They have no real control over what final message will be presented by newspapers, television and other commercial affiliates.

Advertising agencies sell their ability to plan, negotiate and strategize to buy established, predetermined media spots, and the client knows exactly what they’ll get going in. Public relations firms sell their ability to reach out to media contacts and supply the right angle to garner attention and enhance their client’s reputation. In short, while PR firms can get you on TV, advertising agencies can put you on TV. The downside for advertising agencies is that consumers are largely aware of overt ads, and paradoxically, therefore find them easier to ignore on television, on the radio and on the Internet. On the other hand, free publicity without an angle or call to action may be perceived as open, unbiased information or human interest, which may be received with a more open mind.

Both advertising agents and public relations representatives must have a keen knowledge of marketing. Advertisers work with media sellers and business strategists to develop targeted approaches for marketing a specific message. This involves comprehensive research to discover the most appropriate way to entice an audience in addition to brainstorming on how to sell their clients within the framework of a given media space. PR firms work with editors, publicists, community leaders and eminent media voices to pitch their clients and angles in a way that will be mutually beneficial to their clients and the media outlets which will actually be doing the publicity. Often, this means designing a message to intrigue PR points of contacts first, before considering how the message should best be marketed to the public at large.

And then there are agencies like Mad4Marketing, which bring the best of both worlds together. That is, we nurture connections, call on resources, work our contacts and put out information such as press releases in order to generate a free buzz. However, we’re also media buyers who use intensive advertising plans to successfully and pragmatically promote our clients and their businesses. We can get a third party to cover an upcoming event and initiate a word-of-mouth campaign while we buy spots that will ensure that clients will get on TV, get in the newspaper, get that coveted radio spot, or billboard, or bus siding, or website. But most importantly, we can guarantee that we’ll get a clear and concise message right to the hands, eyes and ears of your unique target market demographic. At Mad4Marketing, we bring together the best of both worlds.