Q&A: Katie Mares on how brands can market to women

Katie Mares is a customer experience expert and the author of CustomHer Experience. As part of MediaCat’s Fame and Attention theme this month, Content & Social Editor, Svilena Keane, reached out to Katie to discuss why brands should pay attention to women buyers.

During the interview, Katie explained what makes women ‘the world’s most influential consumers’, the physiological differences between men and women, and how brands can market to their female customers.

Hi, Katie. Could you please introduce yourself and your work?

Hi, my name is Katie Mares. I am a customer experience expert, and I have studied the physiological differences between men and women and why women buy versus why men buy. I help male-dominated industries cast their experience net wide enough to capture the world’s most influential consumer: the woman. Unfortunately, the world’s executives are still men, which leaves the experience being designed by men. In some industries, that experience is also being delivered by men. So really, there’s a huge disconnect between who’s designing the experience, who’s delivering the experience, and who’s actually making the final decision on the purchase. And that’s the woman. I have found that if you design an experience for him, you lose her. But if you design the experience for her, you keep both him and her.

What is the impact of the female consumer and why should businesses pay attention to her?

Women influence $43 trillion of worldwide spending annually. We make upwards of 80% of all household purchases. There’s this new stat that just came out that by 2028, women will control 75% of all discretionary spending.

We are the world’s economy. We also influence multiple generations of purchasers. So it’s not just us, it’s our kids, our sisters, our brothers, our moms, our dads, friends, and extended family. Now we have this lovely thing called the World Wide Web, which we’ve had for a while, but women are the original social media. Now she just has a megaphone and her influence spans so much further businesses realise.

What are the physiological differences between men and women?

There are a couple of really huge hard-hitting physiological differences. One is our limbic brain: the emotional memory hub of our brain. It’s where we feel and where all decisions are made. A lot of folks believe that purchasing decisions are made with facts: the black and white, the quality, price, and the product itself. But in reality, if you watch Simon Sinek’s TED talk Start With Why, and this is for all humans, he clearly shows that we are actually emotional buyers, we make decisions based on emotion, and then we reason our decisions with logic.

We make decisions from the limbic system, and we make ourselves feel okay about those choices through our prefrontal cortex, the logical part of our brain. So, women, our limbic system is almost double the size of a man’s. If you want to sell to a woman, have her loyalty, and have her choose you as a business, you need to play to the emotional side of the brain because her limbic system is almost double the size.

When a woman is shopping, she is having the same physiological reactions that she does when she falls in love. She has the release of serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine. And oxytocin is the bonding hormone. We make fun of ourselves and we talk about retail therapy but retail therapy is a thing. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone out, shopped, enjoyed the entire experience, and then looked at your receipt at home and thought, ‘How did I spend this much money? What did I do?’

This is because that good, warm feeling takes over. For women, it’s the journey and the experience. It’s about the chase. It’s not what we buy, because sometimes we go home and think, ‘Oh, wait, maybe I should take that back’. So that limbic system plays a huge role and makes a huge difference in how men and women perceive a shopping experience.

It also plays into why women like a more hedonic experience, which is an experience of the senses. So, this means the smell, the lighting, the temperature, and the visuals are all important. Whereas a man wants a more utilitarian experience, from point A to point B.

The problem is, if you build a utilitarian experience for him, you lose her because she doesn’t connect with it. But if you build it for her, if you build a hedonic experience, men will find their utilitarian experience within it. If you cast that experience net wide enough to capture her, you keep him.

You’ve previously said that making something pink isn’t the answer, which is something we see a lot of brands doing. What are your thoughts on brands making ‘female versions’ of products?

Yes, pink isn’t the answer. In my book, CustomHer Experience, I lay out quite a few examples of organizations that tried to make a female version of a product. Women don’t want to be called out. We just want to be equal. We don’t need a pink version of a pen or a pink version of a laptop or a pink version of a phone. If we like pink as an individual, we’ll go buy that phone cover or that laptop cover, or we’ll go find a pink pen that exists out there.

Women want to be included. The product itself doesn’t have to be female-focused because we can do everything a man can do; why would we want or need a separate product that shows that we’re women? No, it’s the complete opposite.

We just want to use a product that every single human uses. We want to be treated with equality and looked at as an equal. A woman wants to be understood as a human first and a customer second. Understanding who you’re serving and tailoring that experience to that person will go way further than creating a female version of your product. Just create an experience that speaks to her.

Can you share examples of brands that are getting it right?

I that there’s a lot of brands getting the experience right, and they’re the brands that play into the customer experience competition era. Starbucks would be a great example. You go to Starbucks anywhere in the world and sure, you get the right quality, but you also get an incredible experience from a people perspective. They’re always smiling at you and they use your name. They have put a system and process in place to make sure that name is huge in terms of creating a connection right off the bat. I’m heavily in the automotive space and I always joke – even though it’s not really a joke, it’s reality – but dealerships do not get it right. Women get a better experience purchasing a $7 latte than a $70,000 vehicle. There’s something wrong with that.

I’ll give you a story. It was Mother’s Day about five or six years ago and I was at a Starbucks. I was with all three of my kids. What a Mother’s Day, right? Most moms just want to hang out by themselves. I had all three of my kids and we’re in line at Starbucks. I order my coffee because I desperately need it, and the kids order what they want, and I scan the app. I get halfway down the line to pick up my order and they say, ‘Oh, Katie, it didn’t go through’. I was wearing this big mom bag that has everything in it and I’m trying to find my phone and they see this and say, ‘You know what? It’s okay, Katie. Happy Mother’s Day. It’s on us.’

So, this is anticipating needs. This is delivering a plus one. They’ve been trained and they are empowered to make their customers’ days. So she saw I had three kids with me, that it was Mother’s Day and that I was struggling. Instead of making me come back — which she could have done and I wouldn’t have complained about it — she decided to surprise and delight me. It’s little things like that. It’s not complicated. It doesn’t have to be grandiose.

They focus on the connection, on anticipating needs and delivering an experience that actually evokes an emotion. It makes you feel something. So customer service, and I hate that I use the word ‘service’ because ‘service’ is a transaction. You have to get service out of your mind, especially when servicing and interacting with a female consumer. You have to go from transaction to interaction, from customer service to customer experience.

Finally, what would you advise marketers seeking to attract the attention of women buyers?

Women want to do business with industries and organisations that they see themselves in. From a marketing perspective, highlight the women, especially in male-dominated spaces like automotive.

I have a client I’m working with right now and he has seven women in his dealership, which is amazing. And he said to me, ‘I’m having a hard time hiring women, and women don’t want to come to my dealership.’ When I asked if he showcases the women who currently work there, he said no. If you highlight the women in the dealership, other women will automatically feel safer to come and visit you. Showcasing who you are and how diverse you are is really important.

The other thing that I think is really important is cause marketing. Women want to do business with organisations that make a difference in the world. Again, it goes back to the limbic system. We care a lot and are physiologically built that way. If you want to get strategic about how you give back in the world to attract the world’s most influential consumer, you can do some research around the type of cause marketing you should be doing to speak to her.

This interview has been shortened for clarity and length.

Featured image: Katie Mares