Marketing to Women - Part 1. Interview with Andrea Learned
RK: Andrea, it is my opinion that in personal services industries, you have to stand out from your competition at a personal level. The product looks like everybody elses. You want the customer to want to buy from YOU. What is one thing that differentiates you (personally and/or as a company) from others?
AL: My expertise is the 'perspective of the people,' I'd say - and that does differentiate me from other consultants. This approach works so well for me because I am a very low-key, non-corporate person who loves to examine and analyze what is going on in marketing to women efforts across the world and share that with my readers, audiences or clients. My "on-the-ground" surveillance allows me to help companies develop an authentic connection with women that goes beyond expected and stereotypical marketing techniques to create relevant and lasting relationships with customers.
RK: So Andrea, you've done a bunch of homework, checking out the territory where your customer lives, carefully evaluated and analyzed some elements that might help your customer, then offer the package to them at a price. Great strategy.
Do you have a favorite sales book, motivation book or tape or marketing book that you would recommend to our Promotional Products Professionals.
AL: My latest favorite book is Dan Pink's "Whole New Mind," because he defines and describes how people can train themselves for this new conceptual age we are heading into (since we are moving out of the information age). Everything he talks about and suggests are things that come naturally to me (information and data are not my thing - I am much more likely to be pulling together a huge variety of facts and ideas and happenings, turning them around and around in my head, and figuring out a few new ways to connect the dots ). As I read the book, I just kept thinking: "the way I am/work is the new way of doing things! Yay!" I'm looking forward to this societal transition, and look forward to seeing how it affects the marketing world.
RK: It is easy to see how this book dovetails with your first answer. In the promotional products business it might mean knowing the customer's customer and how they are likely to respond to a promotional idea.
What will be "success" for you? Will you know it when you see it?
AL: I"m in my early 40s and I have long since realized I can't take life too seriously. Figuring this out so early on feels like success to me. I am very happy to have landed where I am now, career-wise, and I am excited to see how the tapestry continues to weave as the years go by. I’m happiest with an organically-flowing life of work/fun and have been making that balance better and better ever since I left my last job in 1996 to do my own thing. Success is here for me now because I follow my passion in work and play.
RK: What are a couple of your prognostications on the future of marketing to women?
AL: I think the whole topic will cool down once businesspeople realize that marketing to women isn't some "big new thing" - rather it is a re-mix of plain old good marketing. I'm happy that there is some heat behind it now, certainly, as much of my work is speaking engagements and the like. But, I would not try to make it a greater and more cumbersome proposal than it is in order to keep myself in this work for ten more years. Marketing to women will evolve and businesses will get better at marketing "with" women, just as they are already, according to the business press, getting wise to customer-driven marketing and product development today.
Tomorrow, we will continue with the interview. For more on Andrea's specific thinking as it relates to marketing to women, visit her blog here.
For the rest of the interview, go here
AL: My expertise is the 'perspective of the people,' I'd say - and that does differentiate me from other consultants. This approach works so well for me because I am a very low-key, non-corporate person who loves to examine and analyze what is going on in marketing to women efforts across the world and share that with my readers, audiences or clients. My "on-the-ground" surveillance allows me to help companies develop an authentic connection with women that goes beyond expected and stereotypical marketing techniques to create relevant and lasting relationships with customers.
RK: So Andrea, you've done a bunch of homework, checking out the territory where your customer lives, carefully evaluated and analyzed some elements that might help your customer, then offer the package to them at a price. Great strategy.
Do you have a favorite sales book, motivation book or tape or marketing book that you would recommend to our Promotional Products Professionals.
AL: My latest favorite book is Dan Pink's "Whole New Mind," because he defines and describes how people can train themselves for this new conceptual age we are heading into (since we are moving out of the information age). Everything he talks about and suggests are things that come naturally to me (information and data are not my thing - I am much more likely to be pulling together a huge variety of facts and ideas and happenings, turning them around and around in my head, and figuring out a few new ways to connect the dots ). As I read the book, I just kept thinking: "the way I am/work is the new way of doing things! Yay!" I'm looking forward to this societal transition, and look forward to seeing how it affects the marketing world.
RK: It is easy to see how this book dovetails with your first answer. In the promotional products business it might mean knowing the customer's customer and how they are likely to respond to a promotional idea.
What will be "success" for you? Will you know it when you see it?
AL: I"m in my early 40s and I have long since realized I can't take life too seriously. Figuring this out so early on feels like success to me. I am very happy to have landed where I am now, career-wise, and I am excited to see how the tapestry continues to weave as the years go by. I’m happiest with an organically-flowing life of work/fun and have been making that balance better and better ever since I left my last job in 1996 to do my own thing. Success is here for me now because I follow my passion in work and play.
RK: What are a couple of your prognostications on the future of marketing to women?
AL: I think the whole topic will cool down once businesspeople realize that marketing to women isn't some "big new thing" - rather it is a re-mix of plain old good marketing. I'm happy that there is some heat behind it now, certainly, as much of my work is speaking engagements and the like. But, I would not try to make it a greater and more cumbersome proposal than it is in order to keep myself in this work for ten more years. Marketing to women will evolve and businesses will get better at marketing "with" women, just as they are already, according to the business press, getting wise to customer-driven marketing and product development today.
Tomorrow, we will continue with the interview. For more on Andrea's specific thinking as it relates to marketing to women, visit her blog here.
For the rest of the interview, go here
posted by Randy W. Kirk at 2:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home