Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online

Rating:
Summary: I loved Dick and Jane!
Review: But I had no idea until I read this book how much has changed since then. For all of us who grew up learning to read with these loveable characters, taking a trip down memory lane reminds us as women how we have to embrace our future more than our past. Marketing to women online is a vital concept that companies need to embrace if they want to sell their products online. I myself am using the internet more and more to purchase goods for my home and my business. It just makes sense considering the time restraints I find myself enslaved to as a fulltime mother of 4. Yvonne not only goes into why we as women will continue to shop more online, but why we have come to realize how much more sense it makes given our busy lives. Our time to redefine ourselves as modern women is over, now our time is to be spent doing what we do best. Budgeting! Its about our time and our money and how we are proned to save in all aspects of our lives. Its also time for businesses to realize that grasping our attention when we visit their websites is more than just making a "first impression." Its about developing a relationship, thats what women do. We have moved beyond the "handshake". Yvonne helps us to realize that we need more to keep our attention. We need to be invited to stay and visit! Not be overloaded with visuals that make us click the "next button." Yvonne's book helps business learn how to do that. She makes valid points for creating a website that creates a comfort zone for us and once we are comfortable....look out...we are getting out the plastic.
This book is one that will remain on my shelf for a very long time.

Rating:
Summary: Men, Open Your Eyes
Review: If you are selling anything, you need to read this book. Ms. Divita not only knows her information but places it in perfect context of how us boomers, especially those of the female persuasion, are going to rule e-commerce. Embracing the notion that women are and will continue to be empowered should not have men retailers running scared. "Follow the money" (and in most cases the brains) and we can all enjoy the success of selling over the internet.

Rating:
Summary: Marketing to Women = $$$$
Review: If you only buy one business book this year, let this one be it! As an Internet strategist and consultant who has worked with such well-known names as iVillage.com, Women.com and NOW, I can say unequivocally that this book is a must have for anyone looking to reach the women's market.

You may be tempted to ask, "Who needs the women's market?" Everyone. Ask yourself - why are the corporate giants focusing so heavily on marketing to women? They are spending millions to make more woman-friendly mini-vans, appliances, tools, fast food, you name it. Want to find out? Read this book.

Read Ms. DiVita's book to find out how to gain trust and loyalty to your product/service. Find out the why, when, where, what and how women shop online. See detailed examples of sites that work for women and sites that don't. Find out what a survey of online women's shoppers revealed about specific things a website needs for them to feel comfortable shopping there and much, much more.

Rating:
Summary: You know you need this . . .
Review: Most books on e-commerce offer advice on hardware and software, or web design, or e-mail marketing campaigns, or a dozen other pieces of doing business on the Internet. A few recent books and articles have called attention to the importance of marketing to women in the bricks-and-mortar world. Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online pulls all of these pieces together and explains why you need to refocus your online efforts to make sure your Web site rates a "female-friendly" score on the Dick-e-Meter.

Backed by solid research, statistics gathered into the second half of 2003, and her own survey results, Yvonne DiVita has created a roadmap for successful selling online. She provides compelling evidence that success online means selling to women (even if your target market is men; even if you sell a product or service traditionally associated with men; and even if you're selling to businesses rather than consumers).

Most important, she explains how to revamp your Web site and your business processes "to gain the trust and support of the largest and most generous group of consumers in the world." From site design details to customer service practices to creating community, DiVita teaches us how to do better. She uses dozens of examples, with screen shots and detailed analysis, to guide us.

In a chapter called, Can You Handle It?, she reviews in detail half a dozen sites for female friendliness, applying the concepts developed throughout the book to real situations. Even if your site is not one of those reviewed, you will likely find much to learn from these reviews that will apply to improve your Web presence.

You do have a Web presence, right? (As DiVita points out in the Introduction, "If you have a business, and you do not have a Web presence, it's been nice knowing you.")

Whether you do or not, you need the information she has collected and presented in her wonderfully readable, sometimes playful, writing style.

Rating:
Summary: More Often Than Not, Minnie Controls the Mouse
Review: Notice the pattern?

Antony and Cleopatra
Barney and Betty Rubbel
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
Daphnis and Chloë
Donald and Daisy Duck
Hansel and Gretel
Romeo and Juliet
Samson and Delilah

and finally, DICK and Jane

Historically, when famous couples are listed, the male's name is usually first. (Bonnie and Clyde is a very rare exception.) And historically, the marketing of goods and services has focused almost exclusively on men. Times change. DiVita suggests that at least in terms of online marketing in the 21st century, that is a serious mistake. Why? Because women (i.e. Janes) now comprise a majority of the current U.S. population. More to the point, research indicates that online spending will increase 26% this year to $96 billion. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy and women influence 95% and make 85% of all consumer buying decisions; moreover, the majority of corporate purchasing agents and managers are women. Female entrepreneurs account for 70% of new business start-ups.

What we have in this volume is a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective "game plan" by which to market online to women. DiVita offers the "Top 12 Reasons Why Women Shop Online" and suggests "Six Ways to Get More Women to Buy at Your Web Site." Although at times her narrative becomes somewhat overheated, DiVita's advice is eminently practical and can be of substantial benefit to almost all organizations (regardless of size or nature). If you are still unconvinced of the upside potential of marketing to women online, consider these facts:

• Between 1970 and 1990, the number of women living alone doubled from 7.3 million to 15.3 million and this pattern has continued.

• At least 55% of those online each day are women.

• By the year 2010, women will control 60% of wealth in the U.S.

• College students were responsible for $210 billion in sales in 2002 and 58% of them were female.

• Women purchase more than 50% of the cars and own more than 46% of the homes in the U.S.

• More than half of all business travelers are women.

This book will probably be of greatest value to smaller companies. Although they have limited resources, they can use the Internet (and especially the WWW) to compete successfully with much larger companies and even do so on a global basis. According to DiVita, "Dickless Marketing is going to help you construct a homepage that search engines and women will love, a homepage that directs both of them to your products page, a homepage that will get the women, at least, spending money. The vital elements of a female-friendly homepage will get women to share your site with every other woman they know."

Rating:
Summary: More Often Than Not, Minnie Controls the Mouse
Review: Notice the pattern?

Antony and Cleopatra
Barney and Betty Rubbel
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
Daphnis and Chloë
Donald and Daisy Duck
Hansel and Gretel
Romeo and Juliet
Samson and Delilah

and finally, DICK and Jane

Historically, when famous couples are listed, the male's name is usually first. (Bonnie and Clyde is a very rare exception.) And historically, the marketing of goods and services has focused almost exclusively on men. Times change. DiVita suggests that at least in terms of online marketing in the 21st century, that is a serious mistake. Why? Because women (i.e. Janes) now comprise a majority of the current U.S. population. More to the point, research indicates that online spending will increase 26% this year to $96 billion. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy and women influence 95% and make 85% of all consumer buying decisions; moreover, the majority of corporate purchasing agents and managers are women. Female entrepreneurs account for 70% of new business start-ups.

What we have in this volume is a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective "game plan" by which to market online to women. DiVita offers the "Top 12 Reasons Why Women Shop Online" and suggests "Six Ways to Get More Women to Buy at Your Web Site." Although at times her narrative becomes somewhat overheated, DiVita's advice is eminently practical and can be of substantial benefit to almost all organizations (regardless of size or nature). If you are still unconvinced of the upside potential of marketing to women online, consider these facts:

* Between 1970 and 1990, the number of women living alone doubled from 7.3 million to 15.3 million and this pattern has continued.

* At least 55% of those online each day are women.

* By the year 2010, women will control 60% of wealth in the U.S.

* College students were responsible for $210 billion in sales in 2002 and 58% of them were female.

* Women purchase more than 50% of the cars and own more than 46% of the homes in the U.S.

* More than half of all business travelers are women.

This book will probably be of greatest value to smaller companies. Although they have limited resources, they can use the Internet (and especially the WWW) to compete successfully with much larger companies and even do so on a global basis. According to DiVita, "Dickless Marketing is going to help you construct a homepage that search engines and women will love, a homepage that directs both of them to your products page, a homepage that will get the women, at least, spending money. The vital elements of a female-friendly homepage will get women to share your site with every other woman they know."