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    Brain Circuits

    Quiz: What are the pitfalls of marketing to women? 

    by Jenny Darroch Published April 15, 2025 in Brain Circuits • 4 min read

     

    Women make more than 80% of purchasing decisions, but most brands struggle to reach, engage, and convert female customers. Do this short quiz to test your knowledge of marketing to women and read on for tips on avoiding the pitfalls.

     

    Welcome to the test

    This instrument assesses potential trust issues in the six key dimensions within a team: competence, reliability, integrity, emotional-sharing, communication, and flexibility.

    The test uses the Likert rating scale to measure how much you agree with each statement as it applies to your team:

    1 = Strongly disagree
    2 = Disagree
    3 = Neutral
    4 = Agree
    5 = Strongly agree

    Instructions:
    Rate each statement below based on your personal experience with your team. Please respond to all questions to get a valid result.

     

    I - Competence dimension

    1. Peers often express doubt about the abilities of specific team members.

    2. Team members frequently correct or complain about the work of others.

    3. Some team members struggle to handle more complex tasks due to gaps in their skills or expertise.

    II - Reliability dimension

    4. Some team members often don’t follow through on their commitments.

    5. There are excessive follow-ups between team members to ensure tasks are completed.

    6. Some team members can’t be relied on to complete essential tasks.

    III - Integrity dimension

    7. There is gossip or backbiting among team members

    8. Some members of the team are excluded from essential tasks.

    9. Some team members prioritize their personal goals over the team’s objectives.

    IV - Emotional sharing dimension

    10. Team members are reluctant to share their personal challenges.

    11. Emotional distance exists between team members.

    12. Constructive conflicts are avoided, even when they could benefit the team.

    V - Communication dimension

    13. Team members frequently misinterpret each other's messages or intentions.

    14. Surprise actions or decisions by team members happen too often.

    15. Team members rarely ask for clarification when they don’t understand something.

    VI - Flexibility dimension

    16. New ideas from team members are often met with negative reactions.

    17. Team members use familiar methods, even when new approaches are suggested.

    18. It’s challenging to engage team members in group brainstorming or problem-solving sessions.

     

    How to avoid the pitfalls when marketing to women

     

    1. Know your customers: who influences, buys, and uses your products?

    The first art to master is knowing your customers. It’s critical to have some sense of how gender shapes the group you need to address. Look at your data to understand how the women in your customer group behave and if they buy your product for themselves or others. This will help pinpoint the gender dynamics at play, and how to focus your marketing to women: as influencers, buyers, or users.

    Ask:

    • What proportion of your customer base is women?
    • How does this compare to your competitors’ customers or the population at large?
    • Are women the primary decision-makers?
    • To what extent do they influence purchases of the product?

     

    2. Know why she buys

    Even more than products, you’re in the business of selling solutions to problems. You need to have conversations with your customers (focus groups, questionnaires, digital surveys) to identify the real pain points that your product addresses.

    Ask:

    • Do you genuinely understand what those problems are?
    • If you don’t know what problem you’re solving, what’s stopping you from finding out?

     

    3. Treat women as knowledge customers and incentivize brand advocates

    Research shows that women are typically more knowledge-based and relationship-focused in their purchasing decisions; tending to seek the advice and opinions of other women (eg by reading or posting on social media).

    Ask:

    • What are you doing in your marketing efforts to treat women as knowledge customers?
    • Are you doing enough as a brand to encourage influencing and brand advocacy?
    • Are you effective in your use of platforms and technologies that encourage women to engage with your brand and with each other?

     

    4. Avoid ‘gender-washing’ and embrace blurred boundaries

    All women are not the same – there are as many differences between women as there are between men and women. Think about women’s different roles – they might simultaneously or at different times be leaders, experts, executives, mothers, partners, daughters, or friends.

    Ask:

    • Does your brand treat women as one homogenous demographic, or do you proactively look for differences?
    • Does it acknowledge multiple – and often blurred – roles when you communicate with women?

    Key takeaway

    Marketing to women is complex and can be confusing. As times change and norms shift, you can navigate the minefield by observing these key principles – principles that affirm the primary importance of knowing the customer and respecting their identity, individuality, and dignity, whoever they are.

     

    Further reading

    Marketing to women: Four tips for avoiding pitfalls

    What To Do When Most New Products Fail: Six Best Practices To Ensure Your Product Succeeds

    Unlocking the trillion-dollar female economy

    Putting boardroom gender balance plans to the test

    Authors

    Jenny Darroch

    Jenny Darroch is Dean of the Farmer School of Business (FSB) and the Mitchell P. Rales Chair in Business Leadership at Miami University. Prior to joining FSB Jenny was Dean of the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Here she launched the Drucker School Global Family Business Institute. Before moving to the USA, Jenny was Director of Entrepreneurship at the University of Otago in New Zealand and launched New Zealand’s fist master’s degree in entrepreneurship. Jenny has authored three books and numerous journal articles.

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