How to capture female consumers in the new consumption era?

Statistics show that nearly 10 trillion yuan of consumer spending comes from female consumers every year. The female economy has become increasingly important. So how should brands capture female consumers? How can they make marketing plans that are favored by female consumers? The author of this article analyzes the characteristics of female marketing and the transformation of brand roles. Let's take a look.

If you capture women, you capture the main consumer market. According to statistics, there are nearly 400 million female consumers aged 20-60 in the Chinese consumer market, who spend about 10 trillion yuan per year. The rise of the "she" economy is an indisputable fact.

Under the wave of "Her Era", more and more creative contents about "Her Marketing" are emerging, such as discussing the plight of women in the workplace and society through image expression during and after International Women's Day; PROYA continues to deepen the issue of "gender is not a boundary line" to highlight the brand attitude of "rejecting labels and gender equality"; and OLAY has joined hands with CCTV.com to encourage more women to stick to their dreams and pursue their passion.

The brand has abandoned the methods of intensifying gender conflicts or promoting radical female attitudes to attract users' attention. Instead, it either raises questions for more users to discuss and generate a louder voice, or adheres to long-termism to maximize the brand's commercial vitality, or uses empathy with users to amplify the voice and help the brand's long-term dissemination.

It is obvious that brand marketing has undergone a subtle change. In addition to seeking short-term traffic, it also pays more attention to long-term marketing.

1. In the new consumption era, what are the obvious characteristics of her marketing?

As brands pay more attention to her economy, her marketing has also begun to compete with creativity. After sorting out many cases, Mr. Bingfa found that her marketing has three obvious characteristics.

1. Emotional marketing, focusing on cultivating user emotional value

In the field of marketing, the emotional value that a brand gives to users is the positive, pleasant emotions that consumers can perceive, that is, influencing consumers' purchasing behavior by cultivating users' emotional value.

Her current marketing, to a large extent, is based on cultivating users’ emotional values ​​to change users’ consumption behaviors, thus achieving full-link marketing from marketing to consumption.

For example, the popularity of blind boxes and figures is largely due to the fact that they are beautiful, fun, and unknown, which arouses users' emotions and stimulates their excitement, allowing people to achieve self-pleasure and gain spiritual satisfaction in their fast-paced lives.

Image source: "Country Love" / blind box image

Her marketing is largely about changing user consumption behavior by cultivating user emotional value. Therefore, many brands choose to continue to cultivate a point of view for many years, while continuing to deepen the memory, to achieve the brand's occupation of the user's mind, so that users will think of the brand when they have a need, and realize the full-link marketing from communication to consumption.

For example, PROYA, which has been continuously promoting gender equality in its marketing, launched an advertisement adapted from a true story, "Female Commando, Male Soldier", on Women's Day this year. The advertisement tells the story of Pubu Xiaoma, a girl who loves football. No girl has ever been the captain of the team, and no girl has ever played in the Freshman Cup. Now she is the captain and plays in the Freshman Cup, proving that there should be no gender bias in the arena and encouraging girls to have the courage to stick to their passion.

This is not the first time that PROYA has proposed that "gender is not a boundary but a prejudice". PROYA, which continues to advocate breaking gender prejudice, has won the recognition of young people through continuous deep cultivation, achieved empathy with users, amplified its voice, and cultivated the emotional value of users.

It is obvious that the output of emotional value is not only the spiritual bond between the brand and users, but also can meet the emotional needs of consumers and enjoy consumption. While giving women emotional recognition and value affirmation, it also completes the mission of brand communication.

2. Scenario-based marketing, focusing on women’s consumption experience

Using emotional value to occupy the user's mind is a way for brands to capture users emotionally. In order to win over female consumers and stimulate their shopping desire, brands pay more attention to the user's purchasing experience and choose scenario-based marketing methods to bring users' emotions into the brand's settings, laying the foundation for promotion.

Scenario-based marketing is divided into experiences such as product purchase and use. That is, the brand does not directly display the product or advertising information, but allows users to involuntarily bring themselves into the marketing scenario set by the brand, replace roles by themselves, and complete the product experience. This is scenario marketing created by the brand.

When it comes to scene marketing for women, the most impressive one is "RIO tipsy, a little wine for one person" , which always makes people naturally think of the scene of a person sipping a little wine and staying lazily at home. That is the state of a woman being alone, and it is also the comfortable state of a person after tasting RIO.

Image source: RIO Tipsy Advertisement

The positioning of women's "empty-nest drinking alone" has a strong sense of substitution. By creating a living scene of most empty-nest young people living alone, it creates an emotional resonance between the brand and users, makes people feel yearning, and helps RIO Weixun attract a large number of young people living alone. RIO Weixun also deeply occupies the minds of users by creating scenes of living alone, thereby achieving the goal of enhancing user experience.

3. Marketing word-of-mouth, using public and private domains to promote conversion

In addition to emotional and scenario-based marketing, contemporary brands pay more attention to word-of-mouth marketing, which is an important strategy for brands to attract users and achieve sales, and is also a conventional marketing method for brands in today's social media era.

It is not difficult to find that in fragmented time, most people will spend their free time on browsing Douyin, Weibo, reading Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and browsing Moments. While killing time, they will be attracted by interesting, practical, romantic, sweet and other information on the platform, making more and more people willing to show off their lives and shopping on social platforms.

Based on users' browsing habits and lifestyles, the channels for disseminating brand advertising information have undergone fundamental changes. Social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Bilibili, and Douyin have become important channels for brands to reach users. In addition, social platforms can "visualize" the product's usage effects, production methods, product quality, and the differences between similar competing products, making them an important channel for many users to filter information. For example, the widely discussed "photo fraud" on Xiaohongshu proves from another perspective the marketing feature of public domain planting to promote conversions.

With the development of technology in today's era, the digitization and technology of advertising information, and big data, social media has achieved accurate reach and user interaction. At the same time, the openness of social media has successfully strengthened the interaction between brands and users, allowing consumers to obtain information that resonates with them and encourages them to buy products on social platforms.

Therefore, brands turn advertising information into videos, pictures, texts, sounds, etc., and disseminate them through different channels. Whether it is a video with rich sound and emotion, text that leaves room for imagination, or sound that heals people's hearts and teases users' emotions, they have all become a way for brands to express information freely.

An industry leader has summarized a formula for creating a hit product, that is, XX Xiaohongshu notes, XX Douyin/Kuaishou videos, XX Weibo messages, and the spread of these messages on the official account platform can create a hit brand. This also indirectly proves that the brand's marketing channels also change according to changes in technological development, brand attributes, and consumer psychology, making the brand's information present diversified and multi-platform characteristics, allowing users to find their favorite products while relaxing and entertaining, and naturally generating sales.

2. Brand role changes, accompanying women’s growth

In addition to the obvious characteristics of her marketing, another obvious change in brand marketing is the transformation of the brand role, from a single information disseminator to a dual role of information disseminator and user companion. The brand is endowed with personalized charm, guiding, witnessing and accompanying the growth of women.

Just like the success of talent show stars, brands now have started to cultivate users, accompanying women from their youth and ignorance to gradual maturity and even shining. Basically, every important stage of female users' lives is witnessed and accompanied by brands. The way brands make friends with female consumers also makes users remember the brands silently, making them naturally think of the brands when they have needs.

For example, during the Spring Festival, Si Nian’s advertisement was adapted from the classic nursery rhyme “The Little White Rabbit is So White”. The brand created a scene of users’ childhood memories and personified the zodiac IP. On the surface, it evoked people’s emotions of returning home for the New Year and the childhood memories of a generation, but in fact it expressed that the brand is dedicated to accompanying users in their growth. At this time, Si Nian becomes a “friend” in the user’s growth process, making the advertisement more convincing and the marketing campaign more warm and textured.

Image source: Si Nian Advertising

In a sense, the brand has injected warmth into the brand through the transformation of its own role, allowing consumers to feel the full warmth, and the brand has also entered the hearts of female consumers with its warm and delicate expression.

3. Final Thoughts

As for how to capture female consumers, I believe you have found the answer from the brand's creation of emotional resonance among consumers, emphasis on consumer experience, promotion in public and private domains, and transformation of brand roles.

On the one hand, extreme insight and effective communication methods can make consumers' attention follow the brand's communication rhythm, thereby achieving occupation of users' minds.

On the other hand, we should extend effective emotional tentacles into users' needs and capture consumers with truly effective information reach and warm content.

In this way, the brand can achieve more heartfelt dialogues with female consumers, encourage them to use its products, and reach out to advertising information on various platforms. It can also enhance the brand's influence in the market through marketing, make the brand image more three-dimensional and in-depth, and achieve a strong increase in brand perception.

Author: Mr. Bingfa WeChat public account: Marketing Bingfa (ID: lanhaiyingxiao)