Marketing to Women Key to Protecting the Environment

Lest anyone doubt that marketing to women is a fast-track way to protect the environment, just review the presentations made at last week’s M2W (Marketing to Women) conference in Chicago by Frito-Lay, Motorola, Glam Media (the fastest growing women-oriented site on the Web) and more. Women have the clout to put companies on notice: when it comes to reducing climate change, restoring our air and water, and protecting the health of our kids and families, we can — and will — use our purse to pull manufacturers in a cleaner, greener direction.

Let’s do the numbers:

  Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases, and we’re buying more than cheese doodles and diapers:

• 91% of New Homes
• 66% PCs
• 92% Vacations
• 80% Healthcare
• 65% New Cars
• 89% Bank Accounts
• 93% Food
• 93 % OTC PharmaceuticalsAmerican women spend about $5 trillion annually, which amounts to over half the U.S. GDP. But we’re not just buying at supermarkets and shopping malls. Women represent the majority of the online market, too.

When it comes to making their money matter, nearly 50% of women say they want more green choices.

• 37% are more likely to pay attention to brands that are committed to environmental causes.
• 25% of all products in a woman’s shopping cart nowadays are environmentally friendly.These numbers don’t only apply to married women who are managing two paychecks (theirs, and their husband’s). According to the research, single women are more influential today than they were ten years ago (In 1998, only 69% of women between 18 and 24 were involved in home electronics purchases. By 2008, that number has grown to 91%, in part driven by the prevalence of personal electronics such as cell phones and computers.)

What’s more, “prime time” women – those aged 50-70, according to marketing maven Marti Barletta – “will control the majority of the purchasing power in the U.S.” within the next two decades – giving them unprecedented opportunities to become the drivers of new pollution-free products (Mary Hunt has been charting some of these trends over at InWomenWeTrust.com).

Women are past the point of letting manufacturers tell them what to buy. We can — and should — tell companies what to make – based on the purchases WE make day after day.