Show women the love ... and they'll respond by showing you the money. How insight-driven marketing can help you acquire and cross-sell female customers.

• Author: O'Connell, Jennifer
• Position: Marketing to Women

Why are the current marketing efforts of financial institutions missing the mark when it comes to influencing the behavior of women customers and prospects? After all, many financial institutions have recognized the emergence--and power--of the female market, and have created programs to specifically meet the needs of women.

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Which is part of the problem. Assuming that all women have similar financial needs is a mistake. And that's where insight-driven marketing comes into play.

An "insight" is defined as an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive understanding. Insight-driven marketing is about discerning the true nature of your customer and developing an intuitive understanding of them and the lives they lead. It's not about developing a communications strategy based upon what you need to sell, but rather a strategy based upon what your customers need (emotionally and rationally), how they make decisions, and why they choose to develop relationships with organizations and the products and services that these organizations provide.

One way to better affect the behavior of the feminine target is to develop insight-driven marketing platforms based upon persona-based marketing. For financial marketers, this requires moving beyond aligning demographic segmentation such as age, income, and investable assets with products and services. Insight-driven marketing is based upon, first and foremost, understanding the mindset and attitudes of your audience, segmenting based upon similarities, and developing programs that specifically speak to these consumers in a way that is both relevant and resonant.

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A female entrepreneur, a stay-at-home mom, a working mother with kids nearing college age, and a woman approaching retirement--sure, they're all women, but beyond that they may have little in common and, for sure, their financial needs vary dramatically.

Putting the 'persona' back into marketing

The development of "personas" illuminates segment differences in a way that traditional demographic segmentation can't; it adds texture to your audience and brings them to life. What is a persona? It involves constructing a fictional, representative customer based upon real-life data and intelligence. This characterization of a customer (and customer segment) provides a touchstone for all marketing efforts moving forward, a blueprint for all communications. While the content in personas can vary, typically they contain a narrative about "the day in a life" of the customer, goals, behaviors, demographic information (but just enough to humanize them), channel preferences, and needs (both emotional and rational drivers). And all this is contained on just one page--easy enough for the organization to get the story in a snapshot.

Persona-based marketing informs and impacts everything from messaging, imagery and tonality to Web site design and campaign offers. Perhaps that's why insight-driven segmentation and persona-based marketing strategies aren't for the faint of...