How Small Businesses Can Capture The Elusive Male Market

How to capture the elusive male market is one of the most challenging questions to answer for any business or advertiser primarily because there is a pre-conceived notion that men aren’t really “shoppers”. This may have changed with the continuous emergence of the “metro men”. They are beginning to be a bit more marketable, at least for the male hygiene companies.

However, this blog isn’t just for the hygiene companies alone. So this post will be giving out insights for the male market in general.

Just like the insights I provided for the youth market, these pieces of information are useless unless you know how to use it.

Men’s female backing:

Women remain to be the biggest influence in a man’s purchase decisions for general services and non-specialized products. In fact, Over 80% of consumer purchasing decisions are influenced by women. The female market dictates the direction of the male demographic. Be it through a wife, girlfriend, mother, sister or significant other, the majority of males gravitate toward the sense of style directed by the significant female in their lives.

To start generating a male clientele, target advertising and in-house marketing to the female, as she will most likely be a man’s driving force.

Catch them and you have them:

Women tend to make the first move in checking out a product, 23 percent more than men, but after the first move, men follow through with an action, 53 percent more than women. In other words, all you have to do is catch their attention and you have their money. In an ad, for example, that asks the consumers to go to a website, women will most likely go to the website to check the product.

However, if you total all the men and women who go to the website, more men will buy.

Men are night owls on the internet – 3:00 am ET is the hour when men are most likely pay attention to ads but they are most likely to make purchases at 4:00 pm ET in the afternoon.

They don’t care about the price:

Unlike women who will buy anything at 75% off, men don’t really care about the price. If they like something, they’ll buy it even if it is overpriced. They are also less likely to change their mind about it. Once they make the decision they will buy something, they’ll buy it even if a better product comes along. They will not change their mind because they will most likely not hear about it either.

You have five seconds… or not:

Men don’t have a shorter attention span, women are just biologically wired to pay attention to different things than men. Researchers have found that male brains tend to be attracted to things that are analytical (sports scores) and visual (Heidi Klum), while female brains focus more on nonverbal and verbal communication (a stimulating conversation) .

They are attracted to over the top visuals or ads that are grounded on a crazy idea. Look at clothing line ad posted below. If you substitute that with a human head, there is a lesser chance men will pay attention.

So you have to be visual in your advertising or your competition will.

Food, money, gadgets, sports, toys, sex – in that order:

Surprisingly, sex is 6th in the priorities of men. These are what they deem important in their lives. Not the future, not a house and certainly not how to be the best engineer or whatever field they are into. They just want food, phones, computers, cars. They are concerned about the things that they want to have RIGHT NOW.

They are not really concerned about the future:

They are less likely to think about their future. They don’t really plan what they want to become in detail. They have a general idea and they take general steps but they don’t dabble on details. An example is their savings. They don’t plan to set aside 50% of their money for their future. They just know they need to work hard to get promoted and earn more so they will have the money to buy the things they need in the future.

Women are actually more career driven than men. As early as college, they think about the things they need to do now so they will have enough credentials on their resume when they apply for a job after college. They are concerned about “other things” they can do to get promoted aside from working really hard.

Men act for the now. If you are going to launch a promotion, the items in Step #5 are what will attract them. Don’t talk about how your service will make them the best businessmen someday, they don’t really care. They just know they’ll get there.

If you offer an iPad, they’ll run after you.

Recommendation:

If there is anything these insights should teach us is that it is easier to advertise to men. As long as you keep your ads eye-catching, single minded and relevant to what they want now, you’ll get them to buy your product.

However, I can’t emphasize enough that these insights will only work if you know how to use them. These are meant to be general information that you can use as a jump off point. Certain businesses will need a more specific look at the market.