Women Power

February 15, 2012: Women Power

Longtime trends forecaster Faith Popcorn (warning: Her site opens with music, so you might want to immediately skip the intro) sees a bright future (2012 and beyond) for women. It’s going to be so pervasive, Popcorn calls it a “she-change.”

In her January 2012 BrainReserve newsletter, Popcorn writes, “A sea change is any widespread, sweeping shift that affects all elements of a system. In the coming decade we will see a sea change in the way feminine power is incorporated in society. Characteristics once thought to be solely the province of women will be adopted as best practices. We call this pervasive revolution the SHE-CHANGE.”

Popcorn particularly calls out young women, predicting they will lead the way. Already, she says, young, single women buy twice as many houses as young, single men. That’s a particularly important statistic if you sell housewares, furniture or decorative accessories, or offer services like housecleaning, lawn care, or overall home improvement. You may need to shift your marketing if it’s too geared towards “the man of the house.”

Women are already a powerful marketplace. Popcorn says they “control $12 trillion of the overall $18.4 trillion in global consumer spending. In the United States, the facts are (to some) staggering. The She-conomy website reports that American women “spend about $5 trillion every year, and account for 85 percent of all consumer purchases,” including new homes and cars, PCs, vacations, healthcare and more.

I’m not saying you should market exclusively to women; in fact, I just wrote about how in many cases purchasing decisions are being made by the entire family. But for most businesses, you won’t go wrong targeting women.