It's All in Her Head

Everyone knows men and women think differently—some stand-up comedians even build careers parsing the topic—but we're not always sure why or how. And in a post at her WonderBranding blog, Michele Miller points to scientific research that shows marketing to women isn't as simple as softening your approach. "While we've only scratched the surface of brain study," she writes, "here's one fact we do know: a woman's brain has four times as many connections between the left and right hemispheres as that of a man's."

Here's what this means to you:

A woman's brain can accept more signals, but she also has stronger filters. Though you gain additional points of entry, your challenge as a marketer is finding a way around additional gatekeepers that jealously guard her "take action" button. A particular hurtle is her strong emotional memory, which constantly gauges current situations against past experiences.

All those signals flow to the right side of the brain. "She's not only reading your advertising or web copy; she's attaching feelings to it," says Miller. "One critical word can make the difference between driving her to flip the page or compelling her to pick up the phone and find out where your store is located."

The Po!nt: "Marketing to women doesn't mean 'color her female,'" says Miller. "[T]here's an actual science to this stuff that should be mighty appealing to all you left-brain logical types out there."

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