How to market content effectively for both genders

Pete's picture
Submitted by Pete on

We all know men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and the differences between men and women are far too varied and extensive to detail in any one place. Yet to effectively tailor your content marketing strategy to reach the desired audience, be it male, female or both, you need to understand what each is most likely to respond.

Tips from Writing on the Web advise us that that for every 1 word a man says each day, a woman will say 3 times as many - supporting the old myth that women like to talk, discuss and debate matters before forming their opinion.  Men tend to live in the present, making snap decisions based on absolute facts.

Thus, the way you market your content must be adapted for each gender. For women, your content needs to speak to them directly, addressing their individual requirements and explaining how you will meet them now and in the future. It's not just about the content, it's also about how it can nurture theirs and their family's personal development - speaking to their core values.

Meanwhile Business Week claims that where 58% of women are annoyed by the way their gender is represented in advertising, 79% of men don't even recognize when an advert is portraying their gender.  They are focused not on the visualization of the content, but the content itself -which needs to say "this is what we'll do, and this is how much it'll cost...". 

Returning to Writing on the Web, we have the suggestion that to play to the typical male's goal-orientated attitude, provide clear, linear content that is headed towards a finish line. To attract your female audience, focus on value and convenience within your content, and encourage them to participate - making an effort to understand their needs.

7 great CMS Report articles from 2008 you still need to read

Bryan's picture
Submitted by Bryan on

In keeping with tradition, the following are seven articles that were posted here at CMSReport.com and received less attention than I had hoped.  Either the reader didn't show up to view the article or there was little discussion on the subject matter.  I'll let you be the judge on whether these articles deserved the obscurity they received in 2008.

  1. Walt Mossberg on the Asus Eee PC
  2. The Content in 1996
  3. Revealing numbers from Alfresco regarding the enterprise stack
  4. Are there not enough girl geeks in the world?
  5. U.S. Falling Behind as Academics Goes Global
  6. The case for a boxed CMS: Security
  7. Is Microsoft finally seeing the light with Office?

Are there not enough girl geeks in the world?

Bryan's picture
Submitted by Bryan on

eWeek has an interesting article regarding women working in IT, or rather, women not working in IT.  The article is, Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

A professor says he has only one girl in a computer science major class in 2008, down from 40 percent in 2000. What happened? eWEEK gets field experts to weigh in.
While women hold 51 percent of professional jobs in the United States, they make up only 26 percent of the IT work force, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Furthermore, fewer women worked in IT in 2008 than in 2000.

The article later discusses about the need to put more effort into convincing women that working with technology can be cool.  This argument and others the article makes for how to get more women involved in IT and computer science is a problem.  I don't know a single geek, whether male or female, that had to be convinced that technology is cool.

Angela Byron: Women in Open Source Video (2007)

Bryan's picture
Submitted by Bryan on

This article was posted by me a couple days ago at Open Source Community. Since my son has to get to swimming lessons, this is about all the time I have for "new stuff". Smile


I think I'm fast becoming an Angie Byron fan. Check out this fantastic video from her speech at the Ontario Linux Fest, Women in Open Source.

Talks about sexual discrimination and gender bias in an organization or community is always a touchy subject. However, Angie does a great job in discussing this important topic. In the talk, she brings a perspective that is not only based by personal observation but also some interesting statistics. Watch the video and let us know what you think. Better yet, if you're impressed with Angie and want to leave her some kind words, you can always leave comments at her site's blog.