Here Comes Another “Women’s Site”
Even when it comes to the stereotype of silly, emotional, dying-to-connect-with-women-everywhere women (can you tell I’m being facetious?), there has got to be a saturation point for shopping, diet, sex tips, parenting and “lifestyle” content. Pretty please?
With the number of women-focused magazines, television shows, radio shows, blogs and sites increasing - and all clearly scrambling a bit for a loyal audience - you’ve got to wonder. Are there really any women left in the world who desire to, but haven’t yet, found their “community?” I doubt it.
Because of my years in the marketing to women realm, and since you may well see my words posted on such blogs or their affiliated sites*, you might expect more enthusiasm about women’s sites from me. But, my cynicism keeps me expecting our culture to move beyond the need for all these big general “for women” gathering places. Still - as each one launches, it proclaims to understand today’s women better than the other 800 million existing female-focused sites out there (I exaggerate a bit with that number - I hope). As Sylvie Barak put it in an Inquirer.net article about a recent addition to the ranks, Yahoo’s “Shine” :
Also, Shine’s idea of reaching out to the new breed of totally-non stereotypical women involves insightful articles and blogs hailing from such non stereotypical sites as Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Style.com and cooking site Epicurious. Strange, but there’s not a tech site among them.
Shine appears to be a shallow façade of a site, pretending to offer women something new, when it obviously doesn’t. At least other women orientated sites like CafeMom and Glam don’t try to hide their real motives under layers of this season’s hottest pastel lip shades and blemish hiding foundation cream.
Good point, Ms. Barak. If a women-oriented site is going to be stereotypical as far as fashion, diet and astrology content, tell it like it is. Don’t raise expectations about how yours might be the one site that isn’t going to be girly. And, one final thing, before you spend the money on design and editorial, take a second to stop and ask your targeted market if this is something they want/will visit.
Media organizations have a reputation of developing more and more advertising venues that purportedly reach any hot-with-advertisers market segment, while promoting the idea to the public as hugely consumer-driven. But, women can see right through that. It is more likely that they might check out a new site once and then head back to their old favorite. Advertisers will probably not be willing to pay the big bucks for space on any of the newer sites for very long.
So, does research exist that finds women need to see “for women” or “manicure, sex, and fashion tips” in order to think the content is relevant? Alternatively, do men have to see “for men” to realize they want to read a sports magazine? Does a news site have to advertise sports coverage in order to attract a man? (OK, I’ll stop with the questions…)
Men and women go to the sites that deliver information on things that interest them - the more fine tuned the better. Gender may not have a lot to do with it, and neither sex will linger long on sites that throw in a little of everything in order to aggregate consumers according to an advertiser’s hoped-for target.
Take HuffingtonPost.com for example. Arianna Huffington was just covered in the New York Times because of her success with what she co-founded and still guides. Now, is HuffPo “for women” because it is driven by a woman? Is it “for women” because it has an entertainment and living section? No. Instead, a lot of the HuffPo readership, men and women (3.7 million unique visitors strong, according to Nielsen Online, and as mentioned in the NYT piece), would say they came to this site, first and foremost, to read and engage in political debate.
Arianna didn’t have to work to deliver something advertisers would see as “for women” or “for men.” She focused on what she was passionate about and it happens to draw a LOT of readers. For that a wide variety of advertisers must be thankful, and for that an ever-growing readership will continue to stick around.
The last thing women need is another stereotypical “women’s site.” Give women a place to go that is filled with information and commentary on a topic that engages them. Feel free to lay low with the female-specific content and marketing, and men interested in that topic may come along too. Recipes and sex tips are already fully covered elsewhere - believe me.
Bonus link: Diane Mermigas of MediaPost on the topic.
*Full disclosure: In addition to HuffPo and Learned On Women, I also contribute to eBrandmarketing.com, a business-related site published by Glam Media (which is very much women-focused and has a lot of pink on the home page). My eBrandmarketing.com editor has been willing to publish my slightly more cynical views in an effort to give an honest look at varying perspectives.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I quickly clicked through to SHINE because I actually haven’t found my online group yet. And I found exactly what I have found on every other site for women None of the editors or writers are over 30 (with one exception, and she does finance). The stuff on parenting is for Mommies. Not Moms. When your kids are 17, you are a Mom. When will the big THEY get it? We are Moms for life. We don’t quit being Moms when our kids turn 12. We still have questions and it’s not always about what to do if my kid is a teen drug dealer. Some of us have really great teenagers! We’d like to know about how to get our kids a good summer job. I swear, teens are so alien to the planet that I wouldn’t blame them if when they come of age, they locked us all up in our old folks homes and threw away the keys.
I’d love a website that showed families with teenagers in them behaving humanly. I love to talk about how to raise the perfect teenager — clue: start when they are three. I’d love to have really open discussions about sex, drugs and rock and roll with other parents. (Parents always claim to want to know what their kids are doing, but what are you going to say when he/she says “I got sooo drunk at Cindy’s party.” Remember — you wanted to know.) But I can’t find that site. If you look at parenting teens sites the underlying assumption is that you have a problem. Sigh . . .
So Shine, like so many other sites for women, is shining me on . . .
April 8th, 2008 at 11:53 am
See - that’s the thing. I think the women’s sites are copying one another, and feeling like they’ve got some sort of twist - rather than starting from scratch and really basing their decisions on what their women’s segment of choosing is talking about and interested in. Presenting topics without fear/anxiety, i.e. your example of raising teens, or something like “enjoying food more” rather than “how to lose those last 10 pounds we know you have” would be AMAZING! Thanks for the comment, Nora!
April 9th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I perceive part of the problem as being that society still struggles with understanding women and how much roles have changed and emerged. Many people still think June Cleaver when someone says ‘mom’, and ’single woman’ equals Carrie from Sex in the City. Isn’t it pathetic? The same certainly doesn’t hold true for men. Businesses that appreciate women, understand how they differ from men, and position their service with those aspects in mind, thrive. Shine was built for advertisers, not women.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I agree. If many of the sites out there are any indication, we often aren’t given much credit for intelligence and a desire to be informed about issues that concern us, it seems to me.
We launched WomenBloom–yes another women’s site, sorry–in January. It’s aimed at women in mid-life. Goal 1 is to offer intelligent, substantive information and commentary on issues that are of concern to women in that age group. Goal 2 is to highlight the cool things this generation of mid-lifers are doing.
I’m a mid-lifer myself and have talked to many others so I have some idea of what is on our minds.
I’m passionate about what us midlife ladies are up to. I hope this project reflects that…time will tell whether other women feel the same.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I’m a man, but I co-run an e-commerce site whose customers are 97% women. Also, more than 70% of those users are over 45. I generally agree with your comments about being careful not to use one’s social network as a blatant advertising vehicle, but one thing that we regularly experience is that, the older the user, the more she not only responds to but actually desires advertising. We survey our users all the time and, even in this age where telling the story is a much better strategy than the old-fashioned hard-sell, I’m always surprised by the number of our users who cite hard advertising as a very important element in their decision to purchase.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Appreciate the inside info, Oryx. Perhaps there is something very generational about how women feel about advertising on sites? Or, maybe ads are so much a part of our culture that they don’t really drive absolutely everyone crazy. Those who don’t want to see them can very obviously look right over them (in-brain Tivo). Very interesting to ponder.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
That is so very interesting…one of the first things I had a couple of members tell me after we launched WomenBloom was they couldn’t find anything to buy!
The plan was to keep advertising very low key, and very focused but Oryx and my own experience tell me maybe the low key part isn’t as important as I might think with my 40+ demographic.
Hmmm….
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Keep me posted, Allison, on that 40+ demo of yours. I’m in that demo myself, but clearly may be odd gal out as far as my own preferences/experiences (and what I know, anecdotally, of my close friends). Thanks for sharing your experience.