Are we doing enough to engage female buyers?
It’s fair to say that the automotive sector has traditionally been viewed as a male dominated sector, whether that be in terms of a sector for employment or the target consumer audience. But this male dominance only served to alienate a huge sector of the market. Females.
You only need to look at some adverts from the past (and some not so long ago!) to see why females where far from engaged from the automotive sector.
Times have very much changed since these cringeworthy adverts were put to press but the question remains, are we doing enough to engage female buyers?
Where are we as an industry?
Females represent a huge proportion of the car buying public with over 19 million women holding a driving license. This number continues to grow and at a faster rate than men.
In fact, 41% of all privately owned vehicles are owned by women. That’s a 17% increase in the last ten years compared to just a 9% increase in men over the same period.
The female audience then is growing rapidly and has never been more important.
But despite this, when it comes to the industry itself women are massively underrepresented with only 20% of the workforce being female and this drops to below 10% at an executive level.
What are women’s perceptions of the car buying process?
With women so underrepresented within our industry it is perhaps no surprise that they perceive the car buying experience to still be tailored towards a male audience. Women are still put off by overly masculine car adverts and feel that the dealership environment remains masculine and uninviting to the average female buyer.
It’s for these reasons that women are more likely to dislike the car buying process in, with 50% of women stating that they dislike most or all the process, compared to just 30% of men and this has led to more women being less likely to trust car brands and retailers.
Whilst the buying process is far from appealing to women, the product certainly is with our analysis of over 156,500 car owners revealing that, when asked to rate how much they “love their car”, women scored their love for their car higher than men.
It’s therefore the process not the product that is alienating women.
What can you do?
It’s clear then that we as an industry still have work to do to engage female buyers and there are plenty of easy ways this can be done.
Women’s perceptions of dealerships have led them to embrace online retailing with 44% of female consumers stating that they would consider buying a car online. This rises significantly to 70% when concept is explained. This is one area where retailers can engage female buyers, with test drives, dealer trust, dealer reviews and virtual tours being essential in supporting female consumers to feel comfortable buying online and retailers being able to offer buyers throughout the process.
But the above can only be successful if you communicate with female buyers in a way that resonates with them and makes them feel the car buying process is tailored to them.
Our Editorial Director Erin Baker highlights the need to communicate with women in a way that resonates with them. She points to our car buyer research which shows that, compared to men, women are less likely to talk about performance and more about comfort, ride, safety, and reliability. Our research also tells us that women use more expressive and emotional language when talking about their car as you can see in some comments from female car owners about why they chose their car.
Communication then must form the core of your approach to engaging with female buyers, but Erin has also identified five key steps you need to take to ensure that you are effectively communicating with women:
Fill the empathy gap – Find the women in your organisation and skill them up to be your spokespeople and represent the views of female buyers in your organisation.
Don’t be afraid to make the interior the best part of the story – women want to know how comfy the car is what the infotainment is like, not just the exterior features are so often the focus.
Talk about sustainability & connectivity – we know from our research that these are areas female buyers are particularly interested in so make it front and centre.
Drop the jargon – make sure you’re communicating in a clear, jargon free, manner that makes the ownership experience easy to understand for all buyers, male or female
Don’t wait for women to come to you, get to where they are – target female focussed media and social channels to engage with the audience even when they’re not in market
You can find out more in our latest on demand webinar featuring Erin Baker > Click here to watch now