So, who’s using it? You guessed it. WOMEN. Eighty percent of Pinterest users are female and they are spending more time on there than Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ combined.

The rapid growth can certainly be attributed somewhat to a higher acceptance of social networks now. But keep in mind, there are thousands of new startups in the social arena. What makes Pinterest different? As noted in an article on Mashable, CEO and co-founder of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann said, “the growth has been organic: People would join, become proud of their collections and show it to their friends.” (what women want)

And according to CNN Tech, Silberman said the site will soon roll out new profile pages that have been redesigned to look “more beautiful” and to display users’ influencers more prominently.

Women are flocking to Pinterest and the infographic below reveals just how powerful it is, but more importantly, the opportunities it offers brands. 

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising,Birmingham, AL. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

But they do, and I hear from them daily.

After many discussions, I have noticed several common mistakes marketers continue to make when attempting to reach the female audience which keeps them from realizing success with social media.

12 Mistakes Male Marketers Continue to Make When Marketing to Women With Social Media

• They are still trying to tell women what they want
• They are not listening to what women are saying
• If they do listen, they are still interpreting from the male perspective
• They are trying to sell before connecting
• They expect immediate results
• They have not defined valid expectations
• They try to find ways around the time required to build relationships
• They assume social media means “Facebook”
• They don’t know how to engage the female
• They open channels with little or no strategy
• They are working from a linear mindset as opposed to a multi-layered process
• Finally, and my favorite – they are looking forward to the recession ending so things can return to normal.

Bottom line, you are not going to stop the control that social media has provided people and you are not going to quieten the female voice. Quite the contrary. They are simply getting louder.

Not “getting it” is no longer an option. If social media is not working for you, try breaking through some of the barriers to reach your market on the other side.

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising,Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

I just watched the recently released documentary titled, Design the New Business. A big thanks, by the way, to BI watercooler for this great find!

Seven months in the making, Design the New Business,  is a collection of interviews with business and design strategists from around the world. In it, they deliberate the role that DESIGN will, or should play, as companies address today’s ever-changing and complex issues.

Want To Market To Women? This Video Is A Must See. 

Interestingly, what you won’t find in it, is the specific mention of women. But, what you will find are creative discussions and propositions that are dead on for effectively marketing to women through “creative design thinking.”

I often tout Apple™ as an example of a brand that has always done an excellent job marketing to women. Steve Jobs did not change the way we “do” things, he changed the way we “feel” about things. Through great design Apple™ appeals to our emotions.  And, I don’t believe it’s by accident that Apple™ is one of the top brands in the world, now worth more than Google and Microsoft combined, with products purchased by both women and men.

Jobs bought into the theory that uncompromised design yields value to business – long ago. For that matter, he may well have conceived it. At the very least, he has most prominently carried it out through every aspect of Apple’s business model from product development to advertising to the retail stores.

The New iPad

Throughout the entire recession, Apple™ has never succumbed to discounts, but instead continued to introduce beautifully designed products at premium prices.

So, while I don’t view design being considered in all areas of business as a “new” concept, I am more than encouraged to see international corporations discussing the implementation of “creative design thinking” into their business models.

This level of research, interpretation and emotion will get them that much closer to listening to and responding to the female audience, ultimately leading to increased revenues.

So, How Did We Get Here?

That is, why do we have to completely rethink linear business models that have been effectual in the past? I would suggest three primary causes for the multifaceted challenges that businesses face today.

1. Web 2.0 – advancements in the Internet that have allowed for two-way conversation, giving individuals an incredibly loud voice through social networking sites that continue to explode.
2. Female consumer – controlling or influencing 85% of all consumer brands, companies simply don’t know what to do with her and her new found voice.
3. Economy – a recession of historical proportions that has lasted longer than anyone could have estimated leaving many industries unstable at best.

And, How Can Design Help? 

I purposely listed the economy last as a contributing factor because although the recession has certainly been devastating for business, it is expected that the market will eventually rebound.

But the new technologies within the digital world, such as social media, that have transformed and even eliminated types of businesses, are here to stay. And the female who has attained power  as a purchaser and wealth manager simply continues to strengthen.

So, even as the economy recovers, companies are still faced with the power that social media has bestowed upon people and more specifically, women. These are complex challenges, requiring non-traditional solutions.

These are the kinds of problems you cannot mange your way out of, you can only design your way out of them ~ Marty Neumeier, Director of Transformation, Liquid Agnecy

The design process is congruent with thinking like women. Such as, exploring all possibilities until discovering the perfect answer. Great design ignites an emotional state necessary to move shoppers to consumers. And if executed correctly, as we have seen with Apple,™ the men will bite too.

The Top 6 Reasons That Businesses Must Embrace The Design Process To Effectively Market To Women.

I encourage you to take 40 minutes to view the film in its entirety, but have extracted a few of the conversations as noted below.

1) PUSH MARKETING IS OVER

Brands can no longer just tell women what they want. Businesses must think creatively to gain the female’s trust through relationships and engagement.

I see a changing attitude towards companies in general. I have to say I look at where progressive movements are happening and there is, I’d almost say, there’s a bit of distrust when it comes to companies as organizations. It’s about credibility. It’s about being authentic. So, companies have a challenge to stay relevant in that mindset. You have to be very much aware of that type of mindset and come up with suggestions and solutions to provide value in that context. In traditional marketing speak, I think the day of push marketing is definitely over.

If you want to stay relevant, you have to be in the places where good conversations, where interactions between people is actually happening, where changes in interaction can be observed. It requires far more openness because the whole design trajectory is not as linear as it used to be. You can’t predict upfront what the end result is going to be. That is the new challenge.
Willem Boijens, Head of Research and Development, Océ

2) COMPANIES MUST LISTEN AND ADAPT

The female consumer is telling you what she wants. Businesses must think creatively to listen and interpret correctly to give it to her.

We have very close relationships with our clients and as a result we have grown to be quite adaptive. For example, we used to sell printers. Well, that’s not what they were asking for, so we started to sell prints, but that is not what they were asking for as well. So we started to give them the people who take care of their prints.

You can now go to the University of Amsterdam and see that we have a complete site of OcA, which takes care of the making and distribution of the readers that students are using. We got there by being adaptive.
Guido Stompff, Senior Product Designer, Océ

3) CONSUMERS HAVE SPECIFIC NEEDS AND LIFSTYLES

All women are not the same. Businesses must think creatively to no longer focus on her age, but instead her lifestage.

The car [Volkswagen] kind of became the symbol of a generation. But nowadays you see that more people are about having much more specific needs or lifestyles. You basically have many more different kinds of streams than you had previously. You have more and more people that are not alike anymore.”
Benjamin Schulz, Service Innovation, Volkswagen Group

We define design as something that has impact on business. We don’t look at market segments, but really try to find more patterns among several quite diverse people.”
Lukas Golyszny, Service Innovation, Volkswagen Group

4) WHAT GOT YOU THERE, WON’T GET YOU THERE

Traditional forms of reaching and connecting with women are not coming back. Business must think creatively to find and connect with her.

Big companies grow up usually with a business model that made them big. Now what is happening in a lot of industries is that those business models are expiring. The big mistake we’re making in large companies is we’re trying to use the same mindset that we applied to create our business, to create new business.”
Alexander Osterwalder, Co-Author, Business Model Generation

5) PEOPLE ARE IN CONTROL

Translation: Women are in control. Businesses must think creatively to develop relations and brand loyalty with her.

There’s been a big shift between the power to the brands to the power to the people. People today develop their own stories and publish them. The people are in control at the moment and that’s a big difference after the past few decades.

We are not in looking at a Return on Investment in a traditional way of value of money, but a Return of Investment in brand loyalty and in real connections with the audience.
Arno Wolterman, Managing Partner, Design Director, IN10

6) “SERVICE” DESIGN IS RAPIDLY BECOMING THE NEW “PRODUCT” DESIGN

Women have high expectations. Businesses must think creatively to better understand her needs and motivations to produce more user-friendly, competitive and relevant products.

The world is changing. Products and things have become all interconnected and people expect things to be interconnected. It’s not a standalone product anymore. Service design is an emerging competence that we all need to learn quicker and faster.

If you come to Philips Design five years from now, half of what we now call the product design effort is going to be reflected in at least half as much service design.
Ton Borshoom, Senior Director for New Business Development, Philips Design

The Design The New Business project was initiated and produced by Erik Roscam Abbing of the design thinking consultancy Zilver innovation and 6 students from all over the world, studying strategic design at the Delft University of Technology.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising,Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

And since women rule the Internet, marketers would be wise to take heed. Are you connecting with women online?

Infographic by the social media marketing team @ROI_Media

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising,Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Apple on the other hand offered equal functionality yet with simplicity and clean sleek design. I admit I am biased as I have always been an Apple person, but as I have played around with Google Plus, I am feeling the same differentiating factors. Google+ is simple  and smoother in design. Good friend, Ayesha Mathews-Wadhwa, recently shared a comment referring to the Aspen Ideas Festival:

Design is changing the way we talk to each other.

So true! And I believe Facebook is about to find that out. Facebook is functional and meets a need. But by incorporating thoughtful and logical design, Google+ takes the social experience to a different level.

So who wins? The consumer. I doubt Facebook is going away, but much like Microsoft, they are no longer the only ones playing and will have to step it up. Good competition means choices and ultimately better products for consumers. Google has been trying to get into the social space for quite awhile with little success. But with Google+, I think they have finally created not only something to compete with Facebook (and yes, Twitter,) but something that might even cause a switch.

For example, take a look at Chris Brogan’s (social media extraordinaire) new profile picture on Facebook. I was a bit amused, but I’m guessing Mark Zuckerberg did not feel the same.

What does all of this have to do with marketing to women? Everything. Women want to share, connect and build relationships. And Facebook has met that need. But they also want simple, clean and sleek. And it appears that Google+ has been listening.

As marketers, you need to know social is not a fad or a trend. It is now a way of life and will simply continue to be improved upon – attracting even more women!

Are you prepared to connect with the female market?

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

As if “good content” was not already becoming increasingly important in separating your site on the web, Google has just launched their +1 product for experimentation. In hopes of competing with Facebook’s “like” button, Google’s +1 will allow users to recommend sites and links to their friends and family.

For now, Google says the amount of +1’s a link attains will not impact the search ranking, but according to Google rep, Jim Prosser, during an interview with Mashable, “that is something Google is “very interested” in incorporating in some form at some point.”

When coupled with Google’s recent algorithm changes to reward “good content,” increasing search rankings for the number of recommendations  places even greater pressure on companies to listen to their consumer when developing products and advertising. For now, just being recommended within someone’s circle of friends and family will be huge.

For marketing to the female consumer, it becomes even more vital to make sure you are delivering messages that she connects with, approves of and is willing to not only share, but endorse.

This begs the question.

Do you understand the female customer pertaining to her needs and buying behavior? There is no way to get her to “share” if you don’t connect with her in the first place.

As a side note, for me, “+1” does not communicate what they are trying to say. This makes it a little confusing right out of the gate. But, if it catches on, (and I am guessing it will)  +1  provides consumers one more level of control, forcing companies and marketers  to be even more accountable. For marketing to women, you cannot afford to ignore the impact this will have.

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

This is a GREAT article and chock full of statistics supporting the headline, some of which I have highlighted below. Aileen also made suggestions and asked some very poignant questions.

• More female users will likely help your company grow faster.
• Take a look at your product, your marketing, your customer base.  Maybe you would benefit from having a larger base of female customers.
• If so, what would you change to make your product/service more attractive to female customers?
• Do you do enough product and user interface testing with female users?
• Have you figured out how to truly unleash the shopping and social power of women?
• Take a look at your team.  Do you have women in key positions?
• If you’re planning on targeting female customers, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to have great women on your team.

The data is fresh and new yet continues to affirm there are beneficial rewards for companies that appeal to and connect with women effectively online. And Aileen’s thoughts are spot on.

So, why did this article strike such a competitive nerve with several men? (comments)

Did they miss the point? I think so. The findings overwhelmingly remind us that women are spending more and more time online. And those who develop products as well as advertise to meet her needs are going to swiftly move ahead.

As a male marketer or male business owner who needs to reach the female audience, it would be wise to view findings that reveal the power of the female consumer as opportunity, not offensive.

Does this mean you are going to benefit from listening to the female audience through the ears of  experienced female marketer? More than likely, yes. Because even if you don’t, someone else will.

A few of the findings:

• Comscore, Nielsen, MediaMetrix and Quantcast studies all show women are the driving force of the most important net trend of the decade, the social web.
• Comscore says women are the majority of users of social networking sites and spend 30% more time on these sites than men;
• According to Nielsen. mobile social network usage is 55% female
• Brian Solis’s analysis shows females are the majority of visitors on the following sites:
  1. Twitter
  2. Facebook
  3. Deli.ci.ous
  4. Docstoc
  5. Flickr
  6. Myspace
  7. Ning
  8. Upcoming.org
  9. uStream
  10. Classmates.com
  11. Bebo
  12. Yelp
  13. The one site Brian notes where males are greater than females is Digg. (Didn’t I just read where founder, Kevin Rose resigned as CEO and that Digg is not doing well?)

• More women use Twitter according to bloggers Dan Zarella and Darmesh Shaw’s analyses.
• In e-commerce, female purchasing power is also pretty clear. Sites like those listed below are all driven by a majority of female customers.
• Zappos (>$1 billion in revenue last year)
  Groupon ($760m last year)
  Gilt Groupe ($500m projected revenue this year)
  Etsy (over $300m in GMV last year)
  Diapers ($300m estimated revenue last year)
• Further, according to Gilt Groupe, women are 70% of the customer base and they drive 74% of revenue.
• And 77% of Groupon’s customers are female according to their site.
• There is an exciting new crop of e-commerce companies building real revenue and real community, really fast, by purposefully harnessing the power of female consumers.  One Kings Lane, Plum District, Stella & Dot, Rent the Runway, Modcloth, BirchBox, Shoedazzle, Zazzle, Callaway Digital Arts, and Shopkick are just a few examples of companies leveraging “girl power.”  The majority of these companies were also founded by women.
• Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook said:
  1. Women are not only the majority of its users, but drive 62% of activity in terms of messages, updates and comments, and 71% of the daily fan activity.
  2. Women have 8% more Facebook friends on average than men, and spend more time on the site.
  3. Women played a key role in the early days by adopting three core activities—posting to walls, adding photos and joining groups—at a much higher rate than males.

For more insight and findings, view the article in it’s entirety here.

Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

According to Lauren Zalaznick, President of NBC Universal’s Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, “Women talk about brands incessantly — about 92 times in the course of a week and research shows that 96% of women will recommend a product to a friend if she likes it.”

But how does this translate to the bottom line? Studies conducted by The Keller Faye Group, word of mouth specialists, reveal that 62% of women felt what they heard from others was credible and believable, and 51% said they would purchase something based on a conversation.

Guys, that is not just a whole lot of talk.

To better understand the impact that this data has on brands when merged with online marketing efforts, Women at NBCU have recently unveiled a Brand Power Index. This comprehensive monthly report analyzes women’s word of mouth behavior for 500 companies based on three layers of information:

1)    online search data from ComScore
2)    social media buzz data from New Media Strategies
3)    person-to-person conversations tracked by the Keller Faye Group

The first monthly report released in late September revealed the top 25 brands that are most important to women. A few of the interesting highlights reveal:

Three of the seven product categories represented in the top 25 brands are traditionally thought of as male-dominated areas.
• technology
• automotive
• finance

Brands that leveraged social media for promotions were some of the biggest movers in their standings from July to August. For example, Gap, which moved from #44 to #17

Brands participating in “cause” initiatives were among the biggest gainers for the month of August. For example, Olive Garden with its “Pasta for Pennies” campaign moved from #145 to #92.

Bottom line: When women talk, other women listen – and buy.

Top 25 Brands most important to Women in August 2010:

1. Wal-Mart
2. Target
3. Verizon
4. EBay
5. AT&T
6. Coca-Cola
7. Bank of America
8. Ford
9. Amazon.com
10. Pepsi
11. McDonalds
12. Sprint
13. Dell Computers
14. HP
15. Dish Network
16. Comcast
17. Gap
18. Toyota
19. Sears
20. Netflix
21. Kohl’s
22. iPhone
23. Microsoft
24. Wells Fargo
25. Home Depot

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Let’s take a look at three factors individually and then how they effectively converge to perpetually market your brand.

• Women’s Wants and Needs
• Online Social Channels
• The Buying Process

Women’s Wants and Needs
Women are responsible for 85% of all brand purchases. So what does this mean during tough economic and recessionary times? According to Women Want More, even though they are incredibly stressed, overburdened, out of balance and dissatisfied, they still want more. But more of what? Your products and services? No, not really.

What gets her attention is family, health, security, friends and lovers; learning and education; work and career; helping others and giving back. This translates to needs for:

Online Social Channels
Women are going online daily via channels to have a voice, attain advice, research, check on friends and family, make connections, collaborate and share.

And today she is meeting her needs and wants that are mentioned above through online social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, MySpace, Female Forum, wikis, etc. The chart below, appropriately titled The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas, displays many of the channels available as of just a few months ago and the applications continue to grow rapidly.

Are you beginning to see the how nicely women’s needs interface with the benefits of online social networks? This is why they are spending more and more time online. Unlike men who mainly use the Internet to just make a transaction, women are there to make connections. But do not be misled by thinking this has nothing to do with the buying process.

The Buying Process
So, let’s look at the stages of the buying process, according to Marti Barletta, CEO of Trendsight. When men and women buy as partners, women control at least four out of five stages of the purchasing process.

1. Kick-off  – women     2. Research – women     3. Purchase  – men
4. Ownership – women     5. Word-of-mouth – women

And further, even though men are present and appear in control during the purchasing stage when they pull out the credit card or sign the contract, they are not really in control of that stage either – they just think they are. A lot happens way before then that actually determines the decision of what is bought.

So what happens? The other four stages. The decision to buy something, gathering of information, considering past purchases and collaborating with others.

Do these stages sound familiar? They mirror a woman’s basic needs, what she’s doing online, and how she conducts her life. This is how she thinks–Everyday. All day.

Women, networks and buying converge to create perpetual marketing
Participating in online social networks allows you to communicate, connect and build relationships throughout ALL of the stages of the buying process continuously.

If you are trying to capture her attention simply during the purchase stage, your competition will not only be getting in front of women way before you do, they will be building relationships with her. This is especially true today as everyone is so focused on price. But keep in mind, price is an obstacle, not a solution. Unless you are willing to give up your profit, you’d be wise to have a better strategy than price alone.

So, understand her needs, connect with her online as she is fulfilling them and you will be there for her when she is ready to buy. You will not only build your brand perpetually, but organically as well. You will constantly build her trust so when she is ready to buy, she will buy from you.

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email

Jody DeVere, who I met on Twitter and got to know even better at the 2009 Marketing to Women Conference in Chicago, created www.AskPatty.com, a safe environment for women to get automotive advice tailored to their needs. She’s been following California’s first lady too. In fact, Jody was invited to be on the panel of a live blogger podcast for the online launch of A Woman’s Nation. It’s a privilege to host her as a guest blogger.

Guest Blogger: Jody DeVere,  CEO and President of AskPatty.com

As a She-Conomy reader, I’m sure you know that women control 85 percent of all brand purchase decisions. Believe it or not, that number holds true when it comes to cars.

Women influence more than 85 percent of all automotive sales in U.S. households.

Beyond the initial purchase of a vehicle, women comprise 50-65 percent of the customer base at service centers and buy 60 percent of all passenger tires. According to the Yankelovich Monitor, even though females are the majority of the market, 74 percent say they feel misunderstood by automotive marketers.

Bottom line: women say the experience of visiting an automotive retailer is akin to having a tooth pulled. I’m convinced this is a result of the disproportionately low number of females who work in the auto industry.

For example, the promotion of Susan Docherty to General Motors’ top U.S. sales position last week marks the first time a woman has held that position in the automaker’s 101-year history. Docherty’s promotion means she will become the first and only woman on CEO Fritz Henderson’s newly formed nine-person executive committee. Susan is now the highest ranked woman working at an automaker. Congratulations, Susan! (It’s about time, GM!)

Although this is a reason to celebrate, Susan is only one of the 13 percent of women top executives in the auto industry. That statistic stands in staunch contrast to findings on overall employment listed in the Shriver report. “For the first time in our history, half of all U.S. workers are women. Mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families,” it states. So why are there so few females in leadership positions?

Unfortunately, in the past five years I have witnessed several top automaker executive women leave for non-automotive industries.

To combat their low representation, women’s automotive associations and organizations have sprung up or grown tremendously. Scholarships to fund programs for women seeking automotive careers in various roles are growing. Still, less than 1 percent of all National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence certified technicians are women. In new car dealerships, women are about 20 percent of the overall employee count and only 7 percent are working in front-line management, sales or service advisor positions. Less than 7 percent of new car dealerships are woman-owned and operated.

Automotive retailers frequently ask me how they can find and hire more women.
They tell me women just aren’t applying for the positions and they want to hire more females. The answer is simple. It starts with creating a culture where women customers and potential employees feel safe and comfortable. Offering not only full time employment but flexible work place policies such as part time, work-at-home, team selling, job sharing for everyone not just women will increase your odds of hiring more women. After all, work/life balance is an issue for everyone.

To become an “Auto Industry Women’s Nation,” the high percentage of men at the helm need to grasp that women consumers hold the automotive purse strings. They need to work to create a culture that embraces female employees, create an environment where women feel comfortable spending their dollars and reach them with advertising campaigns that are “spot on.”

I strongly recommend automotive retailers address their female audience or lose market share to competitors who are speaking to the rapidly changing landscape and purchasing power of women. ~ Jody DeVere

Thank you so much Jody for your  helpful insight into these automotive related issues. And just to recap, I have highlighted several of the significant statistics below.

Female purchasers in the car industry:

• Women influence more than 85 percent of all automotive sales in U.S. households
• Women comprise 50-65 percent of the customer base at service centers
• Women buy 60 percent of all passenger tires
• 74 percent of women say they feel misunderstood by automotive marketers

Female employment:

• For the first time in history, half of all U.S. workers are women
• Only 13 percent of top executives in the auto industry are women
• Less than 1 percent of all National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence certified technicians are women
• In new car dealerships, women account for about 20 percent of the overall employee count
• Only 7 percent of those working in front-line management, sales or service advisor positions are women
• Less than 7 percent of new car dealerships are woman-owned and operated

Data Sources: •M2W Fast Facts: http://m2w.biz/fast_facts.php •Road & Travel Female Buyer Study: http://www.roadandtravel.com/company/marketing/femaledemo.html •National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence http://www.ase.com/ •National Automobile Dealers Association http://www.nada.org/Publications/NADADATA/ •National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence http://www.ase.com/ •Tire Review Magazine http://tirereview.com/ •Forbes Auto ‘Most Influential Women in the Auto Industry’ http://www.askpatty.com/page.php?ID=1701Title=AskPatty

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Stephanie Holland is President and Executive Creative Director for Holland + Holland Advertising, Birmingham, Alabama. Working in an industry that is dominated by men, she is one of only 3% of the female creative directors in the country. Stephanie works mostly with male advertisers, helping them successfully market to women. Subscribe to She-conomy by Email