Often, the purchase process can take longer for women than for men. As described in my Spiral Path consumer behavior model, women cycle back through the stages of purchasing until they find The Perfect Answer.
For Boomer women, though, the process is shorter and simpler, for two main reasons:
- Like all women, Boomer women ask around and use word of mouth. But now they’ll be asking peers with a greater inventory of experience to draw on. So that will immediately get them farther and faster into the process than then they were younger and asking less experienced peers.
- Boomer women themselves have greater experience with their own decision process. They’ve been there, done that once or many times before, so they know what they like and have an existing framework into which they can quickly integrate new options and considerations. They have more experience with products and services, so they don’t need to loop back and revisit previous stages of the decision path as many times in order to make their decisions.
So, when marketing to women, remember that Boomer women may buy faster and result in quicker profits!