Selling to affluent women

Where to find affluent women prospects

In this section of our website, we'll focus on selling to affluent women one on one. (If you'd like to know more about selling to affluent women as a consumer group, see our marketing to affluent women section.)  

Note: On this website we'll refer to the mass affluent and affluent simply as affluent, as distinguished from the very wealthy—the nearly 4% of US households earning more than $200,000 in annual income.

For sales teams responsible for prospecting, knowing where to find affluent women is often the first order of business, and while this can vary depending on the type of product or service you're selling, here are several places you'll find affluent women prospects:

• Holding the purse strings at the office.

If you've read our fact sheet about affluent women buyers, you know 67% of affluent women work. Marti Barletta, author of two pioneering books on marketing to women, says women make up the majority of business buyers, working as purchasing managers and making buying decisions on everything from computers to 401(k) plans—and our own experience bears that out.

"At a major consulting firm I've been helping male partners get more confident in marketing multi-million dollar contracts to women," Barletta notes. Such women tend to fall directly into the affluent category thanks in part to management salaries and bonuses.

• Holding the purse strings at her company.

Women are opening businesses at twice the rate of men; three quarters of all firms are either half owned or majority owned by women, employing more than 13 million people.

And while still in the minority, many majority women-owned companies easily exceed the million-dollar mark. Consider the Women Presidents' Organization: to become a WPO member, a woman must head a firm making more than $1 million in revenue for a service business or $2 million for a product business. As of late 2010, the average revenue of its 1,400 member firms was $13 million.

• Attending business association meetings and events.

Women business owners whose firms earn $1 million or more in revenue are more likely to belong to formal business associations and networks than other business owners. (That said, be selective in selecting the associations and networks you'll explore. Not every association is brimming with women business owners in the million-dollar category. In general, for best results, seek woman-owned businesses that employ others and have been in business for some time.)    

You'll also find women executives and managers at local and national trade associations; for instance, if your target market includes human resource departments—where women are in the definite majority overall, outnumbering men by a 2-to-1 margin, and hold 42% of top HR jobs—chances are, there's a local chapter of SHRM, the predominant HR organization, near you.

A word of warning, though: solicitation by attendees and speakers is frowned upon not only by chapter boards but members, who allocate valuable time away from their businesses and families to attend the meetings—and don't expect to spend that valuable time as the subject of a sales pitch. This is the case even when the women are polite enough to ask what you do. Expect to pay for sponsorship if you'd like to speak openly about what your company offers, or better yet, work to build long term relationships with the women in attendance before talking about yourself much if at all.

• Flying the friendly skies.

Given that women make 70% of all travel decisions—business and leisure—in the US, it's no surprise that affluent women can be found sitting next to you on airline flights. The average number of round trips on a commercial airline for affluent women is 6.3; 18% of affluent women usually fly first or business class. So stow your assumptions in the overhead compartment and strike up a conversation with her, whether she's in jeans or a business suit.

• Living in lesser known areas.

If you've been analyzing incomes by zip code, realize government numbers can mislead by leaving out information about passive income and reporting only average income data for a zip code, obscuring an affluent pocket in an otherwise average area.

You may be better off looking for established neighborhoods in excellent school districts, where many of the affluent will renovate or even rebuild to keep their children in good schools—education being a key value for affluent women.

• Keeping in touch via Facebook.

For greatest success, it's best if you've already met the affluent women you can reach via Facebook, but because it's such a promising tool for sales professionals in terms of personally interacting with prospects and keeping yourself top of mind, we're including it in our list… and with social media, it's especially easy for your affluent female fans to recommend you to their friends, netting you new prospects.

Here again you'll need to leave your assumptions at the door! If you've read our fact sheet on affluent women buyers, you know the typical affluent woman is a baby boomer. In 2009 Facebook announced that women 55+ were its fastest growing segment.

But if you've read our report on how to reach affluent women, you also know that affluent women prefer tend to use social media for almost purely social purposes, so keep your posts helpful, informative, relevant… and personal.   

For more information on locating affluent female prospects, including additional statistics and tips, see our expanded report on selling to affluent women.

How to treat affluent women prospects... for best results [ Next page ]

We help companies successfully market to America's most profitable consumer group: women living in households earning $75,000 to $200,000 per year.

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