7 Ways to Attract More Women Buyers

Almost half of all new-vehicle buyers in 2016—45%—were women. So it seems critical that dealers’ websites cater to this substantial segment of the market. But do they?

Women-Drivers.com’s 2017 US Women’s Car Dealership Report noted that 76.3% of women report their dealer’s website was “helpful or informative”—but what about the other one-quarter of female buyers? How can dealers and marketing executives ensure that their websites are useful for these women, too – and for all their customers, – add value to the dealer’s brand, and make a great first impression?

Dealers need to be ready and waiting to attract—and retain—their women buyers’ loyalty. The #1 website these buyers visit when car buying a car is the dealership’s, followed closely by the manufacturer’s.

Supercharge your site
If they want to make their websites friendlier and more appealing to their female customers, dealers need to better understand women buyers, their online behavior, and their buying habits.

Online research can help dealers do this. For example, comScore Inc., a global leader in measuring the digital world, released a study that illuminates women’s habits online. Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet highlights the following facts about women in the digital world:

• They regularly visit community and lifestyle sites.
• They are online gamers (PlayStation, solitaire, Minecraft).
• Although women tend to watch less video online than men do, they do like YouTube.

Seven Ways to Attract More Women Buyers
These ideas will help update your site to make it more appealing to women buyers:

1. Create a community page and a lifestyle page on your website, and use them to highlight your vehicles within various social and lifestyle settings.
2. Include online games in your social media platforms and link them back to your website, where users can collect prizes.
3. Create “how-to” videos for women and post them on your website and on YouTube. They don’t need to be about how to buy a vehicle: focus instead on the owner experience.
4. Fill your website with lifestyle photos featuring diverse women and families.
5. Create engaging content that highlights the various stages of the vehicle-ownership experience.
6. Create women-centric ads that speak to what matters to women. Differentiate your dealership from the rest of the pack.
7. Highlight current dealer reviews from women, for women.

What else can dealers do?
On top of these seven ideas, there’s a lot more that dealers can do to attract women buyers to their sites, and to their dealerships. Website content really needs to help women buyers make decisions based on facts, so pack sites with information about their vehicles, customer service process, and more. Links to inventory, pricing, finance, air bag recalls, and a service drive coupon or two are important, but not as much as key messaging about how your dealership will support your female customer’s women buying and ownership experiences.