Marketing to Women: Why Most Brands Still Get it Wrong (And What Actually Works)

Every brand should be marketing to women. Even brands whose product isn’t for women. Women make or influence 85% of all consumer purchases.

It’s clear: marketing to women effectively is pretty important.

Women are one of the most powerful consumer groups in the world. Not only do they influence the majority of purchasing decisions, they shape brand perception, and drive word-of-mouth in ways few audiences can match. And yet, much of the marketing aimed at them still feels surface-level, outdated, or simply disconnected.

So, why are brands still get it wrong?

Because often, they’re still approaching women as a segment to target, rather than people to understand.

If brands want to connect with women in a way that actually resonates, performs, and builds long-term loyalty, the approach needs to change.

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Stop marketing to “women”

Let’s start here, because this is where most brands go wrong.

There is no single, unified group called “women” that you can market to.

Women are not a monolith. They are intersectional, diverse, and shaped by a wide range of experiences, culture, age, background, identity, values, and lived realities.

When brands say they are “targeting women,” what they often mean is:

• a vague demographic bucket
• a set of assumptions
• a simplified version of a complex audience

And that’s where relevance starts to break down.

Effective marketing doesn’t begin with “women” as a category. It begins with clarity:

• Which women are you speaking to?
• What matters to them?
• What shapes their decisions?
• What do they expect from brands?

Without that level of specificity, even well-intentioned campaigns risk feeling generic, or worse, inauthentic.

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Why marketing to women still misses the mark

Despite years of conversation around representation and inclusion, many marketing campaigns aimed at women still fall into the same patterns.

Not always in obvious ways. Often it’s more subtle than that. Campaigns that look right on the surface but don’t quite land with their intended audience.

Some of the most common issues sit beneath the surface of marketing strategies and marketing efforts, rooted in how brands define their target market and understand their female audience in the first place.

Relying on stereotypes

Outdated portrayals of women still show up in subtle ways, through messaging, visuals, tone, and assumptions about priorities.

Even now, many marketing campaigns default to a narrow view of women’s interests, behaviours, and purchasing decisions. You see it in advertising that leans too heavily on appearance, or messaging that simplifies what women care about into something easily digestible.

Even when brands believe they are being progressive, they often fall back on familiar patterns. Not because they intend to, but because they haven’t done the deeper work to understand their audience beyond surface-level research.

And this is where marketing to women often breaks down. Because when your understanding is limited, your messaging will be too.

Treating women as a niche

Women are often positioned as a “target audience” rather than a central one.

In reality, women influence the majority of consumer spending globally and play a key role in purchasing decisions across industries, from healthcare decisions to financial planning to everyday consumer purchases.

They are not a niche market. They are the market.

And yet, many businesses still treat marketing to women as a secondary consideration. Something to adapt messaging for, rather than something to build strategy around from the start.

That approach limits the effectiveness of marketing strategies before they’ve even begun.

Because if women are not considered core to your target audience, your marketing efforts will always feel slightly misaligned.

Making decisions without women in the room

This is where things get more structural and where many brands underestimate the impact.

Women make up a large proportion of the marketing industry, yet that representation drops significantly at leadership level. And that gap has real consequences for how marketing campaigns are shaped.

Because campaigns are shaped by people and the decisions they make.

Who signs them off.
Who challenges them.
Who has the authority to say “this doesn’t feel right.”

If those decision-makers don’t reflect the audience, blind spots are inevitable.

And those blind spots often show up in ways that affect brand perception, brand awareness, and ultimately business growth.

Listening at the start but not throughout

Many brands invest in market research at the beginning of a project. They gather insights, analyse data, and build a strategy based on what they believe their female consumers want.

But somewhere between strategy and execution, that understanding gets lost.

As campaigns move through development, feedback loops, and internal approvals, the original insight often becomes diluted. Messaging gets softened. Ideas become less specific. The content of the message shifts to fit internal comfort rather than audience truth.

By the time the campaign goes live, it still aligns with the original plan but it no longer resonates in the same way.

This is one of the biggest gaps in marketing to women today.

Not a lack of research, but a lack of consistency in how that research is applied.

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Women are your most powerful advocates

There’s another layer here that often gets overlooked.

Women are not just consumers. They are some of the most influential drivers of brand success.

They don’t just engage with products. They talk about them. Share them. Recommend them. Build relationships with them.

Women are significantly more likely to:

• recommend brands to others
• influence purchasing decisions within their networks
• build long-term loyalty with brands they trust

This is why women are often referred to as “superconsumers.” Not because they consume more but because of the role they play in shaping consumer behaviour beyond themselves.

When a brand connects with women in a meaningful way, the impact goes far beyond a single transaction. It builds advocacy, strengthens brand awareness, and creates long-term value.

But the reverse is also true.

When brands get it wrong, that disconnect doesn’t stay contained. It spreads just as quickly through conversations, communities, and social media.

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Representation is not enough

Representation has become a central focus in advertising and marketing and rightly so.

But visibility on its own is not the goal.

Including diverse women in campaigns without changing the thinking behind those campaigns can still result in work that feels performative rather than authentic.

Because representation is not just about who appears in the work. It’s about how that work is created.

Who is involved in shaping it.
Whose perspectives are included.
Whether the brand’s values are reflected beyond the campaign itself.

This is where many brands fall short.

They focus on representation as an output rather than building it into the process from the start.

But women are increasingly aware of this. They are looking beyond the surface. They are asking whether brands genuinely understand them or are simply trying to appeal to them.

And that distinction matters.

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What actually works a more effective approach

If the traditional approach to marketing to women is limited, what does a more effective approach look like?

At its core, it’s about shifting from assumption to understanding and from surface-level messaging to deeper alignment between brand, audience, and action.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Start with why

Before asking how to market to women, ask why.

Why is this audience important to your business?
What role do they play in your growth?
What value are you offering them beyond the product itself?

Without clarity here, marketing strategies often become reactive, driven by trends, assumptions, or external pressure rather than genuine understanding.

And when that happens, audiences can feel it.

Get specific about who you’re speaking to

Generalisation is one of the biggest barriers to effective marketing.

The idea of a “female audience” is too broad to be meaningful on its own.

Instead, brands need to think in terms of specific groups of women. Different ages, backgrounds, cultures, interests, and lived experiences.

Because women aren’t just one audience, they are many.

And the more clearly you define who you are speaking to, the more relevant and effective your marketing becomes.

Involve women at every stage

This is where the biggest shift needs to happen.

If you want to create marketing that resonates with women, they need to be involved in the process, not just observed from the outside.

That means involving women in:

• research and insight gathering
• strategy development
• creative execution
• decision-making

And importantly, recognising that this involvement should be paid and valued.

Because lived experience is not just input. It’s expertise.

And when women are genuinely involved in shaping marketing campaigns, the difference is clear.

Listen properly

Listening is not a one-off task.

It’s an ongoing part of the process that requires openness, curiosity, and a willingness to challenge assumptions.

Many marketers believe they are listening because they have data. But data alone doesn’t create understanding.

Real listening means engaging with your audience in a way that allows your perspective to shift. It means being willing to hear what you might not expect and act on it.

Translate insights with care

Having strong insights is one thing. Translating them into effective marketing is another.

This is where many campaigns lose their edge.

Ideas that start with depth become simplified. Messaging becomes more generic. The original intent gets diluted as it moves through internal processes.

To avoid this, brands need strong alignment between strategy and execution. The insight needs to carry through into the creative, the messaging, and the final campaign.

Sense check and test

Before launching any campaign, it’s essential to sense check it with the intended audience.

Does it resonate?
Does it feel authentic?
Does it reflect real experiences?

Testing helps identify gaps that internal teams may miss. It ensures the campaign aligns with the audience it is designed for.

Back it up with real action

Marketing does not exist in isolation.

If a brand’s messaging speaks about empowerment, inclusion, or values, those values need to be reflected across the business.

Women are increasingly conscious of brand behaviour. They look at how companies operate, who they represent, and what they stand for.

And if there is a disconnect between messaging and reality, it affects trust.

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Examples of brands getting it right (and wrong)

Looking at real examples helps bring this to life.

Bodyform

Bodyform has consistently challenged outdated stereotypes in advertising, particularly around periods and women’s health.

By focusing on real experiences rather than idealised versions of womanhood, they have created campaigns that feel both honest and impactful, earning trust and long-term brand recognition.

Dove

Dove has built its brand around body positivity and inclusive representation, consistently featuring real women rather than unrealistic ideals.

More recently, their focus has expanded into sustainability and social responsibility, reinforcing the importance of aligning brand values with action.

This consistency is what has allowed Dove to maintain trust with its audience over time.

HER

Our campaign for HER focused on connecting with queer women in a way that felt authentic and culturally relevant.

Rather than relying on assumptions, the work was grounded in real insight and shaped with the audience in mind throughout the process.

The result was a campaign that resonated strongly and generated significant engagement because it reflected the community it was speaking to.

e.l.f. Beauty

Not every campaign gets it right.

When e.l.f. partnered with Matt Rife (a comedian who had made sexist remarks), the response from their audience was immediate.

It raised important questions around decision-making, brand alignment, and who is involved in shaping campaigns.

Even brands with strong positioning around female empowerment can lose trust quickly when their actions don’t align with their messaging.

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Rethinking what “marketing to women” really means

At this point, it’s worth reframing the original question.

It’s not “how do we market to women?”. It’s “how do we build brands that women genuinely want to engage with?”.

That shift moves the focus away from tactics and towards something more meaningful:

• understanding
• involvement
• alignment
• long-term thinking

Because effective marketing to women is about building the brand experience and story that will resonate with them long after any activation.

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If you’re serious about getting this right

Marketing to women is not a checklist. It’s not a campaign. And it’s not something that can be solved with a single strategy.

It requires clarity, commitment, and a willingness to approach things differently.

If your brand is thinking about how to better connect with women and whether your current approach is actually working, it might be time to look a little deeper.

And when you’re ready to do that, you know where we are. Let’s talk about how you can approach things differently.

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