One thing I have noticed about insurance and investment ads on TV is that the spokesperson is often a middle aged male. Usually the ads have a person deliver the product information and show the company logo. They are good and classy ads, but they don’t appeal to me very much. As a woman I feel like investing firms do not market to women very much. I think financial firms could gain a lot by effectively marketing to women, and here are some of my thoughts on the topic.

In a way, I think the traditional financial ads show the belief that middle age men control the most money in this world. For the most part that is true, but women are starting to earn more money than ever before and they need to manage it. Usually women love to research for extensive information before they plop down their hard earned money on some investment so pithy ads that says “My company is awesome” do not work as well. I think what appeals more to women are community portals or human representatives. However, in depth content like that costs more to build.

I hate to say this, but women can be more emotional than men and be irrational sometimes. So advertising could take advantage of women’s emotions. For example, I have read a lot of complaints by men who say that their wives forced them into buying a house in the recent years. I have to say that in nine out of ten couples I have met it’s the wife that wants to buy a house. So the entire housing industry sold the idea that “you are buying a home” and many people fell for it. Even now, the ads from the housing industry seem to be targeting women more than men, and they are very effective because they try to emotionally attach people to a few walls and a roof. If the investment industry could be as effective as the housing industry in marketing to women, I am sure they could make quite a bit of money because even though a man could be the breadwinner in the house, it’s the woman that’s in charge of distributing the money.

I think if financial firms took an effort to attract female investors they will not only get more customers, but better customers. A survey from a few years ago which studied 100000 portfolios Women are more tolerant and studied investors and take less risk, and their portfolios grow bigger with patience. If an investment firm gets a female customer they are more likely to get a customer that holds a fund or portfolio for a while, and that means better returns for the company. Women also live longer than men on average, so investment firms should definitely learn to market to all those rich widows.

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