Women, do you find yourself visiting hardware stores more often? Do you find the mere mention of a DIH (do-it-herself) seminar or TV show more stimulating than a chocolate bar? Did you ask for a jigsaw - and I mean jigsaw as in sawing boards not as in jigsaw puzzle - for your birthday? Do you realize that you've become part of a marketing strategy because of your natural proclivity to hammer a nail, only in a much more detailed fashion than men?

If you pay attention to Martha Barletta, author of "Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market Segment," and chief executive of the TrendSight Group, a marketing consulting firm based in the Chicago area, you know why, how, and if hardware stores target women for their current customer base. You know, also, that Barletta commands current strategies on marketing geared toward women in several other businesses. While you may not appreciate becoming part of a corporate target, you might appreciate Barletta's information. The education she dishes out can help all women become more aware of their status in the marketplace and, additionally, can help women target new prospects in the stock market.

I admit I felt ambivalent when I first encountered Ms. Barletta because, after many years in the marketing industry, I thought I recognized a hyped-up promo. However, after reading several interviews with this woman in various media, my conclusion is that Barletta knows her stuff. While she initially seems to be selling women out in a cookie-cutter gender format, she really shows men - especially CEOs - how naive they are about women's behavior patterns. Even married men often forget that women in business don't lose the same traits they use at home, including the ability to influence 4/5 of the purchasing decisions made by couples.

One little snippet of an interview shows Barletta's comprehension of women's financial power:

"Not only do women have a lot of money of their own now. Add to that the fact that baby boomers are going to be inheriting from their high-saving parents in the next couple of decades. Then, after that, the baby boomer women will be inheriting from their husbands. So you've got the combined wealth of two generations, and two sides of the family in this widow's wallet. That's a huge amount of money. The financial services companies are aware of that."

Read on to find out why and how some businesses are losing out on this picture. You may find yourself eliminating a few ticker symbols from your prospective portfolio, because unwise marketing practices often lead to a fall in sales, which may eventually lead to a fall in the stock market if the company is publicly owned. How will they ever backtrack and catch up to what Martha Barletta knows?

On the other hand, a business can tip its hand too heavily toward women. As if in rebuttal to her own statement on financial services savvy above, Barletta states, "Special women's investment programs also run the risk of being condescending to their target audience." She continues:

''One of the mistakes companies make is painting the brand pink. The first inclination is for a company to say, 'We understand your special needs.' Women don't want to hear that. They want to be taken seriously.''

The snippet above was taken from an article about women and investing, a great piece for any woman of any age to read. In fact, just plug Martha Barletta's name into a search engine and you'll come up with a wide variety of interesting topics to read this evening.

However - and you knew I'd come to this - there is a fine line between touting women as intelligent, capable, and autonomous and pushing them over the edge into a superwoman role that's impossible to fill. Or, in some cases, a position that's unwanted and largely sexist. For instance, in one interview on the hardware store marketing ploy, one woman states that it makes her feel "sexy" to be able to install a basketball net. Excuse me? Do men feel sexy when they install basketball nets? Why would a journalist even include that remark, or an editor allow that remark to reach publication? What WAS the name of that publishing company?

Remarks like these should set off alarms, especially when the article is about marketing and when the author names several corporate stores in the process. It takes practice to note when journalists or other individuals use sexist remarks. And, in a society where women accept less money for the same amount of work that a man does (see last week's article), we need to practice noticing these remarks more often. After all, if we've managed to change the face of hardware stores with our ability to take care of ourselves, then we can also support those businesses that recognize and respect women.

Yes, Martha Barletta is for real, and so are her marketing strategies. While women may not enjoy becoming part of a target market, we might applaud Martha's efforts. After all, not many women dare to teach business owners about women's importance in the financial world and to the corporate marketplace. If we back up her work with our portfolio power, we could make changes together.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin