Two very smart women I know who co-own a women’s clothing store in my area just agreed to have me give a talk on local women’s history for their customers. They will offer a discount for the day, and serve refreshments. We will market the event to both of our lists, and everyone wins!
What a terrific model for a joint venture that involves women customers and women’s history!
What about your business? Do you have special approaches to reach women customers? What I described above is one method, but there are so many others!
If you send out regular mailings, can you include women’s history? A “did you know” card with fun facts about local women’s history? Biographical sketches of women from your town?
On your website, can you include a special section for women customers and include something about the history of your industry and its connection to women – followed, of course, by your commitment to women customers today? Can you include a new local women’s history story each month?
If you are unable to host an event at your place of business, can you sponsor or co-host an event somewhere else? You could partner with another business that caters to women, or host a program at your historical society. Find out where the women’s history sites are in your community and plan an event together. Their list will probably include a whole lot of women who are not on your list, and vice versa.
Spend some time looking into your business’s history, your industry’s history, and your local history to find some of these connections, or ask your historical society to help you.
In the case of my friends in the story I opened with, it turns out their business is housed in a building that was the site of a women’s clothing store in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. I have had great fun tracking down that business’s history, including advertisements that show fashion drawings of “female apparel” at the same address as my friends’ store. You better believe they will use these images; they are just lovely. And their customers will love that they have gone to this trouble because the store is located in a very historical community. “The ladies” (their customers) will become even more loyal, I have no doubt!
What can you do to achieve this kind of win – to find the right joint venture for you? Let’s brainstorm!
