Sian Sutherland already said it: the majority of consumers are women, but now marketeers have realised it too. Women are a real target group, a niche, an underserved market group. Independent consumer trends firm Trendwatching calls marketing to women by companies "Female Fever." The trendwatching firm has recently reported on many examples of where companies had created women-specific products or engaged in women-specific branding.

Shespeaks.com is an online example of women specific marketing. The company, founded by female entrepreneur Aliza Freud, a former American Express Marketing Executive, has recognised the immense spending power of women (they claim women are responsible for more than $5 trillion dollars of spending every year) and has set up a site through which women can test-drive new products. The idea is that when users sign up, they complete a questionnaire about their interests, passions, likes, dislikes, hobbies and so on. SheSpeaks then selects a product that matches these preferences and women receive the product within a few weeks to test it.
Products are free (and members are not obliged to purchase other products or pay for membership) but testers are asked to provide feedback online. Shespeaks also has a discussion boards, so women get to talk with other women who are testing the same product or service and share their thoughts. SheSpeaks then passes that information on to the companies producing the item, service or content so they can adapt it to women's demands. After the test is over, members are told how the input has impacted the product before it goes to market, keeping them in the loop.

The firm only works in the US right now, with over 50.000 members in May of this year, but Freud told marketresearchworld that there is high demand from other English-speaking countries including the UK, Canada and South Africa. So for all entrepreunerial marketeers out there- maybe this is an idea for you?