INTRODUCTION Whatever you are selling, from a bar of soap to a limousine, chances are today's new woman is in the picture. Either she buys the product herself or she influences the person who does. When it comes to men's clothing, for instance, a Roper survey showed that women influence 70 per cent of men's clothing purchases. In the office-equipment field it is often necessary for a salesman to spend as much time selling the secretary as the boss. Independent surveys and auto manufacturers both have reported that women influence, at least partially, 75 to 80 per cent of car purchases. And, of course, in their own domain as family purchasing agent for food, beauty aids, drugs, fashions, and the home itself as likely as not, women reign as queens of the family exchequer. Looking ahead to more and more women working at jobs outside the home, and realizing that they are rapidly invading traditional male areas, it is not unrealistic to assume that their influence soon will be felt on an even wider variety of products, even in industrial purchasing. Today's women drive a hard bargain. And with the wealth and opportunity to buy, their ideas, whims, habits, fancies, eccentricities, and intuitions take on new importance to anyone selling to them. When manufacturing a product for today's women, when selling to them person to person, when buying goods for women, and when writing or evaluating advertising for magazines, newspapers, radio, or television that is directed at women, the job can be done more precisely, more effectively, if the appeal is right. The person who really understands what makes the new women of today tick—and buy —can give a product a competitive edge with them by knowing how to design and sell products, guide a sales organization, and write advertising copy directly to the point, with less guessing . . . less hunching . . . less spending. What Makes Women Buy charts this selling course in detail. It discusses the influences, the problems, the desires of today's women. It shows how they think, how their attitudes are changing—what they want from your product, what will interest and appeal to them and why. It collects between covers much of the authoritative material on American women today, from a variety of sources—magazine and newspaper surveys, readership reports, current magazine articles, market and business reports, motivation surveys and reports. It covers up-to-date points of view in psychology, anthropology, sociology, American history, marketing, and advertising—as they pertain to today's new women. But most important What Makes Women Buy is designed to be a practical handbook for all men and women who have women customers—advertisers, manufacturers, copywriters, salesmen, buyers, designers, editors, retailers. At the end of each chapter, specific Feminine Guideposts put the information into easy-to-use form. All the material has been translated into practical selling tools— tools that will work for you, and help you to promote more successful sales to today's women. And although American women today are infinitely more complex than their forebears ever were, these guide-posts point out the way to tap this enormous, lucrative feminine market without so much of the guesswork used in the past—by showing what it actually takes to put women in the buying frame of mind. The following chapters analyze and describe women today— their emotions, their needs, their desires —and their buying habits. This book does not deal with minor individual differences, nor does it attempt to discover an average woman. Rather, the method employed is based on a fundamental principle in modern psychology and sociology: while there is no average woman or man, some groups are more similar than they are dissimilar. The search has been for those similarities in the attitudes and interests of American women that must be understood and evaluated by anyone selling to them today. This characterization of the American women of today does not add up to a nice neat picture. It sometimes seems inconsistent and even contradictory. For just as in each individual some parts of the personality are not in harmony with others, so in the composite American woman there are forces that work at cross purposes. This look at women is primarily for its value in selling. It is not meant to be a study in contrast between male and female. When differences have been pointed out, it is for the purpose of understanding feminine traits—and feminine traits only. So in many cases, things said about women and the factors influencing them might just as well be said of men. But these things are brought out strongly, for they are important factors in why women buy. In considering the economic and social status of women, the emphasis has been on the broad, new middle class. While almost all women can be included in a great many of the conclusions, the special problems of the very low and very high income groups have not been explored deeply. The middle group makes up by far the greatest percentage of the population. For class status is determined by values and attitudes, as well as income. What money is spent for is as important as how much is earned. This broad, new group has also been emphasized because of its great discretionary buying power. It buys the overwhelming percentage of major household appliances, furniture, housewares, automobiles, clothes, food, and drugs produced each year. In order to make this a practical, usable handbook, it has been necessary to generalize and editorialize from facts and observations from many sources. To students and teachers of psychology, sociology, and other related subjects, who are interested in details and minor deviations, it may seem that some points are greatly oversimplified. But to business and sales people, the information here may serve as a guide to deeper understanding of today's new women and their reactions. INFLUENCES ON TODAY'S WOMEN To be an American woman today is to be cast in an exciting, challenging and difficult role—exciting because the sky seems to be the limit in education, work and freedom; challenging because the whole concept of "woman's rights" is still relatively new—scarcely more than fifty years old; and difficult because the new freedom has produced a backwash of unforeseen emotional and psychological problems for emancipated woman. The twentieth century has brought about drastic revisions in America's way of living. A smaller world (rapidly becoming even smaller) has changed American opinions, broadened America's outlook. New inventions and widespread education have sparked violent cultural changes. Wars, medical science, technical progress, woman's fight for equal rights have given modern women in the United States special and different attitudes from their European sisters or their grandmothers of 1900. And more recently, a new velocity in American life—population growth and an unprecedented prosperity— has speeded new economic and social changes, created new needs and desires, and transformed luxuries into necessities. All this gives to the American woman a freer, more exciting, yet infinitely more demanding, more complex life than any woman's before. For example, the increased mobility of mass America on wheels has changed her living and shopping habits. It has helped her develop new skills but has also given her new responsibilities. Laborsaving devices for the home have made her work lighter but have opened up new areas of frustration in problems of mechanical failure, greater demands on her time, lack of satisfaction in personally doing many jobs. Her larger families have meant more children to care for, more physical work, more planning. America's great prosperity and great income have given her money to spend, increased her problems as family shopper. A wider choice of goods gives her a "misery of choice," more decisions to make, new problems in home management. New trends in government and business have involved her in labor, tax forms, self-service, pay checks. The new, informal way of living has made her tasks lighter and easier in some respects, but the security of the formalities or old-fashioned family life is gone. Greater equality, a sameness in the way of living of all classes plus her own individual group pressures have molded her desires into a new and fundamentally different pattern. THIS EBOOK IS 178 PAGES LONG! YOU CAN BET IT IS WORTH EVERY PENNY OF $99.95 OR EVEN $49.95 BUT IN THESE HARD TIMES INFORMATION CAN MAKE MONEY BUT NOT HAVING MUCH MONEY GETS US NOTHING! SO I AM GOING TO DO YOU ONE BETTER! $39.95! YOU WILL MAKE THIS 100 OR EVEN 1,000 TIMES OVER BECAUSE THE WOMEN HAVE THE MONEY! SO IF YOU CAN GET IT FROM THEM SPEND $9.95!

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