Selling to Men or Rather Their Fears

It’s a well known fact that women rule the check book. Any marketer knows that he or she will be selling to women. Really smart companies actually hire women to do this. But there are the occasionally sales that are directed by men. And marketers should be aware. For instance, rarely is it that a woman will purchase a pickup truck or motorcycle. A fly rod? Forget about it. These are manly purchases. So what’s guiding their decision? Fear.

John Travolta in Saturday Night image not available.
See credit at end of article.

Men more often than not purchase stuff for one of two reasons, to impress their fellow Y chromosome bearing buds and to attract the double XX chromosomes. They want to look stronger, sexier, richer and whatever else makes them look alpha. The fear is not looking alpha. There’s where the marketing should focus. Rarely does a man say, “I want that ‘cause it makes me look so damned alpha”. What he will nearly always do is rule out a purchase because it might make him look less than alpha or down right girly. He’ll even state this in so many words.

So how does one market to the alpha’s fear? First, avoid playing to the alpha attributes of your product. You don’t want to be too obvious. Yeah I know there’s the really obvious Old Spice guy approach to selling to manly men. Sales in my house, in fact, have gone through the roof. But I have a wife and four daughters. And they’re buying and wearing the stuff, not me. This was a woman’s purchase. When selling male generated sales, where the man is the decision maker, play to the fear.

Using pickup trucks as an example, position the truck alongside a less manly vehicle and let the comparison do the talking. If you’re really aggressive, have your vehicle hitched to the competitors and drag it across a field. Just make sure your vehicle can actually do that. “Cause they’re gonna push, or in this case, pull right back. Men like that kind of competition. Again, make sure you can win that dangerous game.

 But what about the female influencers. Not so much of an issue here. You just have to allay that male fear again. If you can convince them that a chick is gonna dig the truck or the guy in the truck, you’re in. Again, positioning the other guys as a less than manly purchase will work. Picture a guy, let's call him Ken, in his Alfa Romeo (and skinny jeans) trying to pull a gal’s car out of a muddy ditch. Of course he can’t. But the guy in the truck shows up, let's call him GI Joe, (in boot cut denim) and walks that baby right out of the ditch. Your not selling a truck to this guy, you’re making him look so much more alpha than the guy in the Alfa.

 I love Alfa’s by the way. But I’m already married. Ciao Bella!

 Image from wikipedia page 2006-08-30 03:55 Dineshkannambadi 1776×948 (724928 bytes) Photograph taken by self (Dineshkannambadi) in July 2003 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paonroue.JPG