Women Want a Story

Here’s a fascinating article from iMedia Connection on what motivates men and women to purchase things.  The whole thing’s worth a read, but what jumped out to me were these paragraphs that discuss how others’ purchasing decisions impact men and women differently: 

Men are willing to make a purchase once it has been demonstrated that someone else was successful with the same purchase; kind of a, "that worked for Joe, so it'll probably work for me" mentality.

Women posit things differently. It's good to know if something worked for Sally; it's better to know what Sally's motivations were for her purchase. Success in itself isn't meaningful unless the conditions leading to success are the same. (So much for women not being cut out for the sciences!) This can be thought of as, "it may have worked for Sally, but Sally bought it for reason A and I'm interested in reason B, so the same purchase might not work for me."

If you have testimonials on your site, and want both men and women to be impressed, this is important stuff.