Is your company "making the cut" for women's decision making process?

Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines estimated that 80% of all trips are planned and booked by women. However, they believe that in a two-person-plus household, travel is typically a joint decision. Representative Mrs. O'Rourke says, "What we surmise is that she spends the time, she gathers the information, then she shares the information with her partner and together they make the joint decision."

I agree that joint decision making is an important factor facing many marketers today, however it is not really a 50-50 joint decision. In reality, the partner does not see everything the woman has researched. In fact, they only see the companies that impressed her and made the cut. Boston Consulting Group, which conducted a study of women in 2008, estimated that women control $4.3 trillion of the $5.9 trillion in US consumer spending - or 73% of household spending. Other studies estimate that figure to be closer to 83%. Yet, in SheSpeaks research, 90% of women say advertisers don't advertise to them.

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