How to advertise to working women

The useful thing to know about advertising to working women is not a demographic, it is a timetable. This is an audience with a second shift waiting at home, which leaves three reliable windows: the commute, the lunch break, and the half hour after the house goes quiet at night. Almost every campaign that underperforms here is running in the wrong hours and asking for a phone call the person cannot take. Buy the windows, make the response possible in writing, and drop the creative shortcuts that this audience has been hearing for twenty years.

The three windows

Seven thirty to nine thirty in the morning, on the metro, in the cab, on the bus, or driving. Audio and outdoor work here. Nothing that needs typing does.

Twelve thirty to two, at the desk or in the food court. Short browsing, a saved item, a share to a friend.

Nine thirty at night onwards. This is the window that matters. It is when the comparison happens, the reviews get read, the cart gets filled, and the order goes in. A message sent at eleven at night gets read; a call at eleven does not.

Weekends are not one block. Saturday morning is chores and errands, Sunday evening is the one reliably unhurried stretch in the week.

Make the response possible

The commonest failure in this category is a campaign that works and a response mechanism that does not. A form promising a callback within 24 hours sends a salesperson to ring at half past two in the afternoon, during a meeting, from an unknown number. Nobody answers, the lead is marked dead, and the campaign gets blamed.

Offer three things instead. A WhatsApp reply, so the conversation happens in writing at her convenience. A chosen call slot rather than an assumed one. And a price on the page, so the call is not required at all.

Nobody is at home between nine and seven

This is the constraint that quietly kills more orders in this audience than any creative decision. The delivery is attempted at two in the afternoon and fails. The technician is given a slot of ten to one. The gate will not let a parcel in without a resident. The measurement visit for a sofa or a wardrobe is offered only on weekdays.

Fix that and the campaign works better without a rupee more spent. Office delivery. A slot she chooses, including after seven and on Sunday. Collection from a store. A locker or a neighbour option written into the checkout rather than left to the rider.

Safety belongs in the same conversation. A technician's name and photograph sent in advance, packaging that does not announce the contents, and a real business address on the website. Each one removes a reason to abandon the purchase at the last screen.

The one case where you cannot select gender at all

For ordinary products you may select gender in the audience settings. For advertisements declared as credit, employment or housing, that option and much of the detailed targeting close down, and location targeting widens.

This catches recruiters out. A returnship programme designed for women returning after a break cannot be targeted at women in an employment campaign. What you do instead is reach the audience through placement and creative: a publication and a community that this group already reads, and an advertisement that names the situation, such as a two-year gap and a restart. The rules restrict who you may select, not what you may say.

Where the discovery happens

Reels and short video in the late window, which is where most clothing, beauty, food and home purchases start now.

The office building itself. Food court media, the lift lobby, the gym in the basement, the salon on the ground floor of the tech park. This is a captive audience at a predictable hour, and it is under-bought compared with what it costs.

The metro and the cab, where a phone is in hand for forty minutes with nothing else to do.

The office WhatsApp group, which is where a good tailor, a reliable maid agency or a paediatrician gets named. You cannot advertise into it and you can absolutely be the business that gets mentioned in it.

Reviews, read carefully and at length before a first visit to a salon, clinic or restaurant. Answer them, including the bad ones, because the reply is read as closely as the complaint.

Drop these lines

"For the woman who does it all." It has been used in this market for two decades and it now signals a brand with nothing specific to offer.

Anything framed as balance, juggling or superwoman.

Pink versions of an ordinary product, sold at the same price or higher, which get noticed and written about.

An advertisement that assumes the household's money belongs to somebody else. She may be the main earner, she is often the one paying the school fees, and a car or a home loan advertisement addressed past her loses her.

The moments worth advertising against

Each of these can be named in the creative without selecting anybody in the targeting, which is both cheaper and more accurate. For example, a salon near an office park advertising an eight o'clock evening slot for people who finish work late is describing a situation, and the right person recognises it instantly.

What to do next

Look at the hour stamps on your last hundred enquiries and orders. If a third of them arrive after nine at night and your campaigns switch off at eight, that is the whole problem and it costs nothing to fix. Then check whether a person can complete the purchase without speaking to anyone. If you want your enquiry timings and your response process looked at together, book the free audit.