Outnumbered By Females

Outnumbered by Women - I was in the minority

Promoting Businesses

I have been out and about networking since the start of the year promoting the benefits of YewBiz to businesses of all sizes.

The feedback to date has been great - everyone has had positive things to say. So thank you to those who have made a point of letting me know.

I intentionally attended different types of events so that I could meet a variety of individuals: from Business Gateway workshops, Business Bites coffee mornings, to pizza fuelled educational talks.

And I noticed one thing – I was in the minority.

What do I mean by this? Well, there were more females than males at each event.

I made a point of talking to each of the hosts and speakers to find out more about the gender split of past attendees and/or their own client base.

In each case, they mentioned that there is a growing number of females attending or becoming new clients at a rate of 60-70%. This was interesting.

Why was this I wondered?

Two of the hosts/speakers were female and they provided some insight for me:

• More women are starting their own businesses to have more flexibility of time – the ability to fit time around their children citied as the no.1 reason
• More are realising that there are greater prospects for themselves and are grasping the opportunity to do something new
• More had a desire to develop their knowledge and were actively seeking ways to learn new skills – attending workshops and signing up for courses (online & offline) were at the top of the list

I am sure there are more examples than the ones relayed back to me. It would be great if you would let me know of any other reasons.

Know Your Customers

In the marketing world, it is paramount to get to know your customers.

Understanding their traits, wants and desires helps focus your marketing activities, finesse your messaging and pinpoint new customers.

As YewBiz is all about helping other companies to improve their marketing and for them to make more money, I was eager to learn more about “stay at home” parents, and in particular female business owners.

I am a great believer in analysing data to boost the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.  So my first port of call was to find data that I could delve into - which led me to Companies House (in the UK).

My goal was to analyse the data at Companies House to find out if the number of female company owners was on the increase, and to compare this with what I was noticing. My findings have been collated in a separate report.

A Very Interesting Outcome

After researching the latest Companies House data, I discovered the number of new companies registered in 2018 was 660,249. As highlighted in the graph below, the number has been increasing year on year.

^{The number of companies registered each year in the UK}

I followed this by segmenting these “new” companies into different categories such as:

• Construction companies
• Painters & Decorators
• Furniture retailers
• Removal services
• Holiday accommodation & Hotels
• Professional services
• Advertising agencies
• Residential care homes

Furthermore, I was able to plot them by location - from country, to city, to postcode.

Drastically Improving Our Marketing

Then with a bit more digging, I was able to extract the name and age of each company director (and shareholder with significant control).

After cross referencing each directors name with a gender database, it was possible (with a degree of accuracy) to determine if they were female or male.

The report that I am finalising will tell me who, what, where (and age) of everything that I need to know to drastically improve our own marketing.

We will be able to:

• Identify new companies who fit our “ideal” client bracket
• Pinpoint our PPC advertising down to street level – saving us money and time
• Differentiate our advertising messaging for males and females by sector and location – to increase our engagement rates
• Use appropriate language to appeal to different age groups – allowing us to target specific demographics

Amazing Data You Can Use

As a by-product of our research, we have discovered this can help you too.

For example, let’s say you are an accountant in Aberdeen, we know each new company registered in the past month, 6 months or 12 months across the UK.

^{New Advertising Agencies registered in Aberdeen during 2018}

^{Street level location of new agency in Aberdeen}

We know where they are, what industry they are in, the gender and age of the owner.

This information will allow you to market your services to them – finely tuning your messaging to resonate with them.

As another example, the data will show us exactly where new letting companies (set up by landlords or those with property to lease) have been registered in the UK.

We could narrow the data down to the Leeds area, and if you are a painter & decorator, or gas engineer, also based in Leeds - you will be able to advertise directly to them to offer your services.

^{New landlords and rental companies registered in the Leeds area}

What Now?

If you would like a copy of our full report, connect with me or send me an email - I will be delighted to email you a copy.

We will also offer our members access to the data so that they can use it in their own marketing campaigns.

The list of opportunities is endless. Please share my post so that other people you know can benefit from it too.

About the author

David Reid

David previously worked with Europe’s No.1 Marketing Agency & the World’s No.6 biggest Integrated Marketing Agency, seeing first-hand how £150 million+ campaigns are executed to create household brands. Now he is the CEO of YewBiz and is focused on helping small businesses.