What Do Women Want?

By: Mark Fitzgerald Sigmund Freud famously asked, "What does a woman want?" But that question actually came after his answer. Following three decades of "research into the feminine soul," he had concluded: You got me. For newspapers, however, that answer isn't an option.

Newspapers are losing working mothers and time-pressed single women even faster than they are losing readers overall. Adult newspaper readership has dwindled from more than 80% of the total audience in 1964 to 49.9% last year, according to Scarborough

Research and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). But in 1964, only about 2% fewer women read newspapers than men. That gap stood at nearly 5% in 2006, with readership among men being 52.3% and women 47.6%. This gender gap is not just a U.S. problem, but shows up in nearly every nation, the World Association of Newspapers reported last year.

This loss is happening at exactly the time working mothers and busy singles have never been more attractive to advertisers. Marketers long ago recognized that these women are household decision-makers on purchases that range well beyond the traditional groceries and toiletries segments. Auto makers, for instance, desperately want to reach the busy women who now often decide the make and model of the family car.

"The primary focus for newspapers right now is targeting mothers," says Diane M. Hockenberry, NAA's director of audience development. "The mom demographic is the low-hanging fruit."

Part of the reason is the power of the purse wielded by moms. That was a key factor in The Roanoke (Va.) Times' decision four years ago to focus on mothers aged 30 to 55, who make 80% of their households' purchasing decisions. The realization that the paper was not penetrating that demographic caused it to look at every aspect of its content, says Stephanie Ogilvie, the editor of the Times' weekly entertainment section "Inside Out."

The Roanoke Times as a company "has done everything it can to really understand this audience," says Ogilvie. "All of us on the paper have been through training specifically to understand women with children in the home. They've really committed the entire newsroom ? actually, every part of the business ? to understand this audience."

Again and again in focus groups and other market research, the common factor that was keeping women from the news-paper was their sense that they couldn't afford the time to sit down with it. At the Times, "Inside Out" ? which was shifted from targeting young adults aged 18 to 34 to keying in on mothers of young kids ? was redesigned with the time-pressed reader in mind. "It's been a huge thing to design it for people who may not have time," Ogilvie adds. "Quick navigation. Get to the heart of things right away. Help them save time."

It isn't just newspapers that are having a hard time getting through to busy women ? and it isn't just with newspapers that a gender attention gap appears. A survey of women ages 25 to 54 conducted two years ago by Synovate (the market research arm of the public relations firm Aegis Group) and the Global Research Network of public relations firm Ketchum found that fully 62% of women have so much on their minds throughout the day that they have little time to spare for commercial messages.

The survey found that 59% of those polled "rarely" or "never" read a news- paper all the way through, in contrast to the 51% of men 25 to 54 who say that. But then, barely half of these women, 51%, "frequently" watch a television program from start to finish, while 60% of men their age do.

The good news is that because no single traditional medium grabs women, newspapers have more than a fighting chance of winning back this key demographic.

Research provides some clues to the successful strategies for newspaper and print in general, according to Kelley Skoloda, director of the Global Brand Marketing Practice for Ketchum. "For instance, 'experts' comes up as a trusted, credible source of information," she says. "A lot of time in print articles, experts are used. That's one thing that would still be sort of piquing the interest of women."

Some of the most powerful themes for women are the health and wellness of their children. Women are "habitual skimmers," so stories should be short to attract female readers, says Skoloda. Research shows they like brief and bulleted formats, but they also want personal stories. "USA Today certainly has a format that has been very appealing to women," she adds. Another favorite: The Wall Street Journal's "Weekend Journal."

Newspapers increasingly are turning to Web sites designed to appeal to the nurturing side of even the busiest women. The Washington Post earlier this year launched Sprig (www.sprig.com), targeting "the sophisticated and stylish woman who also aims to integrate environmentally friendly choices into her life." Sprig looks almost like a site for a retail outlet, but embedded in all the shopping choices are reminders that the products and services are less punishing on the environment.

But the site is not so demanding as to turn off the skimming active mom or single. "Who wouldn't want the choices that Sprig has to offer, especially when they are gorgeous, suit any lifestyle, and are good for the environment?" Sprig Editor Jeanie Pyun said upon its April launch.

Working and stay-at-home moms, it turns out, make plenty of time for social media, the NAA's Hockenberry says: "The growth in online activity by them makes it easy to target more products, especially Web products, to them. Connectivity spikes high with them."

When Gannett Co. created social Web sites targeting this audience at two of its dailies with CincyMoms.com and IndyMoms.com, it found that the women preferred getting advice from each other at chat rooms instead of relying on experts. The upshot is they're more engaged in the Web offering, Hockenberry adds.

Here are some other ways that papers are using print and the Web to win back the elusive demographic of so-called "wired moms" and other women who think they're too busy for the newspaper.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Mother's Day in Milwaukee
MilwaukeeMoms.com is a classic kitchen-table start-up that shows the continuing power newspapers have to grow audience with surprisingly little effort. When the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the summer of 2006 bought the site that Pat and Meg McKenna had operated since 2002, it didn't rush in to make big changes.

The paper has been a dream owner, says site editor Meg McKenna. Why? "They've left us alone, by and large," she laughs.

But while Wisconsin's biggest newspaper has left the MilwaukeeMoms alone ? that doesn't mean it hasn't helped. In this first year of Journal Sentinel ownership, unique visitors have more than doubled from about 15,000 a month to nearly 40,000. Similarly, the number of subscribers to MilwaukeeMoms' weekly e-newsletter has increased to about 5,600. The site accomplished this with no marketing budget, she adds: "It's just being here, and having banner ads running in the newspaper online (JSOnline.com)."

Milwaukee's "wired moms," as working mothers of young children are sometimes called, are literally a wired group. In fact, MilwaukeeMoms got its start after Pat McKenna read a study reporting that Milwaukee area mothers logged on an average of more than 19 hours a week, ranking them eighth out of the top 10 cities nationally for time spent online.

As you'd expect, MilwaukeeMoms is loaded with ways to quickly get information on local parks, day care, play groups, and kid-friendly businesses. For all its dense content, the navigation is surprisingly easy and quick.

But the mothers attracted to MilwaukeeMoms aren't just there for the listings. They're participants, Meg says, eager to talk about all sorts of issues: "They're educated and opinionated. They want to talk politics, they want to talk religion, they're open to information. The moms want to be here to talk ? that's the key."

Often the focus of talk will be on an article taken from the Journal Sentinel ? content the busy moms likely would never have seen because they're not picking up the paper or checking its news Web site. The connection with the audience can be extremely close, Meg McKenna adds.

"These types of sites are full of emotion," she says. "These are sites where you will get e-mails from people telling you ? and they're not kidding ? that you saved their life. If the paper supports a site like this, that is what it gets from its audience."

MilwaukeeMoms is "definitely" making money, though parent Journal Communications doesn't break out its financial performance. "It's one of those media where an owner needs to be patient, and wait, and not be champing at the bit," she says.

MilwaukeeMoms is tied to a parenting print product, MetroParent, that the Journal Sentinel publishes, and McKenna says her next goal is steering moms to the daily print edition. Certainly, newspapers are finding their way to MilwaukeeMoms as word of its success spreads. Nearly all the mothers logging onto the site come from the four-county Milwaukee market, she notes, but the site is getting inquiries from newspapers across the nation: "I even got one from a newspaper in Austria."

The Dallas Morning News
Code Name: 'MasterMoms'
The Dallas Morning News is the incubator for one of the newspaper industry's most highly anticipated initiatives for increasing readership by so-called "wired moms," and selling their proven purchasing power to advertisers.

But while the project has a code name ? MasterMoms ? it's still not yet ready for prime time, says Elizabeth "Jiggs" Foster, the newspaper's director of innovation: "The project is very much alive and moving forward. We are not in the market at this point, but honestly, we believe we will have a better proposition for the market by giving it a touch more time."

While MasterMoms is part of a sweeping interactive initiative going on at the Morning News and its Belo Corp. siblings, the project has already changed the creative process at the paper ? and shown the untapped potential audience of busy working mothers. While there are some 700,000 Dallas/ Fort Worth mothers who go online every month, just 13% of them were registered on the paper's principal Web site, DallasNews.com.

"We are really segmenting our audience, and we see women ? busy moms and other groups ? as a core group that we want to attract," says Foster.

MasterMoms began life as a Newspaper Next project that she says "really got our innovation process working here." The paper relied on in-house focus groups and suggestions from an employee "idea bank." And while MasterMoms isn't a product yet, its influence can be seen in several recent additions to the Morning News' online portfolio. Each gets a bit of a female spin.

Its NeighborsGo.com, for instance, is in many ways a typical hyperlocal site of user-generated content, but it's also designed to be a way for moms to connect on a neighborhood level, Foster says. And the Dallas/Ft. Worth version of HS Gametime, a high school sports site that Belo has rolled out at all its papers, has the kind of richly detailed content you'd expect from the home state of "Friday Night Lights," but Foster says it also "is a way for families to connect with their high school kids."

Whatever shape MasterMoms finally takes ? and Foster says they're kicking around ideas for print as well as online ? an important component will have to do with connecting wired moms with each other. Busy mothers, the paper learned during the Newspaper Next research project, also want something that will help sort out their many consumer and entertainment choices. In the N2 lingo of "jobs to be done," MasterMoms must help these women choose among those options quickly and wisely.

If the Morning News is lucky, MasterMoms will entice busy mothers to the core daily newspaper, but Foster says that's not the immediate emphasis: "It really is a different way to attract women. We know people consume media in different ways, so we're seeking to do that with this product." Stay tuned.

The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.
Isn't it Romantic?
One way The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., targets the female reader is aiming right at her heart ? with romance and poetry.

Every other Sunday, the paper makes room in its substantial book section for reviews and commentary about romance novels by local writer Rebekah Bradford. Around the country, the remaining newspapers that haven't eliminated book reviews completely tend to shun the romance genre, to their disadvantage, the Post and Courier believes. "We're really trying to reach out to the female reader with this and other things we do in the paper," says Features Editor Ann Mitchell.

The romance review was the brainchild of Mitchell's predecessor, Judy Watts, who is a fan of romance novels. She knew she wasn't alone: According to the Romance Writers of America (RWA), the genre writers' professional association, romance fiction accounted for $1.36 billion in sales in 2006, outselling every other book market category except religious/ inspirational. Romance novels account for 26.4% of all book sales ? and women account for 78% of those readers.

The genre is particularly popular in the South, and Charleston has an active RWA chapter. Mitchell says that in the year that the romance column has been running it's gotten good reaction, with many female readers making it appointment reading.

On the alternating Sundays, the book section features a column on poetry and local poetry events that is also proving a draw for women readers. "The column is by South Carolina's poet laureate Marjory Wentworth, who lives on Sullivan Island, which is right in our backyard," says Mitchell. She adds, "Especially in a day and age when book sections are disappearing, we think in Charleston, especially with its literary tradition, we have a responsibility to keep it going strong."

The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle
Can We Talk?
At many papers, the editorial approach to luring time-starved working women to a newspaper page is essentially to package it so that it whispers seductively, "You might be interested in this." The Wichita Eagle takes a different approach. It created a daily tab that shoves aside ? nicely ? other readers and tells that mom or over-scheduled single: "Only you will be interested in this."

"WichiTalk" was created two years ago during a frenzied 70-hour period in which a team of Eagle editorial and business employees virtually locked themselves in a room and went from concept to prototype, and from product testing to tweaking ? and emerged with a section laser-focused on women with an intensity the news- paper industry hasn't seen since it began dropping condescending "women's pages" around the time Our Bodies, Ourselves sold out its first edition.

Think of WichiTalk as "The View" in print.

Soon after its creation ? responding to the not-inconsiderable number of males complaining that they couldn't find anything that interested them in this new version of a features section ? Eagle President and Publisher Lou Heldman told E&P that he had to tell the grousers that that was pretty much the point: "Sometimes you just have to say, 'We love you, 50-year-old white guy, but this section isn't about you.'"

Two years on, WichiTalk still remains defiantly for and about busy women ? but it's added a richer viewpoint since the launch, says Eagle Editor Sherry Chisenhall. It's letting women see other people who have been through or are going through the same life challenges. "We got it into the hands of an editor [Lori O'Toole Buselt] who understands you don't apologize for going after a target audience," she adds.

She says that WichiTalk is doing "great, from a content point of view." What's not so great, she adds, is the paper's ability to monetize it. That's been something of a surprise, because whatever the flak from some longtime readers, the tab looked to be a promising financial success virtually from the start. About six months or so after its launch, it was generating revenues of about $30,000, with $10,000 of that new money.

But it remains more promising than performing. Though the Eagle hasn't budgeted for readership research, all the anecdotal evidence suggests it is hitting its target. "I think the content ought to draw more advertisers than it does," Chisenhall adds. "I think we still have work to do in getting the message to advertisers about why we have this section."

Erie (Pa.) Times-News
Making Time for 'Her Times'
In 2000, in the midst of what turned out to be the gathering storm clouds of an industry recession, executives of the family-owned Erie (Pa.) Times-News met to plot strategy for the newspaper over the next 10 years.

Not surprisingly, it wasn't the most upbeat of meetings. The managers figured that circulation wouldn't increase, and that revenues would be more or less flat. But one bright note was sounded by the marketing department, recalls Special Projects Editor Marnie Mead Oberle, a descendant of founding publisher John J. Mead Sr. It found that of the top 10 best-selling magazines in Erie County, six were targeted at women.

"We sort of had an 'aha' moment," Oberle recalls. "Clearly there were women in the market who are willing to spend money on print, and are willing to spend time with print."

The problem was, the Times-News had neither the structure nor the expertise in creating niche publications to figure out how to seize that "aha" moment. The idea sat on the shelf until another off-site meeting in 2004, when Special Section Coordinator Heather Cass decided to lobby hard for a monthly woman's magazine.

"'I want to do this. I can do this,' I said to Marnie. I pleaded like a 4-year-old," says Cass. Oberle told her, "Baby steps, Heather. Let's think big, but start small."

When "Her Times" finally launched as a quarterly publication in the fall of 2005 with Cass as its editor, it started with a couple of assumptions about its distribution: It would run in a Sunday edition, because the circulation staff knew that distribution cold ?and because it would be easier for a sales staff with no experience pitching outside the news- paper to sell the day.

And it would be in the Sunday paper because, Oberle says, the paper's (and industry) research showed that as popular as the paper is among women for its coupons and circulars, they just didn't see themselves reflected in its pages: "If a female is in the Sunday paper, it's usually some 'woe is me' story. So it would go into Sundays from a content point of view, and a distribution advertising point of view."

"Her Times" from the start was a full-color product with good graphic design ? with an editorial bent toward the local. An article on dreams quotes a psychology professor at Mercyhurst college. An Erie schoolteacher gives a firsthand account of her foreign and domestic adventures as a solo female traveler. Contributing writer Amanda Burlingham turns her pregnancy into a diary with advice like, "You will inevitably pee your pants while visiting with your husband's college buddies."

The first issue was 36 pages ? too big really to be supported by the ads it got, and it lost money the first time out. But the heft was a strategic decision, Oberle says. And it gradually paid off. In 2006, the paper expanded to five issues, and then took it bimonthly. By the end of the year it was close to break-even.

When Terry Cascioli took over as advertising director in January, she asked the paper to take a leap of faith: Bring down the price of the ads, and print on much better quality paper. The news-paper also hired a specialty publications ad manager with experience in niche targeting who started pitching accounts the daily paper's salespeople would never think to go after. The new-look glossy also abandoned its newspaper-style space sales, and began to sell itself like a magazine. So far this year two of the issues have been profitable, and it's up to 52 pages.

Like many papers its size, the Times-News hasn't been able to grow its 79,000 Sunday circulation. But whenever "Her Times" is bundled in the paper, single-copy sales spike. And in the next four or five days after publication, the magazine can rely on 1,000 to 2,000 e-mail responses to this or that item.

Indeed, "Her Times" appears to be driving women to the main edition, says Executive Editor Rick Sayers: "There's a lot of evidence, including a survey that just came out, that shows unlike other papers, our female readership has grown." Next up for "Her Times": going monthly, probably some time in 2008.