With variable data email and printing, you can easily swap images, swap headlines, swap colors, etc. The catch, of course, is that you must be able to identify the gender of each contact.

It’s a simple test to execute: Do 2 versions, genderize your list, and send 1/2 the men each version and half the women each version. You will know pretty quickly if the time/money it takes to design for gender gets a significant enough impact to justify its cost, and for that matter, which style of design draws a higher response for your list.

Now the COOL part

We just released a free web site for marketers, listwist that lets you upload your list, and it figures out whether the first/full name field is a male or female, writing the results to an updated list file you can retrieve. We used US Census data (percentage-ranked popularity list of m and f names) and some non-English sources to evaluate the names.

In a few seconds, you can take your list, and evaluate every first name. It guess rights about 98.4% of the time, as best as we can tell.

Once you’ve got the gender built into the data, it’s trivial to split the lists and execute a test. From there, as the song goes, let your experience guide you.

Thanks for fixing the links in the post. I promise not to change sites again while you’re on holiday… or if I can help it, ever! :)

Vivien,

I’ve been reading a ton of posts on gender today (something in the blog-water?), and that is just what I keep coming back to. Sure, there are differences, but why the stereotypes? There are so many deeper ways to connect with your customer.

Glad I provided a little food for thought. Thanks for your comment.

Regards,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..Free Slippery Advice, Today Only

A friend of mine just bought a house and I noticed that—his reasons were different from his wife’s, the way they wanted to house-hunt was different, everything. I hadn’t thought about it but a lot of it fits right in here.

Thanks for your comment!

Regards,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..Free Slippery Advice, Today Only

His logo is sublime, isn’t it. I’ve fawned over its simple elegance several times myself.

Thanks for coming by and commenting. I’m glad you’ll be sticking around, Jacob’s blog is always worth the read!

Regards,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..Inspiration Points: Blind Faith?

Thanks Kelly ~ !

Thanks for coming over! I’m glad you enjoyed the post.

Targeting is probably the issue that bedevils people most. Can you define your Ideal Customer more narrowly? Who is he or she? You can make your life a lot easier by knowing the answer to that, beyond pure design issues. Then you can be subtle and still hit the right notes.

A lot of times if you don’t choose your market they’ll choose you, and “I’m making this for everybody” becomes “how come only 24-year-old guys like our stuff?” (Or 40-year-old female lion-tamers, or whatever.)

Because when you didn’t want to take aim, you still managed to hit a target… you just didn’t have a purpose behind it.

Yes, I’d like to come at this from some more angles. Add it to my things to do list!

Until later,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..Road Trip: Guest Post at Just Creative Design

Thanks, I hope this post gives you plenty of ideas. And please, when you design for me, don’t make it pink!

People go for the obvious because it’s a timesaver to use stereotypes, but it’s a sad timesaver that results in satisfied people at the fringes and a lot of folks who have to settle for whatever’s closest to what they hoped for in the middle.

It can all be done with a lot more subtlety, and capture your audience’s attention better, too.

Regards,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..Road Trip: Guest Post at Just Creative Design

Okay, administrative stuff. The links to my blog do work, but the reason I’ve been paying no attention here is that I’m just finishing a major migration to WordPress—I don’t even have a welcome post for you all up yet, because, like I said, I expected this on Thursday after the dust was settled. I’ll remedy that later today!

In the meantime if you read this far, please click on my name (or the article link below) to visit Maximum Customer Experience in its new home. :)

Jacob,

Thanks for having me. I hope Europe is all you hoped for and more. :)

Chad,

Absolutely. So many of the ideas we see in “big” business apply equally to us little guys. You just have to twist your thinking around and look for the connections.

Thomas,

When pinned down, I do call it postfeminism. Gender differences are real for now: but they are lessening, too.

Lucinda,

And we want to be so modern and neutral. I hate when that happens: or do I? I’m trying to embrace it.

Modem,

Me, too. I want to think we can get past it and in many ways we do. Put a power tool in front of me and I’m in heaven! Still, I’m telling the story of how I got my new drill on clearance and it’s warranted for five years, too.

It’s both, nature and nurture, I’d guess.

Anton,

Thanks. Glad you liked it!

Tracey,

More and more people are willing to talk about gender differences without getting girl-vs-gorilla about it, but I think we can use a lot more voices on the subject. It’s a topic with a lot of layers to it.

Jacob again,

I should have known not to try putting in a link while the author is on vacation. When you find the other comment in your moderation bin, please delete it. *sheepish*

Thanks again, everyone! I’ll write a welcome post for all the dudes and dolls who are big Just Creative Design fans (like me) later today, so please wander by and say hello!

Regards,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..OPEN 24/7, Just for You

Okay, administrative stuff. The link to my blog does work, but the reason I’ve been paying no attention here is that I’m just finishing a major migration to WordPress—I don’t even have a welcome post for you all up yet, because, like I said, I expected this on Thursday after the dust was settled. I’ll remedy that tomorrow!

In the meantime if you read this far, please click on my name (also linked at the end of this comment) to visit Maximum Customer Experience in its new home.

:)

Jacob,

Thanks for having me. I hope Europe is all you hoped for and more. :)

Chad,

Absolutely. So many of the ideas we see in “big” business apply equally to us little guys. You just have to twist your thinking around and look for the connections.

Thomas,

When pinned down, I do call it postfeminism. Gender differences are real for now… but they are lessening, too.

Lucinda,

And we want to be so modern and neutral. I hate when that happens… or do I? I’m trying to embrace it.

Modem,

Me, too. I want to think we can get past it and in many ways we do. Put a power tool in front of me and I’m in heaven! Still, I’m telling the story of how I got my new drill on clearance and it’s warranted for five years, too.

It’s both, nature and nurture, I’d guess.

Anton,

Thanks. Glad you liked it!

Tracey,

More and more people are willing to talk about gender differences without getting girl-vs-gorilla about it, but I think we can use a lot more voices on the subject. It’s a topic with a lot of layers to it.

Thanks again, everyone! I’ll write a welcome post for all the dudes and dolls who are big Just Creative Design fans (like me) tomorrow, so please wander by and say hello!

Kelly

Maximum Customer Experience Blog

Kellys last blog post..CLOSED, and Wondering Where the Dollars Are

modemloopers last blog post..Free Amazing iPhone Theme For WordPress Blogs

We created a range of logos for a client and they held a focus group to see what others thought of our concepts. The client was particularly aware of having a gender neutral logo, so asked the focus group to give each logo a gender. It turned out that most of the logos that they named as male my partner (who is male) created and the logos named female I had created.