Whether Jane is a CEO in charge of major company purchases; whether she is an office manager in charge of supply cabinet and conference room; whether she is a homemaker trying to keep her family happy and healthy; or whether she is a college graduate starting a new career; Jane is looking for you online and she isn’t asking Dick’s permission to buy. She needs office supplies; she needs a good leather briefcase, a cell phone, a PDA, a desk, a picture frame for her desk, a new car, and business, career, or health advice. She needs business cards and stationery. She needs technology advice and financial advice. She needs all of things her partner and friend Dick needs. Sell them to her.

Bury those old Dick and Jane days and their outmoded thinking with your 4.5inch floppies and old versions of DOS. Join new millennium and get with game: women as entrepreneurs are looking for you online. If they like what they see, they’ll go home, put on their consumer hat and share their good fortune with all their friends, both male and female. The fact is, more than half of time your message is being looked at by Jane, not Dick. Forward thinkers will also recognize that marketing to Jane doesn’t alienate Dick. He’s merely waiting for Jane to give him head’s up.

Offline vs. Online: Hand in Hand We Go Everyone knows that women are shoppers of world. Make friends with them. In 2003, Maya Draisin, of Webby Awards, http://www.webbyawards.com/main/in_motion/index.html had this to say about e-commerce, “The trend this year is toward using Web to connect people online to mobilize them offline.”

This means if you make friends with women, they will shop at your Web site and also at your offline store, if you have one. Today, women purchase or influence purchase of more than half of normally male-dominated products such as cars, lawn mowers, computers, and other electronics. What’s not to like about that? Smart Marketing to Women Online; it’s a good way to start 2004 and a great way to make some loyal new friends and customers.