Came across an interesting article, What Marketers Need to Know About Women
“REACHWOMEN: What are the biggest mistakes companies are making in reaching women?
MLQ: Companies often wait until they have spent all the money and the project is practically complete before involving and talking with women. I see opportunity for involving women earlier and more fully in the marketing process. Companies are still waiting too long, when they could have brought women in at the outset of an issue in order to build something rather than to simply judge and diagnose it.
For example, a retail company may ask: “How can I make my store more relevant.” They may attempt to fix it themselves first, create concepts and models and then go out, finally, when it is practically ready to be built, and say, “Hey what do you think?”
The company is almost reluctant to show the product until everything is perfect. Women are used to life not being perfect. They would rather you acknowledge, “Hey, our store is not perfect. Talk to me about how I can make it perfect for you.””
one could easily replace “women” with “users” and get a pretty good strategy in general…