When Will Gen X Women Have Their Marketing Moment?

If there’s one comment Catherine Balsam-Schwaber hears from women consumers the most, it’s “menopause snuck up on me.” Balsam-Schwaber, CEO of Kindra, a menopausal wellness brand founded in 2019, has learned just how little many women know about menopause, with some saying they couldn’t educate their daughters because they didn’t have the language for it, which feels akin to “handing down silence from generation to generation.” “We’ve done a relatively good job of finding ways to educate girls about puberty and talking about pregnancy, and yet we don’t really educate women about what happens in our late 30s, 40s and 50s,” she said. More than 1 billion women are expected to experience menopause by 2025, according to the United Nations’ 2019 World Population Prospects report. As Gen X women in their 40s and 50s approach that life change, it’s giving newer brands centered on menopause a reason to invest in social media marketing. Their playbook? Build a community of customers, listen to them and create educational content that reflects their experiences. And the audience is there. A Gartner study from April found that Gen X women rank first in being active on Facebook, and 56% of Gen X women who have an Instagram account use the platform at least once daily. Building community Kate Muhl, Gartner’s vp analyst, said Gen X women are positioned to be “the agents of that change of creating space for having your crow’s feet and living your life.” Openly discussing menopause is “a natural next phase for them.” Despite that, Muhl believes there won’t be TV ad space for the conversation any time soon. “We’re not in a place yet culturally where that kind of message fits in a broad mainstream message that’s trying to reach a lot of people,” she explained. “[But] the kind of targeting and the flexibility that social media offers just can’t be beat,” with TikTok being an “untapped market” for brands. Kindra is already building a presence on the platform, with videos promoting the brand’s supplements and vaginal lotions, and is cultivating audiences on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. It even has a dedicated Facebook group with 3,600 members who openly share their challenges. Balsam-Schwaber said community is at the core of its strategy because women often feel like “what’s happening to them is only unique to them.” Kindra offers supplements and vaginal lotions. Other recently established brands like Fifty One Apparel, a U.K.-based clothing brand that uses NASA technology to regulate hot flashes in more breathable clothing like sportswear and loungewear, and LaMaria, a luxury skin care brand for menopausal women, are also leaning into community. For Fifty One Apparel, which was founded by Louise Nicholson in 2018 after a friend experienced hot flashes on a trip to Iceland, this has meant turning to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Facebook drives 75%-85% of its site traffic through organic growth and advertising. Meanwhile, Manuela Maria Vazquez, who is still a practicing OB-GYN, started LaMaria because she saw patients come in bewildered and disappointed by menopause symptoms. Vazquez felt there was a lack of education surrounding menopause and there weren’t a lot of products aligned with how “women should be feeling.” LaMaria launched in February and relies on social media and word-of-mouth marketing to allow women experiencing menopausal symptoms to never feel as though they’re in a “diseased state.” “[These women] know who they are. They know what they want, and so they're very open about telling their friends [about the products they use],” Vazquez explained. Marketing forward Erica Fite, founding partner and co-COO of Fancy, an agency focused on women over 40, said women between 40 and 60 have felt invisible because they don’t feel like brands are ever talking to them. However, using humor is one way to appeal to them. “If [brands] were speaking to them, it just was not in a way that was meaningful to them or relevant.” LaMaria’s luxury skin care products focus on hormonal changes and hydration. “We’re not talking about an inconsequential, tiny little group of people,” Fite said. “We’re talking about a quarter of Americans, and they’re basically buying everything already.” Gen X women have the highest post-tax incomes and outspend millennials and boomers by 41% and 18%, respectively, each year, according to fin-tech company SmartAsset. Vazquez, Nicholson and Balsam-Schwaber all agree that being genuine with Gen X women is the most effective way marketers can win them over. “We use the word ‘authentic’ a lot, but in this scenario, it’s more than authentic. It’s really honest that this period in our lives isn’t always easy and what’s happening to your body when it is changing in a way that you may not have been prepared for,” Balsam-Schwaber said, “it can be very up and down.”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

When Will Gen X Women Have Their Marketing Moment?

Menopausal brands are giving them the floor, but it's only the beginning

Tiffany Moustakas

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Tiffany Moustakas