I went to an Erie Ad Club luncheon today where they had a guest speaker talk about how to use emotional branding to market to women. The guest speaker -- Emily Spensieri -- is the founder and General Manager of F.E.M. (Female Engineered Marketing), a division of Quiller & Blake Advertising.

Emily made some interesting points about why businesses should be tartgeting women. Here are her top three reasons:

1. Women refer more than men. On average women will tell 20 other people about an experience -- good or bad.
2. Women notice the details and they matter to them (clean bathrooms, boutique-like shelving, etc. is noticed, and appreciated, by women).
3. Women are more loyal customers.

I would agree with all three of these and, I'd add one more -- in most households, women make 80 percent of the household purchasing decisions.

For all of these reasons, women should be the main target of all advertisers -- from luxury cars to grocery stores and tire stores. Yet, so many are missing the mark by a mile.

I couldn't help but wonder if that is because the people at the top of most major organizations -- including the entire news industry -- are males who don't have a clue what women want and/or need.

And, then, they can't understand why their business is failing (because they make a high-quality product or offer a great service).

Maybe that's because it takes a woman's insight to reach a woman.