I don’t have any figures or anything really useful, but it seems like and interesting idea to brainstorm about.

The first thing I’d ask is can you make suggestions on modifications to your product or do you have to market it the way it is? I don’t think the typical female in the 18-35 age group is going to buy any HD mp3 player I’ve seen. Most look very “teckie”, and looks are very important. My wife’s #1 criteria for anything she buys (clothing, cell phone, car, house) is that it must be “cute”. Of course she doesn’t claim that this is her #1 consideration, but I can tell you that it is. Look at the cell phone market and how “cute” many of the phones are. Redesign the mp3 player from this standpoint and you’ll definitely be #1 in the market (however small it is). Note that “cute” doesn’t mean “girly.” My wife’s current cell phone is “cute” even though it looks very sleek; I guess the reason is because it’s so small. I’ve seen other small phones that she doesn’t think are cute, though, so I’m clueless as to what really makes something “cute”.

The #2 factor she applies to everything is that it can’t be “annoying.” She’d rather have the absence of a feature rather than something that is confusing or she can’t get working without instructions. If I ever can find the money to buy her an Empeg, I’ll be setting up all of her playlists for her because (I fear) the process would be too “annoying.” Not that she couldn’t figure it out, but she simply wouldn’t see the benefits right away of going through the effort of dragging around and organizing her CD collection. If she were to buy a HD based mp3 player, she’d never recommend it to friends if she had misgivings about working with it.

The last thing I’d say is to market the features, not the technology. My wife doesn’t care about mp3s, ripping, encoding, or anything else remotely technological. What she would be interested is not having to lug around CDs, having access to all of her music quickly, and (most importantly for a married woman with a messy husband) a way to keep those pesky CD covers from lying around on table tops and creating general chaos. Giver her a piece of software that does it all for her without asking questions (or straightforward ones if they must be asked) and she might actually be willing to give it a try.

Of course, I’m not a woman and these are just my observations from my wife and her friends; in reality the general population of women 18-35 could be totally different than this. Good luck on your project, and I hope you find some figures.