Target: Women: Are your investment and insurance programs adding more female clients? Find out how to succeed in this underserved market.

Looking for "the greatest untapped source of revenue" for the remainder of the decade? If so, marketing consultant Mark Alarik says you should look no further than the woman who just walked into your branch - and the millions just like her who may potentially choose your bank.

Alarik, whose consulting firm, Sales Overlays Inc., in Barrington, Ill., specializes in marketing to women and Baby Boomers, says that effectively marketing to women will make the difference in the years ahead.

The statistics cited in a white paper co-authored by Alarik and Martha Barletta, author of Marketing to Women, back up his claim: Women control or influence 67% of household investment decisions; 37% of small businesses are owned by women; 70% of new businesses are started by women; and 43% of Americans with $500,000 or more in investable assets are women. Furthermore, according to figures provided by Jenny Ward, vice president and women's market leader at Wachovia Bank, 48% of estates worth more than $5 million are controlled by women, compared to the 35% controlled by men (the remainder is jointly controlled).

Demographics are driving the trend. Female Boomers constitute the first generation of women to accumulate significant wealth in their own right. They also will be among the recipients of the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth ever to occur, and most will outlive …