The Importance of Empathy-Based Marketing
Gone are the days where marketers did whatever they could to push people into the sales funnel. Today, consumers want to be engaged with. They want to feel a personal connection with the brands they align themselves with like they’re being cared for by someone close to them like family or friends.
To get this right, marketers have had to become transparent, honest, and personal with their target audiences. So, to answer the question in the title, empathy-based marketing has become the new normal. Let’s see how we can use empathy in our marketing, and a few tips on how to get it right:
Add Human elements to your Brand: Human nature is forgetful. So we often forget that while working we develop general target personas when we plan marketing campaigns, the people that we are talking to are real people with real feelings and needs.
So, for your brand to really engage with people in an empathic manner, it needs to have its own human characteristics. For example, your marketing should speak in a specific tone, and have its own personality that comes across in the marketing content.
Ponder over differentiation in your consumers: Casting a wide net with marketing and advertising messages is something that died in the 1980s. Well, it didn’t die it just got more focused. The truth is that customers want to feel appreciated on a personal level.
They want to feel like they are the only customer you have, and want their specific needs met if they are to part with their hard earned money. So, by getting to know customers personally, brands can build real, human relationships with people no matter who they are.
A good listener is always successful: Use social media channels, online forums, or feedback directly from sales teams and customers themselves to improve your customer service. Empathy starts with an understanding of someone else’s needs and frustrations.
Empathy isn’t just listening it’s understanding. So, when we listen to our customers and act on their suggestions for improvement we are showing that we care about our customers as much as they care about us.
Now comes the Do’s and Don’ts of Empathy based marketing:
Storytelling is one easy way to get empathy across in your marketing, and stories can be told through blog articles, infographics, videos, and others.
However, sometimes marketers get it wrong, which can render the entire campaign impotent. Here’s how to carefully weave empathy into your marketing:
Do’s:
- Understand your audience’s wants and desires before creating content
- Use emotive words and phrases in your writing and design
- Strive to inspire those who interact with your marketing content.
- Celebrate your success with your customers, and learn from mistakes
Don’ts:
- Avoid being too obvious in your sales intentions
- Avoid coming across as too direct or preachy.
- Ensure that you have the only goal per marketing campaign
Empathy in Action: So, what are some practical examples of empathy-based marketing? Below are two cases of well known consumer brands taking customer service to the next level. So here are two examples:
The Delta Pizza Party: Few situations are more frustrating than a delayed or cancelled flight. Passenger reactions can be so extreme that they’ve been featured on countless reality TV shows. In 2017, April Delta Airlines ordered pizzas for the all the passengers whose flights were cancelled thus providing the best example of empathy based marketing.
The pizzas were distributed to passengers stuck on runways and waiting in surrounding airports. This move was more than simply good customer service. It presented the Delta brand as one that understands and cares about its passengers, especially when they’re in one of the most stressful situations imaginable.
Making of Lush Shows: The LUSH beauty brand is all about natural products, so their customers are people who want fresh, homemade cosmetics. To assure its community that they really are getting 100% natural beauty products, LUSH has a video series called How It’s Made.
Each episode shows real LUSH employees at work, explaining how they make all the soaps, lotions, bath bombs, and other products. Depending on what they’re making, you’ll see mounds of sea salt, fresh citrus fruit, and dried flowers on the counter, confirming to viewers that they’re getting what they pay for.
Understanding a consumer’s wants, needs, annoyances, and grievances, will truly help to set your marketing campaigns apart from other companies. Creating a connection from brand to consumer through the use of empathy is the true recipe for marketing success. So if you are a business enthusiast, start empathy business today. Keep following us for more. Take care and stay safe.
