Successful empathetic marketing is about connecting your audience and your brand. That doesn’t mean just throwing ads at your audience. It means creating truly valuable assets — content that serves customers’ needs and addresses their most vital pain points.
Such a content is far easier to create when it’s informed and driven by empathy. If you put yourself in your customers’ shoes, you possibly can more easily acknowledge struggles and think critically about the most effective solutions.
Below, let’s go over why empathetic marketing is such a robust strategy for businesses of every type and sizes, suggestions for infusing more empathy into your marketing, and a number of real-life examples of empathetic marketing in practice.
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What’s empathetic marketing?
Empathetic marketing is the practice of putting yourself in your customers’ shoes to tailor your marketing to their specific wants and desires. Using empathy in your marketing is customer-centric and involves a deep understanding of who your customer is, their biggest challenges, and what motivates them to take motion.
The Advantages of Empathetic Marketing
As Dr. Brené Brown notes, “Empathy is feeling with people.”
Showing empathy in your marketing helps construct trust between your brand and your customers. And through a time when more consumers are losing confidence in brands, brand trust is a serious win in the event you can achieve it.
A 2022 PwC survey found that only 30% of consumers have a high level of trust in firms.
In case you can get on the opposite side, nevertheless, chances are you’ll be in your method to becoming one in all the most trusted brands by consumers.
All it takes is a more insightful perspective on where your customer is coming from, their needs, and the way your brand may help them meet their goals.
Suggestions for Empathetic Marketing
You recognize you wish to infuse more empathy into your marketing, but how exactly are you able to do this? Listed below are the most effective suggestions to recollect if you wish to be an empathetic marketer.
Put the client on the forefront.
Empathetic marketing starts and ends along with your customer, so it only is sensible to place their wants and desires on the forefront.
Empathy is about understanding something from one other’s perspective by seeing something through their eyes. To empathize with customers, imagine their experience along with your brand. Take a look at your services or products from their viewpoint, and take into consideration each step they might take.
Higher yet, you possibly can follow real-life customer journeys to see their actions when shopping in your site or digesting your content.
To actually understand your customers’ experiences along with your brand, take time to dive into each step of their journey so you possibly can higher understand what they might want or need during each stage.
Be open to feedback.
Operating in a vacuum is straightforward because that’s how they’ve at all times been done. But to really practice empathy in your marketing, you’ve to bring your customers into the planning aspect so you possibly can hear directly from them.
They’ll share what they need to see out of your brand or what must be modified.
To gather feedback out of your audience, go on to the source. Run a survey or host a spotlight group to learn exactly what your customers’ challenges are, what they need, and the way they view your brand.
These insights can provide help to higher understand how your services or products plays a job in helping your customers navigate their challenges or achieve their goals.
Your customers will inform you if the messaging doesn’t land. Be open to shifting your approach if that’s what it takes to your message to resonate.
At all times be listening.
While you need to at all times collect direct feedback out of your customers and audience, gathering insights that they don’t personally share with you is important. People are inclined to be more honest once they aren’t talking on to a brand or think the brand won’t see their comments.
Concentrate to the general sentiment when your brand is mentioned online to see the final feelings towards your organization, whether positive or negative.
Tune into your customers’ conversations, the feedback they’re sharing about their experience, and their general sentiment about your brand. You may do that by monitoring social media comments, trying out reviews in your site, or tracking reviews on third-party sites.
Be real.
Understanding your audience and their various needs is important to empathetic marketing. The very last thing you would like is to interrupt their trust. Being fake or putting on a persona is the quickest method to do this.
At any time when you share content or conduct outreach, be real in your approach. Transparency goes a great distance in being authentic, so at all times lead with empathy in the event you want your content or messaging to resonate.
Provide your customer with the proper content.
In any case of the listening and empathizing you’ve done, it might be a shame not to place that learning into practice. And yet, some brands proceed to share content their audience isn’t concerned about. That is the very last thing you wish to do.
In case you want your marketing approach to resonate along with your customers, delivering the content you promised them is important.
After running surveys or focus groups, explore how you possibly can adjust your product, messaging, or communication channels to higher meet the needs of your most loyal customers.
Empathetic Marketing Examples
Now that what empathetic marketing is and the right way to incorporate it into your strategy, let’s walk through eight brands that nail empathetic content marketing across various media.
LUSH
With the tagline, “Fresh, handmade cosmetics,” LUSH is a beauty brand that’s all about natural products.
As such, we see its radical transparency within the “How It’s Made“ video series, where LUSH goes behind the scenes of a few of its hottest products.
Each episode features actual LUSH employees within the “kitchen,” narrating how the products are made. Lush visuals (pun intended) showcase just how natural the ingredients are.
You see mounds of fresh fruits, tea infusions, and salt swirled together to change into the product and love. It’s equal parts interesting and academic.
Why This Works
LUSH customers need to buy beauty products which can be truly natural. They care about using fresh, organic, and ethically sourced ingredients — hence why the videos feature colourful, close-up shots of freshly-squeezed pineapple and jackfruit juices to drive that time home.
Taking customers contained in the factory and showing them every a part of the method — with a human face — assures them that they’ll devour these products with peace of mind.
LinkedIn Talent Solutions provides HR professionals the tools they should improve recruitment, worker engagement, and profession development practices inside their organization.
LinkedIn Talent creates helpful content on a dedicated blog to complement these tools. The blog offers suggestions that address the challenges of the talent industry. LinkedIn also develops reports offering deeper insight into different industry sectors, akin to this Workplace Learning Report.
Why This Works
One effective empathy marketing tactic is education. LinkedIn desires to empower its audience to do work and hire higher (and use its product to achieve this).
This report is only one tool that provides its audience deeper insight into the industry while positioning the brand as a robust resource.
Through offerings like this, customers learn that they’ll depend on LinkedIn as a trusted source to guide them in the proper direction, and LinkedIn can proceed to supply solutions through its product offerings. It’s a win-win throughout.
The Home Depot
The Home Depot is a house and garden supply store that caters to every type of builders and DIY-ers — whether you’re a construction employee constructing a gazebo or a homemaker experimenting with gardening.
In other words, their content must cater to numerous demographics.
Home Depot is all about DIY, so its marketing focuses on what its supplies can provide help to do.
This “How to Plant a Wildflower Garden with Seeds” guide teaches consumers to grow their very own wildflower garden using seeds, common flower types to plant, and what supplies they need. It even outlines the problem level and estimated time to finish the project.
Why This Works
As one in all the most trusted brands by consumers, Home Depot knows its customers depend on the shop to provide them with DIY tools and navigate these hands-on projects — with somewhat encouragement along the way in which.
This quick guide delivers on these needs and inspires customers to take motion.
Extra
We’ve seen nearly every twist on gum marketing: sexy encounters, romantic trysts, and more. Extra is pushing past that narrative.
The brand realizes that gum is a seemingly mundane product, but its omnipresence means it’s there for a lot of life’s little moments.
Hence, the #ChewItBeforeYouDoIt campaign is all about taking a moment to chew a bit of gum before doing, saying, or acting during your every day life. Extra suggests that doing so may be the difference between a very good moment and an ungainly experience.
Why This Works
In some ways, gum is a product meant to boost intimacy, making your breath fresh for more closeness. In our techno-connected world, those on a regular basis moments of intimacy are sometimes neglected.
This campaign pertains to regular moments we’ve all experienced and points out how something so simple as chewing gum could make a difference in your day.
Microsoft
Microsoft offers a variety of products from Azure to Microsoft 365. Lots of these products are generally utilized by developers to construct their very own platforms or tools. To ensure that these developers are supported, Microsoft created communities.
These communities help developers connect and learn from each other and are organized into different product categories, akin to Microsoft 365 or gaming. People can tailor their experience based on what topics they’re concerned about.
Why This Works
Developers are at all times looking for suggestions and tricks for using their go-to tools, and while there are numerous digital channels from which to learn, going straight to the source is at all times an excellent option.
Through interactive communities, Microsoft ensures developers can get the support and training they should use its tools and even connect with others.
Michael’s
In a world where Pinterest dominates, Michael’s chain of craft stores is making a play to capture its own audience by itself properties. The brand provides craft tutorials and product features on a projects page on its website.
These projects offer step-by-step instructions on creating various crafts for beginners and advanced crafters alike.
Each project on the positioning also includes links to materials chances are you’ll need that may be present in Michael’s online store. In case you want more help along with your craft, Michael’s even offers virtual and in-store classes for select projects.
Why This Works
Crafting is an exciting hobby, but not without its own frustrations. Providing useful suggestions and hacks on the right way to do things higher via a free publication helps readers do more of what they love with fewer headaches.
Moreover, fans get to share their enthusiasm through social through the use of the hashtag #MakeItWithMichaels, helping Michael’s extend its reach to an even bigger crafting audience.
JetBlue
JetBlue is a brand known for superb customer support and humor. At this point, we all know where it flies and we all know its hook, so its marketing needs to increase beyond the services provided.
As such, JetBlue’s content focuses more on the world of flying and the experiences all of us have.
JetBlue is a brand known for superb customer support and humor. At this point, we all know where it flies and its hook, so its marketing needs to increase beyond the services provided.
As such, JetBlue’s content focuses more on the world of flying and the experiences all of us have.
JetBlue addresses every sort of customer who may fly on its planes, from families to pets to children. That’s one reason the airline launched JetBlue Jr., an academic video series for teenagers ages 7–10.
The videos go over every type of aviation topics, from vocabulary to physics, in an entertaining and digestible way for teenagers to learn.
Why This Works
In case you’re a parent, how much of an undertaking it may well be to fly with children.
Brand marketing isn’t often tailored to children, so it’s refreshing to see JetBlue consider all passengers and empathize with a parent’s desire to maintain their kids entertained while traveling.
Girlfriend Collective
Girlfriend Collective is a sustainable clothing brand. While it has a loyal following, it’s at all times looking for ways to more deeply connect with its audience. The corporate’s email marketing channel is a incredible outlet for that.
Girlfriend Collective uses email to share latest products or upcoming launches. The brand also generally uses a targeted approach to assist customers make purchasing decisions, sending more personalized emails.
One email from the brand was more personal than most and showed deep empathy and understanding for its audience.
Before Mother’s Day, Girlfriend Collective sent this email to customers, allowing them to opt out of receiving Mother’s Day promos.
Why This Works
Holidays like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day may be emotional for many individuals for various reasons. Girlfriend Collective gave its audience a alternative to opt out of seeing these potentially triggering emails, which not many brands take the chance to do.
This move demonstrates that Girlfriend Collective cares about its customers and sees them as humans.
Able to Try It?
Approach the content you seek to create from a perspective that puts others’ wants, needs, and dreams before your personal. That is the neatest method to grow an audience.
In doing so, you’re showing those that you care about them as humans, before everything. People need to work with (B2B) or support (B2C) those that they like and firms that they consider “get” them.
You may at all times speak about your brand and what you’re peddling once a connection and a relationship are established. But in the event you do things right, people will likely be drawn to you, and also you won’t ever must toot your personal horn.
