Why you need to use empathy in your marketing
Recently, I was on Bridget Willard’s podcast, Launch with Words. If you haven’t checked it out, you definitely should because Bridget is awesome! And my friends know that I don’t use the awesome word lightly. Honestly, Bridget is one of the hardest working marketers around and you should get to know her. Here’s the full podcast: Empathy is More Important Than Ever with Carol Stephen. And I want to go into a little more detail about why your marketing should encompass empathy.
Marketing and social media have changed
I’ve talked about this before: gone are the days when you can post a picture of an old lemon and have a hundred people like it. Now your competition is tougher, even if you jump to the newest social media platform. You’re going to have thousands of people posting about lemons, lemonade, recipes for lemon cake, and so on. You have to differentiate yourself, and in many cases, you need to pay. Even a small budget will help get more eyes on your posts.
Engagement counts
If you just post and go or constantly broadcast without any interaction, people will lose interest. That is, unless you’re a big fancy news outlet with millions of subscribers. But for a small or medium-sized business, you need to interact. In order to interact, your business needs to have a unique voice. So it’s a good idea to decide ahead of time what you’ll say, what you won’t say, and what kind of personality or voice you’ll have on social media. For more about engagement, you might like this: You Don’t Need Fairy Dust to Improve Your Social Media Engagement.
More empathy, less snark
Right now, people are hurting. Many are hurting a lot. Think about all we’ve been through recently. Climate change, the Pandemic, and now World War Three (at least many are calling it that). We’ve lost friends and family and haven’t been able to travel. Some of us couldn’t even visit our sick relatives in the hospital. Kids, in particular, are having a tough time with being on Zoom calls and not being able to see their friends. It’s a lot to handle right now. So erring on the side of empathy in your marketing is an especially good idea. Which reminds me of a recent article I read about the Culture of Caring and retaining talent. “Creating a culture of caring really starts also with the leadership team,” said Laura Brusca, senior vice president of corporate communications for Forbes. Leaders must show that they care, not just saying the words. That can be as simple as checking in with employees and making sure they’re taking vacation days.”
We’re tired
All of us are more than a little tired. But as marketers, we still need to be able to see things through our customers’ eyes. They’re tired, too, and engaging with them on an emotional level is a good idea. Sometimes just listening is a good idea. A lot of people could use a high five, a hug, or a big pile of cookies.
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