In this age, when getting customers to patronize your business is utterly difficult, especially when many brands are competing for the audience’s attention, knowing the right strategy and how to apply them is very important. Whether you’re connecting with the audience through social media, or you’re meeting your customers via a telephone conversation, email newsletter, or one-on-one discussion, knowing how to communicate with your customers is very important.
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In my six years as a business strategist, I have discovered that empathetic marketing is a very important form of marketing that can increase customer engagement in your business. If you are going to thrive ahead of your competitors, doing something different from them is non-negotiable. In this article, we shall review how to use empathy as a market strategy.
Definition Of Empathy And Why It’s Important In Marketing
Empathy is defined as the ability to see situations from others’ points of view. It is the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes. In the business world, empathetic marketing is when consumers are at the centre of a business marketing strategy. Empathy marketing is what brings authentic connections between customers and brands. It is the ability to carry out customer inclusiveness in marketing. The following show why empathy marketing is very important:
- Emotions and connections are now in demand than ever before.
- Emotions affect consumer behaviour.
- In this age of content creation, negative emotions such as anger, fear, sadness to positive emotions such as joy, amazement, expectation, interest, are motivators for content creation and sharing.
- Understand Your Audience’s Emotions.
Empathetic marketing means walking in your audience’s shoes to know how they feel, in order to respond accordingly. How do you understand their emotions? You can do them in two ways: i.) know their real world pains, and ii.) know their pains regarding your business. You can know how they feel by simply asking about their take concerning a situation. For instance, you can ask them how they feel concerning the ban on Cryptocurrency in Nigeria. From their complaints, you can know the next solution you can offer in form of a product/service.
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Design Your Business According To Their Needs
Now you know their needs through their feedbacks, design your company to meet their needs. For example, your audience is complaining about their inability to earn in dollars, especially in the devaluation of the Naira. You can create a video on how to earn in dollars as a freelancer, a crypto trader or how to create a digital course that can be sold. Explore the unpleasant customer experience from either your products or others, and move in to create a solution.
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Use Contents To Capture Everyday Life
As a business owner, all your official business social media handles must be a go-to for your audience anytime they want to feel better. Always upload creative content on your social media handles. For example, you can recreate a popular movie that is loved by all in your content creation. Let take for instance, if you run a stockbroker firm, you can recreate a 1-minute video of “Wolf of Wall Street”.
Or you capture famous colloquialisms and street slang to create ads and content. For example, street slang like “See Finish”, “Soro-Soke” and so on. In 2019, Access Bank ran an ad that portrayed a wide range of low-income earners from a petty trader to a physically-challenged girl, a bus driver and others, telling them that they matter because they are more than their present situations. The ad struck many Nigerians because it was relatable.
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Show Support For Positive And Popular Trends
Successful companies catch in on popular events that provoke a wide range of emotions, especially events that pertain to injustice and life-threatening issues. During the murder of George Floyd in America, billions of companies across the world seized the moment to stand with the oppressed and voiced out their minds in favour of their audience. They joined using the popular hashtags, #Justice_For_George_Flyod. Furthermore, during the #Lekki_Toll_Gate_Massacre, companies around Nigeria spoke against the killings at Lekki.
Some companies are at the forefront of climate change campaigns. It is a strategy that evokes emotion.
Featured Image Source: Insight Marketing Design
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