Boost Your Marketing Strategy With Empathy

The world of marketing has changed over the past 15 years. With digital marketing and other social platforms surging to the top of how people connect and interact, it is no surprise that many businesses are capitalizing in improving customer service and enhancing the customer experience through these social channels.

With more brands engaging on social media, and the constant chatter, how do you stand out from all the noise? The answer is simple, empathy. Empathy is a hot topic right now, especially in the marketing world. Customers want their voices to be heard and successful business are making sure their voices are heard through implementing empathy into their campaigns and other business objectives.

Incorporating Empathy into Your Marketing Strategy

Before you can incorporate an empathy campaign into your marketing plan, you must first understand your customers. But how do you do that? Through actively listening and engaging with them. Invest the time to gather feedback from your customers, encourage them to leave reviews, and identify their needs to provide exceptional service.

Once you’ve collected feedback from your customers and have a clearer sense of what they want and need, an empathy map exercise can help you target four specific aspects (thinking, seeing, doing, and feeling) of empathy. As you move forward with utilizing the empathy map exercise, pull in your team and other managers to brainstorm and throw out ideas for how you can empathize more with your customers in each category.

The Four Aspects of Customer Experience

While you are holding your brainstorming session with your team, delve deep into the four categories. Ask open-ended questions, think outside of the box, and engage everyone to throw out their ideas (regardless how foolish they may seem). Sometimes those, “interesting” ideas turn out to be some of the best. If you feel you are lacking for new ideas, Thomas Edison said it perfectly when he said, “When you’ve exhausted all the possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.”

To get you started in your brainstorming session, here are a few things to consider:

• Thinking.
  In this section, put yourself in your customers thoughts. Ask, what are your customers hopes and dreams? Fears and concerns? How do they perceive themselves and the world around them? The more intune you are with how your customers think and view the world around them, the more proactive you can be in discovering ways-or implementing new ways-your product or service can serve them better.
• Seeing.
  Take a moment to see your customer’s world through their eyes. How do they view their community? What is missing (or could be improved on) in their environment? The clearer you are on how they interact with and engage in the world around them, the more you can deepen your relationship with them and build a lifelong trust.
• Doing.
  Look at what your customers are doing with their lives and what they are doing to improve their lives and those of their family, friends, and community. What are their daily habits? What are they doing to reach their goals? When you understand what your customers are doing, the actions they are taking to improve their lives, the more you can anticipate and find new ways to help them reach and succeed in their goals.
• Feeling.
  How do your customers feel after using your product or service? Do they express their feelings easily? Evidence has shown that customers base many their buying decisions on how the product makes them feel about themselves and their world.

Implementing Empathy Into Your Marketing Campaign

There are a lot of different ways companies have used empathy in their marketing. To give you some ideas of how other brands have used empathy, here are two campaigns worth checking out.

WestJet, a Canadian airline, went above and beyond their Christmas Miracle campaign. In this campaign, WestJet not only made the holiday’s special for those flying by having Santa Claus pop up to ask people what they wanted for Christmas, but they went the extra mile to fulfill those wishes. Through this campaign, WestJet not only showed people they care but proved they were willing to do whatever they could for their customers and future customers.

Another excellent campaign to look at is the one recently released by Extra Gum, The Story of Sarah & Juan. This video tells a sweet story of two people falling in love. What is great about this video is that it speaks to a lot of people-those who’ve fallen in love, are falling in love, or dream of meeting that special someone.

What is wonderful about these campaigns is that both WestJet and Extra Gum were able to engage and reach a more personal level with their customers.

At the end of the day, the key is to build deeper connections with your customers and making sure their voices are heard. The more time you take to engage with them, listen to their ideas and complaints, and constantly strive to improve your services, the better ROI you will see.

The best way to make an impression on your customers is by getting to know the people behind the email address. Get started today with a free trial of InstantData!

About the Guest Author: Brooke Cade is a freelance writer withInMoment.com. When she is not writing, Brooke is committed to learning more about helping businesses and sales professionals improve their customer experience.