Marketing with Empathy

We like to believe we use logic and reason in our decision-making, our launch choices, who we vote for in the next election, or, most importantly, marketers, what products and brands we purchase.

It's not true. Even the belief that we use logic and reasoning as the primary motivators in our decision-making is, in fact, an emotional decision that makes us feel good about ourselves.

Our brains have evolved to process stimuli hierarchically, prioritizing protection and procreation. The next are emotional processing and then, finally, logic and reason.

It made sense when humans were in hunter-gatherer communities. If we saw a sabre-toothed tiger, we'd want our immediate response to be "RUN!" to prioritize survival.

For decades, marketers have exploited the protection trigger by creating a fear of loss that their product solves or including sexy people in their advertising to trigger the procreation calculation: "Pretty lady standing next to a sports car. The pretty lady will stand next to me if I buy a sports car."

Thankfully, the marketing industry is moving beyond the base-level triggers and making a more concerted effort to market with empathy.

Empathetic marketing is an approach to marketing that focuses on creating a deep understanding of the customer's needs and emotions to promote products or services effectively.

Marketing with empathy requires your brand to take the following steps:

Understand the customer's needs and pain points: Put yourself in your customers' shoes to understand their perspectives, conditions, and challenges, and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

Conduct market research to deeply understand the customer's needs, wants, and challenges.

Try conducting surveys, focus groups, or customer interviews.

Create a customer-centric value proposition: Develop a value proposition centred around the customer's needs and pain points that clearly explain how the product or  Develop a value proposition centred around the customer's needs and pain points that clearly explain how the product or service can address those needs.

Develop empathetic messaging: Create marketing messages and materials that resonate with the customer's emotions and experiences. Create compelling and relatable content demonstrating your understanding of their needs and challenges.

Try storytelling, personal anecdotes, and customer testimonials to connect with the customer on an emotional level.

Foster genuine customer relationships: Build and maintain honest, authentic relationships with customers by listening to their feedback,responding to their inquiries and concerns, and providing excellent customer service.

Listen and adapt to customer feedback: Actively listen to the customer's feedback, inquiries, and concerns and respond to them in a timely and personalized manner. Use this information to adjust and improve your product and service offering and empathetic marketing approach.

To gather customers' feedback and insights, try conducting regular surveys, using social listening tools, conducting focus groups, or conducting one-on-one interviews.

We implore the industry to use empathetic marketing ethically.

Some cynical marketers use marketing with empathy to push products and change opinions in ways that are against the consumer's best interest.

There are too many examples to list here, but a few of the most egregious companies use greenwashing to tout their brand's dedication to addressing their customers' environmental concerns while failing to live up to their promise or, worse, actively working against environmental protections behind the scenes.

Empathetic Marketing is a wonderfully powerful tool that is a big win for our industry. When done ethically, it allows customers to make choices of products and brands that align with their values.

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