When speaking to another person who may not understand what you’re saying, do you resort to speaking louder or becoming more animated?
Has that actually ever helped someone understand you better?
If you’re shaking your head no, I empathize with you. That is to say, I totally get it. When someone misses the point of what I’ve said, I often say it right back to them with a different inflection.
And when they still don’t understand, I try to use an analogy or relate my point to their personal experience, which often yields better results.
The Communication Breakdown: Why Marketers Speak Without Listening
Empathy is a big part of communication, so it’s surprising to see that as marketers, we don’t always take that approach. We tell our customers what we want them to hear without first considering if they actually care about what we are saying.
You need to have empathy to solve business problems for your customers. In order to solve the problem, you have to understand why the problem is occurring.
The Trust Equation: Connecting Data, Insights, and Empathy
Take it from our CEO, Bart Lorang, who stated:
“Individuals gravitate to people and companies they can trust. Trust is driven by empathy and understanding. Understanding is driven by insights. Insights are driven by data.”
Industry Perspectives: Insights on Authenticity from Connect ’18
Why is it important for brands to be more empathetic with their customers? We asked marketing and data experts to share their opinions at our Connect ‘18 conference in June. Here’s what they said.
In my previous blog post, “Once More With Feeling: Emotional Marketing”, I mentioned how identity resolution and audience data insights can tell you who your customer is, how they’ve interacted with your brand, and the best way to communicate to them in an authentic way. Empathy is the best approach to authenticity and engagement with your ideal customers.
How can you inject empathy in your marketing efforts?
- Share personalized offers to let your customers know you understand their specific needs.
- Tailor your outreach to better engage with customers who can benefit from certain use cases.
- Create content to address precise problems and provide solutions.
- Encourage different ways of using your product instead of pointing out flaws in their execution.
- Listen and learn from customer feedback to help fuel product roadmaps and marketing messages in your organization.
