5 Reasons to Use Human-Centered Marketing In Your Copy

Nowadays, a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing simply doesn’t cut it. Consumers have become smarter. They’re more connected and hyper-aware of the techniques that marketers and advertisers use to get their message across. As such, they’re able to smell the BS from miles away…

That’s where human-centered marketing comes into play.

But what exactly is human-centered marketing? And how do you even go about switching up your “tried and tested” marketing and copywriting approach to add a little more value to the conversation with these techniques?

You know we gotchu! ??

Check out five of our favorite reasons why brands should ditch the old-school marketing tactics to instead employ human-centered marketing, sales, and copywriting techniques!

THE BASIS OF HUMAN-CENTERED MARKETING & COPYWRITING

At its core, human-centered marketing is about creating relationships.

Today, consumers are more aware of marketing tactics that brands employ in order to make a sale. They absolutely know when they’re being lied to, and they’re ready and willing to go somewhere else if they have any suspicions that businesses aren’t acting wholeheartedly.

But through human-centered marketing, brands and businesses can work on building real, thought-out connections with their audience and their consumers. Relationships that are built upon respect and even vulnerability.

There’s no need to apply sales tricks – like scarcity mentality and fake urgency – or appeal to their fears and frustrations to get them excited and willing to make a purchase. Instead, it’s about highlighting the differences that your business can make through empathy and knowledge. 

With human-centered marketing, brands can help build trust in what they do. It’s almost like a friend is speaking to them and recommending something that will make their life better. 

In other words, brands become advocates for their audience. They work towards what’s best for their community and not what will benefit only them. 

5 REASONS WHY HUMAN-CENTERED MARKETING IS KEY

Over at The Quirky Pineapple Studio HQ, we’re firm believers that using human-centered marketing and copywriting can help boost your brand exponentially.

If you’re looking for reasons to get started with this approach, here are five of our top ones:

1. It makes your brand more approachable

Let’s kick things off with one of the more noticeable ways in which human-centered marketing can help your business: it gives it a – apologies for the redundancy – human touch.

It also makes sales and purchases feel a lot more genuine: your audience isn’t buying because you guilted them into doing it, they’re doing so because they care about your business, they believe your words, and they haven’t been coerced by some icky feeling.

With human-first marketing, there’s no need to push, push, push to sell a product or service. It’s not meant to be pushy!

On the contrary, it’s informative and educational – maybe even inspiring – and these positive emotions are what guide the purchase. People feel seen and understood when they read your copy and decide to press that “Buy!” button.

This brings us to…

2. It helps brands and businesses create community

Through human-first marketing, businesses have a much easier time building a community around their brand and their message.

Why? Because it helps create a space people actually want to be in and be a part of. 

Once you’ve shifted your focus from trying to sell at any cost, to building relationships and bringing together a community, you’ll see that you won’t actually need to force, convince, or even coerce people into buying what you offer.

PRO TIP: If community-building is what you’re after, make sure that your beliefs and ideas don’t stay on the page. Take things offline and works towards supporting similar communities outside of the online world. Whether that’s through donations, partnerships, or amplifying the message, vacant activism won’t sit well and won’t create an impact without action.

Once you’ve created a values-driven community, you can be sure that people will feel comfortable and happy to continue contributing to the space and helping to improve it (aka markt research for your business)! 

With that in mind, human-centered marketing is a great way to boost your brand awareness and your sales because…

3. It keeps people coming back

No one likes being lied to, or worse tricked into something. 

And, when you use manipulative marketing tactics, most people can smell it out almost instantly…

If you initially trick someone into buying from you, it’s fair to say that they won’t want to come back a second time because they’ve already been burned. Even if what you promise “this time” is the absolute truth, they’re not going to feel comfortable taking the risk.

However, through human-centered marketing, you don’t need to lie to people or highlight their faults in order to nudge them closer and closer to completing their purchase! 

It’s about building up their trust and inviting them to learn more about how you can make their life easier, what they can learn from you, how they can make their day a lil’ bit better, etc.

Opting for this will help people understand that you’ve got their best interest at heart and they’ll be more likely to come back again if they see you’re offering something new that might help them again.

And how can you make sure that you’re sharing the right type of content online to have this happen? With human-centered marketing, because…

4. It helps keep things fun!

We’ll say it: traditional marketing kind of…sucks. It’s usually boring, colorless, and super dull.

Most of the time these campaigns and different types of content have little to no personality and don’t truly show off what a brand is about (their values, their beliefs, the causes they support, etc.)

This is where human-centered marketing comes into play: it can bring out the silly side of your brand and your audience! Also, it goes BEYOND the binary and explores the full spectrum of human experiences, ideas, emotions, and more – so much more space to play and experience life!

Whether you do this by hopping on different social media platforms and showing off content that’s a little less “made to perfection” and rawer, or you find new ways to connect with your audience off-screen, it helps bring down your marketing efforts from a high and far platform to something that feels more reachable.

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see CEOs and marketing managers take to places like TikTok to create more emotionally-engaging content instead of opting for a press release printed on headed paper.

Plus, human-centered marketing also opens up the doors for you and your business to operate on a more global scale because…

5. It takes into consideration cultural competence

With human-centered marketing, cultural competence also takes the center stage.

What does this mean for you and your business? That you won’t need to employ stereotypical or false assumptions about your global audience for the sake of making a sale.

Instead, you have the opportunity to take into account the cultural differences of your community because you won’t be focused on selling to some cookie-cutter “target group” version of reality.

With the rise of technology – hello, social media! – brands can now reach people who live oceans away and still make a sale. You’re no longer bound to sell your products or services to neighbors or people who, generally, think and operate in very similar ways.

Someone who speaks a different language, belongs to a different religion, and sees the world through a completely different lens can now purchase what you sell and use it in their own unique way.

With human-centered marketing, you can make sure that you’re actually speaking to a real, feeling, thinking, dreaming, and doing THEM…instead of some assumptions-built avatar that lives within your computer.

OUR FINAL THOUGHTS ON HUMAN-CENTERED MARKETING

Overall, we believe that human-centered marketing is a great way to shake up the traditional – as in, #girlboss and #mktguru – world of advertising and marketing, and make it more accessible to people like us who don’t believe in manipulation as a technique.

Not everyone likes to lie, y’all! And it’s about time that bigger brands and hard-sell advocates learned that…

We’re faithful advocates for human-centered marketing because we believe – and we’ve seen the results firsthand – that it:

1. Makes your brand more approachable

2. Helps brands and businesses create community

3. Keeps people engaged & coming back

4. Can help keep things fun

5. Takes into consideration cultural competence

At the end of the day, human-centered marketing is about marketing for and by humans – not just at them. 

It’s a great reminder that, behind the screen, there’s a real person looking for the help we might be able to provide: someone with real feelings, expectations, and desires. And wouldn’t it be great if we could help them directly?!