The Relationship Between Empathy and Marketing

Empathy is intrinsically linked to marketing success. It’s one of the best ways to understand not only what a customer wants but also why they want it.?

Empathy in its truest form can uncover and understand someone else’s feelings and viewpoints, thereby unlocking their desires, preferences, and motivations.?This allows marketers the opportunity to transcend data and provide clarity around what drives individuality, allowing you to tap into emotion.?

As a B2B marketer, I absolutely love data. Back in April I shared an article on LinkedIn discussing Why Marketing Needs More Empathy.?At CFA Institute, we rely on data heavily to improve our targeting and personalization efforts. However, as much as it’s part of our decision-making process, it doesn’t necessarily lead to direct connections with our customers and partners. That’s where empathy comes in.??

Why Does Empathy Matter?

Marketing has always been an integral part of running a successful business. The definition of effective marketing continues to evolve, as do the people behind today’s marketing practices.

Today, marketers have access to more channels, content, and technology than ever before. While these tools influence the way that successful marketing is done, the challenge is that connecting and building trust with buyers has never been harder. Although we may know what our audience needs and what you have to offer, the messages aren’t always resonating with customers.?

So what can we do to connect and convert customers? The answer is found through using empathy.?

As Oscar Wilde said, “I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

The most successful marketers go beyond logic-based marketing to understand how their buyers feel.?Often times humans make decisions based on a variety of emotions they may be feeling. By truly understanding our customers’ emotional motivators, we can better determine what buyers need at each step of their journey. Empathy isn’t a buzzword or a soft skill; it’s the key to creating personal connections and unlocking optimal results.

Empathy Breeds Results

Connecting with potential customers is harder than ever before as the marketing and sales environments are somewhat of a paradox.?We are armed with great content, martech tools and endless channels to reach customers, but this collective power doesn’t always fuel growth.?

Slack, one of the fastest growing start-ups in history, practices empathy not only within their marketing but it’s also a part of their core values.??Within a Business Insider article, Slack CEO Stewart Buttefield stated, “It’s very difficult to design something for someone if you have no empathy.”?

According to the CMO Council, only 20% of marketers are able to predict the next best action for their customers.?Additionally, Forrester Consulting discovered, “65% of marketers struggle to employ emotional marketing as they turn to automation to improve customer engagement.”?

We need to focus on executing smart, empathy-based marketing techniques.?Empathy-based marketing is about walking IN our customer’s shoes to understand their experience to help them get what they want.?

Listen Hard and Open Up

There are two crucial traits for becoming an empathetic conversationalist.?One is to master the art of listening, but the reality is often listening isn’t enough.?We need to make ourselves vulnerable.?By revealing our true feelings we can create a stronger emotional bond.???

So how does that translate to marketing??It’s hard to sound appealing to people without knowing exactly what they want.?If we’re able to listen to what our customers wants and need and really understand— and empathize with— their pain points, we will be in a much better position to deliver.?

Use your Imagination

Businesses should be ambitious about embracing their empathetic thinking. Bill Drayton, who is considered the “father of social entrepreneurship,” believes that in an era of rapid technological change, mastering empathy is the key business survival skill because it underpins successful teamwork and leadership. His foundation helped launch the?Start Empathy initiative, which spreads its ideas to business leaders, politicians and educators worldwide with the goal of inspiring young people to become changemakers.

Let’s not forget that the incredible amount of data we can access today gives us powerful information about our target audiences’ demographics, interests, and motivators.?By blending data insights with interpersonal connections established through empathy, we can develop more imaginative and detailed marketing strategies for long-term success.?

Being an empathetic marketer takes more than just being compassionate. It requires time, patience and the important understanding that customers are multi-dimensional human beings with emotions and needs. Through authentic content and conversations, solutions to real problems and a willingness to adapt based on customer feedback, modern marketers can move beyond just data to forge trustworthy relationships that truly keep customers front and center.

As a B2B marketer, I absolutely love data. Back in April I shared an article on LinkedIn discussing Why Marketing Needs More Empathy.?At CFA Institute, we rely on data heavily to improve our targeting and personalization efforts. However, as much as it’s part of our decision-making process, it doesn’t necessarily lead to direct connections with our customers and partners. That’s where empathy comes in.?