You’ve probably heard that feelings have no place in business, but that’s not necessarily the case in marketing. 

Some marketers focus solely on rationality, appealing to their audience’s sense of logic to help them make decisions without considering the role that feelings can play in purchases. There’s no place for emotion among their tools and resources– facts only. 

Yes, numbers definitely play a role in marketing— for instance, one of the fastest ways to determine a campaign’s performance is to check the click-through rate on the emails you’ve sent. But the numbers aren’t everything. 

To quote Maya Angelou, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they’ll remember how you made them feel.” When you make your audience feel like you understand their pain points and, more importantly, you sincerely care about them, you don’t just build trust, you foster a genuine (potentially long-term) relationship that benefits you both.  

How can you make this happen? Inject empathy into your marketing plan. Here are a few ways you can use empathy to better connect with your audience at every stage of the sales process. 

Stay Sincere

You can’t fake empathy. Marketing empathetically requires that you put yourself in your customer’s place; how do they feel? What do they think? Where do they struggle? You need to take a sincere interest in your audience’s thoughts and feelings if you hope to add empathy to your marketing tools and resources.  

If you’re not interested in meeting your audience where they are in an authentic, meaningful way, your message of empathy won’t resonate with them. In fact, you’ll likely accomplish the opposite of what you hoped you would, driving prospects away from your content channels. 

One of the fastest ways to ruin the trust between you and your audience is to create a ruse; transparency is your best bet if you want to build genuine content that will resonate with your prospects. If you truly want to help your customers solve their pain points, that desire should be evident in your efforts to better understand their specific needs. 

Seek Out Feedback

One of the simplest ways to discover what your customers truly want from you is to ask them. After you’ve asked the questions, carefully listen to everything they say. Avoid the impulse to explain – simply listen with the intention of better understanding their problems. 

Send a short survey, ask to connect with them on a video or phone call, or draft an email asking for honest feedback. Ask them questions like:

• What are your challenges? 
• What do you need from us to help you meet those challenges? 
• What format is easiest/best for you to ingest? 
• How has your experience with our brand been so far? 
• What would you change? What would you keep the same? 

Remember that the fastest way to connect with your audience is to create the content they want to see. The best content calendars will speak to their pain points! 

Put Your Findings Into Practice

If you tend to generate content for the sake of having something on your blog, it’s time to reevaluate your process. When your marketing tools and resources lack any insight into your audience’s true pain points, you’re unlikely to reach the people you need to reach. 

After you’ve reached out to get a true understanding of your audience’s needs, it’s time to create content that will help them address their pain points. The answer to a prospect’s problems is not likely to be more content, but rather more USEFUL content. 

Did you find that the folks you polled prefer good old-fashioned blog posts? Focus your attention on generating high-quality posts directly addressing the issues outlined by the poll participants at a regularly scheduled cadence. 

Do they respond well to video content? Up your video game with vlogs, webinars, and other branded videos. Learn their preferred social media platforms so you can make these videos widely available to your audience at the places they’re most likely to be. 

As you create content, ask yourself questions like: 

• Is this content providing a solution to a specific problem expressed by my audience? 
• Does my message solely target logic or will it resonate with their emotions, too? 
• Will customers feel like we care about them, or will they feel like a lead we’re trying to convert?

Implement Empathy to Connect With Your Customers

When you approach your content plan with the desire to connect with your audience’s emotions, you show them that you truly care about their success. They’re not just leads, but fully-formed humans who can benefit from your assistance. When people feel that you have their best interest at heart, they are more likely to turn to you when they need help. 

Not sure where to start to create the best content calendars possible? 

11outof11 has content marketing services that can help! Request a complimentary call with one of our experts today. Contact us today.