Today, with the increase in technological possibilities in communication, businesses use many channels such as social media and marketplaces to reach their potential customers. But since each business has so many competitors in these channels, it requires more effort to connect with potential customers.
At this point, it becomes crucial to what extent businesses can understand their potential customers and to what extent they can reflect this understanding to them with successful marketing activities. This makes it necessary for businesses to include the concept of empathy in their marketing activities.
What is Empathy Marketing?
Empathy is generally a psychological phenomenon and is defined as the ability to understand what other people are thinking.
On the other hand, empathy marketing means seeing the world from the perspective of your potential customers in your marketing activities and customizing your activities according to this point of view. In other words, empathy marketing means, performing marketing activities according to this understanding, without ignoring that they are emotional and hedonical.
Why Does Empathy Matter in Marketing?
Let’s say you have a great product and excellent customer potential, but you only focus on the number of leads and marketing ROI for your product. In other words, you have ignored what your customers expect emotionally from a brand and product, besides their needs with this product. It would not be meaningless to say that the marketing activities of this product will probably fail.
For example, consumers’ concerns about the environment have increased, especially after the Covid-19 outbreak. Eco-friendly products have become an important indicator that affects consumers’ purchasing decisions. Many brands, realizing this concern of consumers, started to put eco-friendly products on the market, taking into count this desire of consumers. While the marketing activities of brands that do not ignore consumers’ environmental concerns were successful, other brands were mostly unsuccessful in the market compared to their competitors.
How do we know this? After the Covid-19, an international study by Unilever revealed that one out of every three people prefers to shop from brands that they believe are eco-friendly.
The main point to be considered by businesses here is to understand your customers’ concerns, feelings and even socio-cultural situations, rather than seeing your customers as a collection of data.
Of course, data is necessary to keep in touch with your target audience. Still, when you cannot empathize with your customers in marketing activities, your marketing activities’ success rate will have a tendency to decrease.
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