empathy: the new currency converter
1
3
0
0
2
As a strategist, one of the most common issues clients request help with is increasing conversion. Essentially, they want to increase revenue. Don’t we all. The most common reason for conversion issues is rooted in a lack of empathy for their target audience. Every company has a wealth of expertise on what they do. They typically come bearing a mile long list of how they have been “staying top of mind” with their prospects. They’ve email it, PPC’d it, socialized it. They’ve PR’d it, webinar’d it, blah blah blah…and can’t figure out why nothing is moving the needle. You too, I bet.
Google your effort d’jour. Go ahead. So now that you see 7,379,947,480,093,846,474,376 results for your amazing thingamajig, perhaps you can understand why, with the exponential explosion of branded, social, and user generated content, your effort hasn’t resulted in a whole lot.
empathy creates control
Empathy is being aware of the needs of your audience without communicating it in an explicit or overt way. So when we design integrated user experiences for a target audience, consideration for their lifestyle—both at work and outside of it, their age, how they collaborate with their team, how they make decisions and with whom, device usage…need to be considered.
When conversion is the goal, empathy is critical because without it you won’t gain their trust. Your message without empathy is a very forgettable and transactional Google result of 1: 7,379,947,480,093,846,474,376.
With empathy, you become a trusted resource. That’s something different. That’s a “let me sign up for your newsletter, pass it on, follow you on LinkedIn and Twitter,” kind of thing.
relevancy creates loyalty
The quiet truth about online marketing is this: it doesn’t matter how much you explain your product. convincing people to trust you requires empathy. All the words in the world won’t make someone trust you or your brand. The part of the brain that processes words (frontal lobe) doesn’t physically connect with the part of the brain that processes feelings like trust (caudate). Yep. That’s the rub.
But something wonderful happens when things “feel right.” When you land on a site and the language is appealing to you, the images speak to you and all the things you want to find seem to be just where you’d naturally look for them. You think, “This site is awesome. I’m coming back. Hey. I’m telling my friends about this place.”
converting on empathy
Most clients we work with measure these KPIs
- returning visits and other traffic measures
- engagement measures
- attending webinars watching videos,
- open rates on emails
- blog reads and other content measures
- shares and other social indicators
Ultimately, designing with empathy means everything feels “right” to your target audience. Naturally, content strategy requires empathy as well—making all forms of content relevant (and sharable). The more relevant your content is, the more your audience relies on you for their needs, and the more your KPIs improve.
Are your KPIs not getting results?
Remember, you’re asking your audience to give you their time, business, and loyalty. If they aren’t complying, perhaps it’s because the only thing you’re giving them in return is a request to buy from you.