Dr. Brene Brown says, “Empathy is feeling with people.”
This sums up empathy perfectly because when you put yourself in your audience’s shoes, it’s easier for you to realize and feel the struggles that they’re going through. Having an understanding of this before you sit down to write content will allow you to be more effective in creating empathetic content that resonates with your audience.
Being able to write empathetic content is a skill that you want to master as it will help you deepen the connection with your audience. Here are a few best practices for nailing empathetic content marketing:
1. Educate your audience.
One of the most effective empathetic content marketing tactics is to educate your audience. Your audience is turning to you because you’re an expert in your field and have solutions to relevant issues and challenges that they’re dealing with.
By creating blog posts, videos, podcasts, and ebooks that dive in-depth to hot issues, your audience will get the answers they need and learn that they can rely on your business as a trusted resource to point them in the right direction.
2. Use inspirational quotes.
People have a deep down desire to feel inspired. Incorporating a relevant inspirational message into your content will encourage your audience to take action. It will also help them to associate the fuzzy-warm feeling that they’re experiencing after reading your message to your business, helping to deepen the connection.
3. Encourage your audience to live life in the moment.
We live in a fast-paced, digital world where people are more focused on documenting their every move on social media than living life in the moment. This is a pain point that most people can relate to. Therefore, creating a content marketing campaign that encourages people to live a more simple life can be an effective way to empathize with your audience, assuming this philosophy is relevant to your brand. For example, Extra realizes that chewing gum is a part of everyday life, and they’ve created a marketing campaign that celebrates life’s little moments by asking people to turn their used gum wrappers into art.
4. Offer visual how-tos.
You only have a few seconds to earn your audience’s attention, and using visual content is a proven way to captivate your audience. The human brain processes visual content 60,000 times faster than text. Therefore, your audience will greatly appreciate you simplifying a complex concept by offering visual how-tos. By empathizing with your audience that there is only so much information they can handle at one time, you can use visual cues to break steps down and prevent information overload.
Creating empathetic content will demonstrate to your audience that you genuinely care about their needs, wants, and desires. People want to connect with businesses and organizations that they feel truly “get them.” Using the best practices outlined above will help you to master empathetic content marketing and establish a deeper, more meaningful relationship with your audience.
