Human-centric marketing, Nigerian Businesses and the Future
Today, businesses now operate in a different world with an accelerated disruption powered by technologies which are infused into daily lives giving customers more power and more opportunities to make their own demands. Looking back to the past, smartphones, tablet and even the internet did not exist. Business software that adds broad social networking capabilities to work processes and cloud-computing based services did not exist. In the new digital economy, these are becoming the digital tools and pathways for accomplishing both business and personal goals. The emergence of digital technologies is impacting how humans behave and interact at various levels — one of which is how people make purchasing choices.
With these disruptions, we cannot solely rely on and be guided by the business strategies used in the past. Today’s challenges are different — they are human challenges and as such require human-centred responses and business strategies grounded not just in past precedent and data, but also in the confidence that comes from establishing human connections.
The aforementioned has led to the rise of a new marketing paradigm — human-centric marketing, which is an evolution of the current customer-centric and product-centric marketing approach. But the big question is: What really is Human-centric marketing?
Human-Centric Marketing Demystified
The concept of human-centred modern marketing begins with EMPATHY for your customers and buyers. It is rooted in the approach of understanding the goals and motivations of our customers and buyers. A human-centric brand puts human empathy and impact at the heart of its business processes, therefore, creating alignment across marketing sales, product and engineering.
As defined by Philip Kotler, “In human-centric marketing, marketers approach customers as whole human beings with hearts, minds, and spirits.”
Simply put, human-centred marketing is about placing the human, our customers and buyers, at the centre of all of our marketing activities.
This new approach views consumers as interactive communicators with highly personal views, with its success rate gauged by the strength of the customer relationship. This is in sharp contrast to the fading customer-centric approach that viewed consumers as passive participants and measured success by the amount of merchandise sold.
While the consumer-centric approach was as a result of corporate dominance and information technology, human-centric marketing is being led by the personal desire to form interactive connections and build meaningful relationships.
With this new marketing methodology, the focus is on human values rather corporate values, as well as getting consumers involved rather than just telling them what to do. Most importantly, it’s about treating consumers like real people rather than nameless numbers and showing that you want to connect on a human level.
What does it mean for brands to be human in today’s super interconnected world?
Human-Centric Brands in an interconnected world
For brands to influence customers as friends and attract them, they must learn to be human — approachable and likeable but also vulnerable. Brands should become less intimidating. They should become authentic and honest, admit their flaws, and stop trying to seem perfect.
Philip Kotler in his Book, Marketing 4.0 mentioned attributes that brands must have to attract customers — physicality, intellectuality, sociability, emotionality, personability, and morality. These six attributes constitute a complete human being, one who typically becomes a role model.
- Brands must be physically appealing
Brands that aim to have influence over their customers should have physical attractions that make them unique, albeit not perfect. These physical attractions can be reflective in their logos, brand identities, product design, customer experience and messaging.
2. Brands must be intellectual and innovative
Brands that are intellectual, think, generate ideas and are innovative. Their drive for innovation makes them stay ahead of others and launch products and services not previously conceived by other players thereby effectively solving customers’ problems.
3. Brands must be Sociable
Brands with strong sociability are not afraid of interacting and engaging with their customers. They listen to their customers as well as the conversations among their customers, answer inquiries and resolve complaints responsively. They also engage their customers regularly through multiple communications media and share interesting content on social media that attracts their customers.
4. Brands must connect emotionally
Human-centric brands evoke emotions that drive favourable customers actions. They tend to be very powerful influencers thereby winning the customers heart.
5. Brands must have a strong personability
Brands with strong personability know exactly who they are and what they stand for. They show self-confidence and self-motivation to improve themselves and as such are not afraid to admit their flaws and take full responsibility for their actions.
6. Brands must exhibit good morals
Brands with strong morality are values-driven. They make ethics a key and major aspect of their business decisions. They are truthful and keep to their words.
Developing a Human-centric Marketing Strategy
As mentioned, today’s modern marketing must begin with empathy, putting the human, our customers and buyers, at the centre of everything we do. To empathize means to WALK IN THEIR SHOES. Nothing beats walking in your customer’s shoes and going through the experience yourself.
In the modern marketing world where content has become the dominant way we communicate, empathy serves as a foundation to stand above the overdosing flood of information experienced by customers and buyers. It requires us to understand the context of the goals and challenges of our customers and buyers.
Therefore, brands must first gain access to your target market’s human-centric insights, listen and empathize with their real-life struggles and buying motives, and develop a human-centred approach that truly connects your business to your market.
Brands must fulfil not only customers’ functional and emotional needs but also address their latent anxieties and desires. These attributes are key to winning.
Being Human-centric is worthwhile
Often, many businesses in Nigeria often ignore the human side of customers. Customers although very smart are not perfect and as such vulnerable to marketing ploys.
Marketers need to adapt to this new reality and create brands that behave like humans — approachable and likeable but also vulnerable. Brands should become less intimidating. They should become authentic and honest, admit their flaws, and stop trying to seem perfect.
Businesses need to leverage on these human emotions and personal motives to appeal to target customers. They should treat customers as friends, seek their active participation, embrace the irrationality and incorporate it into the marketing message of the brand. This should be a lifestyle.
Human-Centric Marketing and the Future of Nigerian Businesses
The days when marketers could employ a scattershot, one-size-fits-all approach to marketing are long gone. Many marketing approaches which are based on old methodologies and are carried out in isolation without the consideration of the modern customers and buyers made up of mostly millennials and the Gen Z are becoming obsolete.
Human-centric marketing is here to stay, and for now, is the future of modern marketing. The modern customer wants to feel being rewarded by expecting brands to understand and care about their specific needs and requirements. Thus, if you do not want to lose your customers, you should find out unique ways and means of making your customers feel valued and rewarded.
There is a need for more and more companies in Nigeria to embrace the power of human-centric marketing even as human behaviour is being rapidly impacted and altered by digital transformation. Even so, we can expect even more accelerated transformations to take place within the next few years.
Brands must be in the present with an eye to the future and focus on people’s wants, needs and expectations to create winning marketing strategies.
