Why Marketers Need to Care About Empathy, Not Just Data.

Empathy.

This word keeps popping up on my screen in recent days. Even Seth Godin sent a note about empathy to me this morning.

Now, this may be the intended result of some smart marketing ploy, but I’d rather not be overly cynical about the motivations behind this nagging insistence for attention.

Instead, I have come to believe that these empathy messengers are trying to tell me something. And I believe that something is crucial in understanding what is all too often missing from our marketing.

Our Lives By Number.

To understand why empathy matters, I first need to lay a little context, and tell a couple of modern truths.

Here’s one: we have become numbers. Or rather, we have become metrics and dimensions moving obediently down channels and funnels.

In the online world, we can be easily viewed as predictably unpredictable (though on the whole pretty predictable, actually) worker bees in the consumer hive. Every one of our actions triggers a stream of data and so we surf along virtual trails of breadcrumbs.

Don’t believe me? Go discover what any of us can do with Google Analytics and then tell me it ain’t true.

I recently shared an article about this reach of marketing into our lives. It laid out how the gathering of increasingly sophisticated data about our online actions is giving marketing professionals new insight into our wants, needs and priorities.

It is extraordinary what ‘they can do now’ but understanding the data alone isn’t necessarily the final step into turning data into value for all involved.

Data and Marketing: a Match Made in Heaven?

The world of marketing definitely loves this new data-driven world. Read any authority marketing blog and they’ll be filled with advice on how to make the most of the data now available to any of us.

Here’s why marketing loves data.

The trail of breadcrumbs we generate with our every online action allows marketers to send us personalised offerings that target genuine pain points. They put particular content in front of us because the data suggests doing so is likely to make our lives better. And that’s great, right?

I mean look at a positive we can all agree on (probably). Through this process, we should receive more content that is actually relevant to us. Goodbye irrelevant marketing noise, whoopee!

For marketers, data seems to make their job easier. The numbers say X so put Y in front of them and ‘ding ding’ there goes the cash register. It seems like a marketing utopia (though one that looks like it could head dangerously towards automation!)

Maybe, but there seem to be a problem with this utopia...

Why Empathy Punches a Hole in the Data Utopia.

When did we become 2-D beings and when did business really benefit long-term from purely transactional relationships? Do the brands you love (and so to whom you’re loyal) only give you what can be sold to you or do they mean something to you, like an attentive friend?

Empathy. Again that word pops up. Here’s why:

We want more than efficiency.

We want marketing to understand that we are more than the sum of their online actions.

We want marketing to understand that some things we do online don’t need to be followed up with a chance to purchase goods.

We also want to believe that we are in control of their own privacy (though this is pretty unlikely in truth, at least online).

But most crucially of all, we want our marketing professionals to understand that the reason we may dislike an advert and marketing campaign is because sometimes those ads and campaigns make us feel a pain that they cannot solve.

It’s just a pain point. And they’re pressing it over and over. And we want them to stop.

How to miss the Target.

An example of exactly this is in first examplein that article I shared.

Target revealed to the father of a teenage girl that she was pregnant because what she had searched for on their website had triggered a solid “pregnancy prediction score”. And so, they had sent her coupons for baby products, which you could see as a helpful gesture to a mother-to-be.

“Here, save some money because we all know raising a kid is expensive.” Good move Target, right?

Maybe not. It follows a similar logic to the ‘good idea’ of the stranger who comes over to tell you how to stop your baby crying in the cafe. While some of us may welcome this personalised offer, others may well glare down the perceived violation and judgement on them and their ability to deal with the situation in their own way. In some matters, it’s just better to be left alone to make the right decision.

Sometimes, especially only staring at the data, it can be hard, if not impossible, to know for sure how an offer will be received. But acting like you do know (when you really don’t) is one route to surefire disaster.

In the case of Target, they got it monumentally wrong. The subsequent bad press led to a change of policy. They now opt for an arms-length approach where those with solid pregnancy prediction scores or definitely-got-a-baby algorithms are exposed to relevant baby-related ads but are not sent coupons directly.

They’ve changed their reaction, which is probably wise. But whether they’ve really heard the issue underneath the incident still looms large.

Why Empathy Should Be Marketing’s Real Examiner.

When I shared the article, a friend replied to me.

She told me that, as a young mother, she was frequently being sold things “based on the fact that you don’t know what you need”. Now you may accept such forward guidance from your own mother or a trusted friend, but to receive such ‘advice’ from some nappy company or some other faceless corporation is another thing entirely.

Here’s where empathy has to come into the marketing mix. These lines are for all you marketers and copywriters wondering whether data alone is the route to success (spoiler alert: it’s not).

Empathy in marketing is not about pretending to be the customer’s best friend while constantly trying to sell her stuff.

It’s not about assuming a trust is already established simply because your marketing maths has figured out their pain point and you believe your product can be the solution that makes them a customer.

It’s not even about ‘walking a mile in their shoes’ or believing ‘you know what’s best’. They’re sure fire ways of appearing condescending or patronising (at best) and certainly ruin your chance at progressing a lead happily down the sales funnel.

No, here are some reasons empathy should matter to you:

• Empathy in marketing is recognising not only the pain points of your customers but also recognising if and how they may want and need to solve them.
• Empathy in marketing is getting to know your customers beyond their data trail.
• Empathy is recognising that your relationship to your customers is two-way and should be more than merely transactional if it is going to bring either of you real value.

If your end goal is to sell your customers something, great. Put it up on the white board as a primary goal and point your efforts towards it. But selling us stuff is no longer enough, we’ve come to expect more value. We want you to be the familiar corner store or the family doctor, not the supermarket or WebMD.

To achieve mutually valuable relationships, data analytics cannot be the end point of your marketing process.

Do us all a favour.

Point your marketing towards an empathetic approach.

Point your marketing towards a priority of developing a long-term, multi-layered relationship to your customers.

Point your marketing towards trust and loyalty before sales and profit.

What makes for great marketers and copywriters is not just their ability to read data. What makes them great is their ability to understand the people behind the numbers and the empathy they demonstrate as they balance the demands of their client with the real needs of the public.

May empathy pop-up on your screen too – you’d be wise to take note of its lessons.