Or laugh. Or maybe we’re trying to make you nervous.
The whole point of marketing is to illicit emotional reactions from your audience. To read them and know how to grab their attention. And though reading minds may seem impossible, there is a secret weapon to master this content to audience connection: Empathy.
Empathetic content is highly valuable within video marketing. Whether you’re a B2C or B2B enterprise, empathic content can cultivate your relationship with your customers and create a more significant bond.
This does require planning of course. It’s crucial that you know your audience and know them well. But this can be tough to gauge, so we have put together some simple techniques to help you up the empathy in your work.
Empathy mapping
Empathy Mapping is a systemised way of getting into your audience’s head and understanding what it is they need. Keeping your audience in mind, fill out what they see, say, hear, and do when they view your content. Use this to understand what they may think and feel and let that guide your next artistic endeavour. This is the easiest way to make your work empathetic to your audience.
Tell A Story
This can be one of the most effective and simplest ways to include empathy within your video content is to devise a story which matches your audience and the base aims of your campaign. However, it is important that you do not become too fantastical or cliched. Authenticity is crucial for producing effective empathetic marketing.
An example of this is Extra’s #giveextragetextra campaign. The company told stories of romance and intimacy on wrappers of gum. The stories revolved around gum and so were not entirely rooted in reality however, they identified the need of their audience for moments of intimacy with those around them.
Provide Solutions
A simple way to establish an empathetic relationship with your audience is to provide solutions to issues you know your audience is experiencing. Now, this doesn’t need to be a huge problem to solve, you’re not solving mass inequalities or finding work for people that are struggling.
In this Dove ad, it has identified low body image as a problem experienced by its audience and so has used this ad to perpetuate positive messaging about how we see ourselves. The campaign uses empathy to establish a connection between the consumer and the brand, rather than a specific product. It has also received over 69 million views on youtube.
Call to action
What’s the perfect addition to an empathetic campaign? A call to action! Providing a call to action can help your audience engage with the content and envision themselves in the role you have created. Now, this doesn’t need to be super intense. In fact, often the simpler the call to action, the better.
In this Ikea ad, the statistics create a significant link between audience and advertisement, getting on the same level as the average person. Pairing this theme with the action language “Make home count” is the perfect combination.