Connecting on a Deeper Purpose: Human-Centered Marketing Revisited
Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a major shift in how we choose to connect with each other as a whole. It has been a revolutionary time as the old marketing playbooks go out of the window.
When I first introduced the theory of Human-Centered Marketing, I mentioned that due to the pandemic, we’re resetting on what matters and that starts with how we connect with each other. This includes how businesses choose to show up and how they interact with their customers and their employees.
We have collectively created new standards when it comes to how we choose to connect as human beings including with each other and with the businesses that we choose to work and purchase from. As new boundaries are set, we are starting to learn to live with the new intentions that we have designed.
As the humans behind the brand, we must decide how we want to build the experience we’re cultivating with our customers and the impact that we are creating in our community in order to stay competitive.
But what does connecting humanistically mean?
It means connecting beyond the transactional/functional need that we are solving for our customers but on the larger impact and purpose that we are creating in our community, industry, and society overall.
Businesses are built to solve a problem in our world and use the innovation that we are creating, either a service or a product, to make life better for others. Yet we often times forget the main reason why the business is created in the grind of getting new customers. When we connect on this larger mission, we’re able to build deeper relationships with our customers and increase brand loyalty.
In this blog we’ll break down Human-Centered Marketing 101 including:
- Why are we creating human connection
- Designing a Human-Centered Strategy
- Create a Human-Centered System
- How to incorporate it all
Let’s dive in shall we?
Why are we creating human connections?
“We don’t do business with companies. We do business with people. Business is always human.”
Simon Sinek
Marketing, especially Digital Marketing, is more than pushing traffic through the door, it’s about connecting one human to another human. When you humanize the way you act, walk, and talk with your ideal audience online, you’ll naturally draw that person to you.
Creating your sustainable human-centered marketing system lets you tap into the power of your brand which includes:
Human Relationship + Community Impact
That is the power behind your brand because it’s the reason why everyone is excited and inspired to be a part of this larger movement that is bigger than themselves.
It’s how you’re building loyalty with your customers and employees that will allow you to continue expanding your business overall.
Designing a Human-Centered Strategy
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
A human-centered marketing strategy focuses on taking the magic behind the one-to-one in-person relationship and creating a visual representation through any type of interaction either digitally or in person. It’s about reminding the consumer how they ‘felt” about their experience with you and inspiring them to come back and bring a friend.
That includes:
- Creatively reflecting that experience through content the sparks conversation
- Engage with your audience in conversation to build trust
- Once you’ve built trust, invite them to work with your brand whether that’s purchasing a product or service
- Enhance their customer experience with digital and in person touch points so that they’re reminded of why they love your product
- Inspire them to talk about your brand and the overall impact that you’re making in the world.
This 4 phase process allows you to go through the basics of building a human relationship with your customer which:
- Know me, like me
- Buy from me
- Talk about me
This process allows you to create not just new passive consumers but raving fans who are talking about you.
Creating a Human-Centered System
“Business and human endeavors are systems…we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system. And wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.”
Peter Senge
Great businesses don’t falter because they stopped having customers, they falter when they lose touch with the people behind their brand that is supporting them including customers AND employees.
The end goal of creating a human-centered system isn’t about purely optimizing the content production process. It’s about designing a sustainable system that allows the humans behind the brand to tap into their unique strengths.
Human beings are not machines, employees are also consumers meaning if their expectations have increased as consumers, they are realizing that the same expectations should apply to the businesses that they work for. Part of the problem with the Great Resignation is that while businesses have optimized the way they treat their customers, they may not have done the same for their employees, and employees are calling out that they deserve better.
So when we’re referring to optimizing a system and making it sustainable, it’s about tapping into the roadblock mindsets that are keeping the individual from unleashing their full potential. It’s about making sure we’re able to tap into their full potential and continuously nurture them so that they feel fulfilled and happy to be here.
A Sustinatable Human-Centered Marketing System is:
Content Creation System + Creatives Who Fuel the System
When you create a sustainable system, you’re able to sustain growth as you continue to make an impact in your community.
How to Incorporate it all?
“A goal without a plan is simply a wish”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I’ve gone through and explained the overall Human Centered Marketing concept but please remember that building your brand doesn’t happen overnight. It does take an overall system and process to implement Human-Centered Marketing.
The first step is defining your overall human-centered marketing strategy. If you’re in interested in chatting more feel free to contact me directly or start understanding the intentional relationship you’re cultivating with my Define the Voice workbook that you can get when you sign up for my newsletter.
