Welcome to Human-Centered Marketing
What we can learn from the big reset of 2020.
2020 has been a revolutionary year as the old marketing playbooks go out of the window. When our world came to a grinding halt, everything that we thought was normal went out the window.
But this shift has been working in the background for a while. Our world has been evolving rapidly with technology but we have been feeling more disconnected than ever before. Why is that?
- When everything is at the reach of your fingertips as you touch the screen, it can create overwhelm from all of the information.
- When we are expected to only show the best sides of ourselves and be rewarded by the number of likes and followers, it fuels the need to armor instead of the need to feel vulnerable.
- When we are told that it’s not about the quality that matters but the quantity that marks the success of a business, we feel disillusioned because it’s of the human connection and the people that we impact that we created these businesses in the first place.
But we have a choice in how we choose to react.
What COVID and the many events of 2020 have taught us is that everything can change in an instant. What we thought was important no longer matters. What does grinding and hustling for more money and status mean when in an instant, all of that goes away?
So what does matter?
The pursuit of happiness that we all care for is to be able to feel seen and heard and to contribute to a larger good. We seek human to human connection and to be able to see, listen, and talk with each other so we know how to better help ourselves and our community.
We’re resetting on what matters and that starts with how we connect with each other.
This deep reset is helping us shift as a society towards a mindset of leaning into humanity instead of transactions. Instead of simply growing at quantifiable levels, we are growing at a qualitative level in how we support and impact each other.
As consumers, we are deciding what is worth our time, money, and energy. That shows up not only in the relationships we are building with family and friends but also in the organizations and businesses that we interact with. Consumers are looking to choose who they purchase from not just by simply who provides the answer to their needs the best, but what is the relationship they are building with these companies.
Simultaneously, businesses have grown beyond a machine that serves a functional purpose but are living organisms filled with amazing humans. They have values and standards and are deciding who they want to partner with to cultivate the impact that they want to make.
We are watching a world where the business is built by relationships instead of transactions.
This has been an ongoing evolution for a while but with the social movement, the precedence is set that companies now have a voice. The actions of the businesses not only affect the business world but all of us. Not only are businesses asked to share what their values are but act and live these values out.
So we, as marketers, are having deep conversations with businesses on how they want to explore building that relationship.
What is the impact that they are seeking to make in the world. What is the unique human relationship that they are making with their audiences?
By tapping into this unique human relationship, we can help businesses overcome the noise so they focus back into what they love to do. They can:
- Stand out among their competitors using a language that resonates with their audience
- Reconnect to the reason why the business exists and let their audience see the passion behind the mission and vision
- Continue cultivating a trusting relationship that will excite their audience to share their mission and vision
- Inspire others in their community to do the same.
If we lean into humanizing the way we market and do business, then we open up space for our world to lean into our humanity.
If you’re looking to instigate change, please reach out to me and let’s chat more.
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