Each year, the average person gets exposed to more and more marketing messages. Folks are just becoming numb to all of the marketing noise, and all of the campaigns and ads are giving diminishing returns. Instead of finding creative ways to approach the problem, most marketing companies are making their content more invasive and harder to avoid. Unfortunately, this strategy will only leave users feeling frustrated and alienated. If you run a company that plans to launch a new marketing campaign, you are in the right place because we are going to take a look at ways to make your digital marketing more humane.
Use natural ways to engage your audience
You’ve undoubtedly heard the new marketing buzzword called user engagement. Recently it seems like marketing isn’t even trying to appeal to users as much as it is targeting algorithms. Too many companies are doing things just to appease the almighty search engines. This trend is especially prevalent on social media, which has become almost predatory in its design. Although social media needs to change, it still represents the best way of directly interacting with your customers. It’s up to you to make those interactions genuinely mean something. Ask your users relevant questions and actually respond to them and engage them in a proper conversation. This approach will be doubly efficient, since besides engaging customers in a natural way, you’ll also boost your SEO metrics in a humane way.
Offer value in your content
How many times have you clicked on a link, only to discover it was a hollow click-bait article which offers no real content? Don’t post just for clicks. Give something back to people who choose to engage with your content. Put the customer first and give them tangible value in your blog posts; offer them handy guides and how-to tutorials. It’s best that you utilize your website for this purpose as the main hub to host all of your marketing content. If you give your website visitors value for their time, and you will also be giving them a good reason to visit your site again. Offering valuable content for free is one of the best ways to make your digital marketing more humane.
Promote brand loyalty
Repeat customers are the backbone of every business, and yet companies usually fail to treat their best customers properly. You can include loyalty programs for your customers which aren’t based on psychological tricks. Instead, you should try to go out of your way to make customers happy for giving you their money. Reach out to your users and see what you can do for them. This doesn’t even have to end up costing you a lot. Invite a few of your loyal customers for a tour of the office and take them out to lunch. Turn your customers into brand ambassadors by making them feel welcome and appreciated even when they aren’t directly doing business with you.
Have your marketing material actually sound human
We’ve seen the same mistake so many times. In order to appeal to a wide target demographic and trigger all the right notifications from search engines, marketing material often sounds like it was made for robots and not for people. The best way to make your digital marketing more humane is to trust your employees and let them express themselves.
If you have a community manager who is an actual real-life person, you should encourage them to insert a bit of their own personality into company messages. Your social network accounts will be authentic, and an informal approach always sounds more natural. Let customers actually develop relationships with your brand by communicating with the people behind it.
Be consistent
Since you have people developing your marketing, you should let them follow through with their vision instead of constantly pandering to numbers you got from various research metrics. If you course-correct and change your campaign every single month, your posts and ads are going to differ wildly from one month to the next. Just jumping on the latest bandwagon every time will cause severe tonal whiplash and leave your users feeling alienated.
Believe in what you are promoting
Sincerity always shines through, even in digital marketing campaigns. It’s time to ask yourself if you can actually get behind what you are promoting to your users. Take a few steps back, look at your company values, and think about your mission and vision statements. Endorse causes you honestly believe in. Trust us; your customers will be able to tell the difference when your heart is really in what you are doing.
Celebrate the people behind your brand
What is a brand without the people who created it and who keep investing themselves into it? Be proud of the people who keep making your brand into what it is. Showcase their efforts, their achievements, and triumphs. It’s also perfectly fine to be humble and admit that things don’t always go as planned. Showing weakness is a sign of humanity, and it’s nothing you should be afraid of. You can sometimes post unflattering photos, failed products, and blooper reels. Celebrate your achievements, but also be able to laugh off your failures. Include the people who make up your company into its marketing content; it will become honest and relatable.
You should always be working to foster a creative and relaxed work environment, so why not display your accomplishments? Post photos and videos from the office. Share your team-building experiences with your customers, and let them see all of the times your employees are having fun together. This approach is also great for attracting new employees. They will have a much better idea of what your company culture is about if they can experience it even before stepping foot into the office.
The bottom line
Instead of thinking up ways to trick an audience into giving you a few minutes of their time, you should be looking into ways to make your digital marketing more humane. Simply focus on your customers, establish healthy communication with them and listen to what they are saying. It’s actually not that hard; at the end of the day, we’re all just people.
Anthony Bartollo
Anthony Bartollo is a part-time teacher and a full-time blogger. He is grateful for every opportunity to make a difference and empower the people around him. Although he considers himself successful, learning to get up early is and will forever stay beyond him.
