Throughout its history, marketing has evolved taking different factors as a key point depending on the aspect we are talking about, with four main focuses: product, consumer, brand and the online era. Recently, a new current has begun to sound strongly, especially after the pandemic, and it is none other than the human centric marketing.
More than one is aware of the revolution and importance that this will mean when it comes to developing successful strategies. And you, do you want to find out more?
What is human-centric marketing
This new approach seeks connect with people, going beyond the “consumer” level and entering the most personal facet. In this way, human centric marketing responds to the knowledge of the depth that new consumers represent, since they believe in brands with a purpose and that can contribute something good to society.
The target audience is no longer considered a mere passive recipient waiting for their needs to be met at a complex receiver, who announces his opinions, ideas and desires, and to whom the brands should listen. Listening, paying attention, these are the keys to achieving the ultimate goal, which is still selling, but now also shares the leading role with forging and strengthening links.
In addition, human centric marketing seeks to convey a sincere empathy, which is projected beyond our potential customers, reaching all the people who in one way or another have contact with the brand. Suppliers, partners, shareholders, carriers, etc. are included. All these people have an impact on our company, and our company on them, so by applying this type of marketing we are helping generate ties and strengthen ties with all the parties involved in our brand ecosystem.
Don’t fall into the trap, it’s not relational marketing, it’s human centric marketing
This concept may remind us in part of the relational marketing, but both have similarities and differences. Relationship marketing seeks to create relationships of trust over time with consumers, bringing them to the fore. However, it focuses more on creating a community than on sales in particular.
For his part, the human centric marketing, in addition to giving greater prominence to the consumer, broadens their vision of it, seeing people, not just customers. Since it is the emotions, principles and opinions that move people, also in their purchasing decisions, so it will be essential to understand them and connect with this most intimate side.
Values as the key and first step of any strategy
And, it is that, the good of Kotler, one of the great references of marketing worldwide, already said it: «The most attractive brands will be those that demonstrate a strong personality and ethicsassuming a perspective focused on its most human side«. Therefore, the key for our strategies based on human-centric marketing to develop successfully will be based on values and ethical principles.
But it is not about starting to broadcast opportunistic messages or based on clichés, we must avoid sounding like the typical miss or mister universe saying that they want peace in the world. You have to be able to understand people, and for that, as we mentioned before, it is vital to listen with interest. Only if we do this can we fully exploit the full potential of human-centric marketing, achieving benefits like: improve the brand image, increase customer satisfaction, identify new opportunities, promote values in the company itself or obtain better economic results.
Likewise, we are going to delve a little deeper into the keys to designing a human-centric marketing strategy.
Find solutions and turn them into opportunities
Once the exercise of paying attention to people’s opinions has been done, understanding their context, what they feel and identifying their needs, problems and interests (in general, all their pain points), as well as their origin, we must focus on the solution. We can put all this by buyer personasa tool that will help us organize all this information clearly so that we can later convey that we understand people’s pain points and are capable of offering solutions to them.
That is, find out what they don’t get from your brand and what they need. And, after this, create new products or services that cover an unexploited niche using the customer experience as a differentiating factor.
For this it is essential to analyze and reflect on how to reach customers. Peer-to-peer communication will be the answer, we are addressing a person so we must be as human as possible. In addition, communicating in terms of a person and not a product will also be very useful. Put aside how great our product is, to talk about what needs it covers and how it contributes on a personal level.
Design strategies that connect with people
Starting our strategy based on what we have learned from human centric marketing will be the next step. We will have to devise a way for our solution to connect with consumers, using a clear, emotional and empathic communicationwhich corresponds to their values and priorities.
The human-centric marketing marketing can be applied to all processes and stages of marketing, such as research, innovation, strategy, customer relations, innovation, product design, communication, sales, etc. This versatility makes multiple strategies and actions possible, but we must not lose sight of the need or problem that we want to cover with our opportunity.
We can apply this same mentality when designing another series of strategies or innovations for our brand, especially those related to technology. As understand that technological progress must go hand in hand with consideration for people and their experience, is required if we want to maintain ties with our customers. For example, if we design an autoresponder program to answer customer questions, we should also design a personalized support option, so that our customers can be served by a real team. Since, if we stayed only with the first option, we would end up giving a cold and distant image, causing our clients to not feel valued and end up abandoning us in pursuit of a company that did give them that feeling.
Measure the objective and the subjective
Yes, it may seem a bit convoluted, but it is not. As in other marketing strategies, we must analyze the results related to aspects that are clearly objective and quantitative such as the number of sales, the , views, etc. But, in this case, it will also be necessary to pay attention to subjective and qualitative such as the levels of satisfaction of our consumers or their opinions. In this way, we continue to listen to people to improve their experience.
In short, a human-centric strategy must find the balance between human and business objectivessince an adequate synergy will help them to strengthen each other.
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