One of the symptoms of living in an information age is the sheer volume of words each of us is bombarded with. On average, we get blasted with an average of almost 3,000 marketing messages per day.
As consumers, we’ve become incredibly adept at filtering out the noise, which amounts to pretty bad news for the marketer tasked with achieving cut through.
In the midst of all this corporate clutter, however, a true opportunity to connect presents itself. How so? The answer is remarkably simple: think of your audience as humans, and then speak to them like humans.
1. Write it as you’d say it
Every industry has its own jargon. Naturally, you are so intimately familiar with your company’s offer that you’ve forgotten what it’s like not to know everything about it. While there is a place for technical terminology, that place is not when communicating with the public.
Conduct an audit of your marketing materials and you might be surprised by how prevalent your knowledge bias is throughout the copy. As a practical starting point, imagine you’re describing your new product over a coffee with a friend. Jot down a transcript of the imaginary conversation and use that as a guide for future content from login screen messages and auto response emails to direct mail and social media posts.
2. Listen attentively
We all know that the key to great communication is great listening. Nobody likes spending time with people who talk incessantly about themselves, and the same applies to brands. An example of a brand doing a great job at this is Virgin America. Not only do they listen, they look beyond what is being said to understand the human context. As an example, when Pure Valley CEO Bryan Kramer tweeted he was flying with Virgin America, the airline tweeted back “Thanks for the shout. Have a great time in #Orlando”. A seemingly simple gesture, but with 528,000 followers, this is also a nice demonstration of active listening.
3. Encourage natural responses
When we’re at the receiving end of marketing, our channels of communication are usually limited to the likes of garish “Act Now” buttons, invitations to download, sign up to an email list or complete a survey. Such an approach is practical and straightforward enough, but hardly likely to inspire a true or memorable connection.
With a little imagination, even the humble and impersonal “Contact us” form can be a chance to strike up a human conversation. Think outside the box, quite literally, and encourage people to fill out a conversational style paragraph about themselves as opposed to black and white contact detail fields. You might be surprised by the resulting impact on lead capture rates such a seemingly simple change can make. It can also be much easier to nurture a human, personalised conversation with pre-warmed leads.
Every touchpoint is a chance to connect meaningfully with your audience. Think beyond B2C or B2B communications and aim to initiate human-to-human conversations wherever possible.
Photo: Sergio Alvarez
