Compassion for Your Customer

Social media is not just a publishing tool. It’s a way for us human beings to connect to a social group. It’s a way for us to feel accepted, validated and heard.

 

The success of social media is down to the fact that we are social animals who have a deep desire to be connected to others. In the past, humans would have been surrounded by the same group we were born into, from dawn to dusk. That’s lacking in our society now, and we turn to the internet where at the click of a button, we can reach other people who have the specific wants, tastes and problems as us.

 

A buyer profile is always the first place I start when designing a new content calendar for a customer. In order to sell their business, I need to understand not just who their customer base is, but what their problems are.

 

This is more than a quick list of job titles and demographics. I often spend a lot of time trying to imagine what life is like for the customers of my customers. This can be something that is lacking in B2B marketing and sales work.

 

We all criticize ourselves harshly, we all wonder whether we’re good enough sometimes. We all, not just mothers, have to play multiple roles as parents, friends, bosses, employees and offspring. We may feel like these roles are getting in the way of our work, or feel like our work is getting in the way of our personal life.

 

B2B services and products are AMAZING. They make our working life easier. They can make us more competent at what we do and help us prove our competence more easily.

 

When designing a message for your B2B customers, put yourself in their shoes.

 

  • Do they worry that they don’t have enough time to do everything and aren’t sure how to explain it to their boss?
  • Are they victims of office politics?
  • Do they not have enough budget, and aren’t sure how they can prove they need more?
  • Are they new to a job and wanting to prove themselves? Are they working day and night to achieve this?
  • Do they work in a job where people simply don’t understand what they do? Do they lack validation of their importance?
  • Do they have other things going on in life, such as caring for an elderly parent or new baby, and just don’t have enough emotional energy left to be worried about work?
  • Are they the business owner? If so they have a tremendous amount of pressure to put food on the table not just for themselves, but for their whole staff.
  • Are they unsure of what they are supposed to be doing?
 

Answering questions like these will help you understand what types of messages and content your customer will want to hear.

 

Does your customer….

 

  • Need content that helps them to explain to their boss why they need the product?
  • Enjoy humour? If so, what kind?
  • Need content that can save them time or help them prove their worth? If so that might encourage your customer to consume more of your content and buy from you.
  • Need content that would be educational and help them improve their own value?
  • Require an experience that helps them feel validated, and like they’re a part of a community?
 

Stay engaged with your customer.

 

And aside from creating the content, it’s incredibly important that potential customers feel connected to you and that you do have compassion for them. This can’t be achieved with publishing alone, it takes a lot of work to respond to your customer’s comments and questions, back them up and make them feel like you’re there for them and truly understand them.

 

On one of my businesses accounts, we were tagged by a potential customer who was frustrated that our service wasn’t provided by a big brand. The large brand didn’t respond, but we did, with empathy and sympathy that he hadn’t been listened to, and that the lack of this service was clearly making his life difficult. Since then he has become an evangelical, sharing every single one of our posts to his audience. All he wanted, was to be HEARD.

 

Are you listening to your audience and responding with compassion? While there are many resources which will teach you how to use social media, it’s really more about how you connect with others, not just about how you use each platform. Show your customer that you’re on their side, and are there for them, not just their business.

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