As technology advances, marketing tactics need to adapt to how people are getting and sharing information.
For many years, marketing has generally been split into two categories, Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B). While these were effective ways to look at marketing in a business sense, these definitions can hide the fact that in either case, you are marketing to people. As Bryan Kramer wrote for Social Media Today, we should be focused on Human to Human (H2H) sales and marketing.
What does this mean for your marketing tactics? It is time to start connecting with your potential clients in a different way. Rather than ‘selling hard’ or feature/benefit messaging, H2H simplifies our language and puts an emphasis on empathy and personalization while connecting with people socially.
Here are four ways you can make your marketing more H2H:
1. Speaking Human
More and more, people use social platforms to communicate, get information and share what they learned. This means your messages should be simplified and easy to share. It is acceptable to write in a conversational tone and avoid big words.
2. Social Sensory Marketing
In order to grab and hold the attention of prospects, you need to appeal to and connect with the basic human sensory system. The best way to do this is to incorporate imagery and video into your day to day marketing. You may get a few views on your text only post, add a picture and your numbers will likely increase. Add a cartoon or a video and you’ll up your chances of getting shared.
3. Customer Relationships
People want to connect with you and your brand. It is important to start that connection early. One way to let your potential clients get to know you is through video. When a potential client can see who they’ll be working with, it starts to build trust, which will speed up the sales process significantly. To learn more about creating headshot videos, read 5 Basic Tips for Executive Headshot Videos.
4. Become a Better Storyteller
This is your chance to appeal to people’s emotions. Tell stories about the pains your current clients were experiencing and how you were able to help them. Use pathos to connect with your potential clients and let them know you understand and can lend a helping hand. Read 3 Ways to Incorporate Storytelling into Your Marketing Content for more on how to be a better storyteller in your marketing content.
H2H marketing makes you look at what people want in everyday life and how they want to feel. So what is it that people want? They want to be a part of something bigger; they want to feel, to be included and to understand. We are no longer just selling a product or service we are connecting with people.
To learn more about how to appeal to your customers, read What Do B2B Customers Want from your Branding and Marketing Content?
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