One of the best things you can have your marketing and advertising strategies to show is empathy – to understand what your target audience wants or needs by (as the old cliché goes) “putting yourself in their shoes”.

But empathy is not something you can put on a script for people to be. It is something that comes naturally from the people – whether it is customer service, salespeople, or your floor staff – out of the love and passion they have for what they do.

What Allows You to Show Empathy

The key components for an entity to be empathetic are two that go hand-and-hand: communication and emotion.

When you’re able to (first) listen to your audience and understand what they’re telling you so you can work around it, that’s a nice start. Then, you manage to tell your audience what you plan to do for them in terms they can understand – that’s how you manage the communication part.

But even the best-written message is worthless without any raw emotion behind it.

Think of a quarterback who just scored a touchdown. When he shows the emotion that the moment carries with it, the crowd goes wild. Even more if it’s in a high-pressure situation. Now, if the quarterback takes his TDs as if they meant squat, the crowd might pop for it at first, but eventually will care as much as he does.

Make sure your content carries a clear message (based on what customers are looking to get from you) and is supported with true passion. That way, your customers will know you are on their side.