Successful content marketing is about creating a connection between your audience and your brand. Empathetic Content Marketing in Action How it shows empathy: Lush’s customers want to buy beauty products that are truly natural. 2) LinkedIn (Ebook) LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is all about mobilizing marketers to grow their audience, create more effective content, and, ultimately, achieve their goals. Naturally, they want their audience to leverage LinkedIn to help them achieve those goals. How it shows empathy: One immensely effective empathy marketing tactic is education. A photo posted by Dove (@dove) on Dec 14, 2015 at 9:57am PST How it shows empathy: Dove’s posts offer customers regular reminders of their worth, as well as ways to actively recognize themselves and other women. How it shows empathy: In many ways, gum is a product meant to enhance intimacy, making your breath fresh for more closeness. 6) Microsoft (Interactive infographic) Microsoft’s security solutions are all about keeping consumers’ data safe. Create content that helps solve their problems, enhance their lives, and provide true value.
Successful content marketing is about creating a connection between your audience and your brand.
This doesn’t mean just throwing content at them. It means creating content that they truly value—content that serves their needs and addresses their biggest pain points. This type of content is much easier to create when it’s informed and driven by empathy.
When you put yourself in your audience’s shoes, it becomes easier to acknowledge their struggles and think critically about the best solutions. That’s why empathetic content marketing is such a powerful strategy for both B2B and B2C.
Not sure what that looks like? Let’s walk through nine brands that nail empathetic content marketing in multiple mediums.
Empathetic Content Marketing in Action
1) LUSH (VIDEO)
With the tagline “Fresh, handmade cosmetics,” LUSH is a beauty brand that is all about natural products. As such, we see their radical transparency showcased in their How It’s Made video series, wherein they go behind the scenes of some of their most popular products.
Each episode features actual Lush employees in the “kitchen,” narrating the step-by-step process of how the products are made. Lush visuals(pun intended) showcase just how natural the ingredients are. You see mounds of fresh lemons, tea infusions, and salt swirled together to become the product you know and love. It’s equal parts interesting and educational.
How it shows empathy: Lush’s customers want to buy beauty products that are truly natural. They care about using fresh, organic, and ethically sourced ingredients—hence the videos feature colorful, close-up shots of those organic lemons and sea salt to drive that point home.
Taking customers inside the factory and showing them every part of the process—with a human face—assures them that they can consume these products with peace of mind.
2) LinkedIn (Ebook)
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is all about mobilizing marketers to grow their audience, create more effective content, and, ultimately, achieve their goals. Naturally, they want their audience to leverage LinkedIn to help them achieve those goals. While they produce plenty of content related to the benefits of LinkedIn, the team has made a significant push into content that educates all levels of marketer on a variety of topics (as you can see on their blog).
This 27-page ebook, Native Advertising: What It Is. How to Do It, provides a ton of information on all aspects of native advertising, which is one of LinkedIn’s enterprise marketing services. It’s packed with tips, stats, deep dives into the various types of native ads, strategy, as well as the benefits of LinkedIn’s various native ad services.
How it shows empathy: One immensely effective empathy marketing tactic is education. LinkedIn wants to empower their audience to do their jobs better (and use their product to do so), and this ebook is the single tool they need to understand and confidently use native ads to their advantage.
Through offerings like this, customers learn that they can rely on LinkedIn as a trusted source to guide them in the right direction, and LinkedIn can continue to provide solutions through their product offerings. It’s a win-win all around.
3) Home Depot (Infographic)
Home Depot is a home and garden supply store that caters to all types of builders and DIY-ers, whether you’re a construction worker building a gazebo or a homemaker experimenting with gardening. In other words, their content must cater to various demographics.
As they are all about the DIY, their marketing focuses on what their supplies can help you do—not just what the supplies are. This “Grow a Living Salad Bowl” infographic teaches consumers to grow their own salad, offering information on how to do it, which vegetables grow best, and what supplies they need—all with minimal branding.
How it shows empathy: Home Depot’s customers dream of being skilled DIYers, but they need a bit of help working through the unknown, as well as some encouragement. This infographic delivers both, inspiring customers to take action.
4) Dove (Instagram)
Dove is a beauty brand all about positive self-image, and they’ve done a great job of creating a supportive and loving environment for their fans on social media. Almost all of Dove’s posts on Instagram are…
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