humantouchWe live in a world that values connections and puts the consumers in the driving seat, forcing marketers to focus more on a healthy mix of original, specialized content that appeals to the needs of the new generation of customers. Therefore, a well-balanced combination of industry news and human interest posts is a winning formula, but doesn’t have to stop there. Equally important to adding a human touch is actively engaging with the people who are connecting with you online.

In fact, adding a human element to your marketing practices is vital to getting attention. Infusing that human touch will not only add a unique value to make your prospects feel like they know you and can trust you, but will encourage your customers to become fans and promoters of your brand as well.

Make friends by paying attention

Secretly, we actually all like the "small town feel", where the waiter in a cafe knows what we will order as soon as we enter the store or the cashier at the supermarket knows our name. But of course, not all can and want to live in a small town where personalized, one-to-one interaction is possible.

However, thanks to social media, customers increasingly change their expectations, which actually means that the dialogue with companies should indeed be more similar to communications in a small corner shop than the talk with an unapproachable huge corporation.

For this reason, general and impersonal marketing and advertising messages to the masses are increasingly less effective. Now is the time to give your marketing contents a human touch and that’s why I want to provide a few tips again that should help you to achieve exactly that:

Omit impersonal computer language and sales slogans

Do your emails sound like the perfect sales catalogue? If so, please reconsider your efforts urgently. Envision the situations in which your customer most probably is reading your message. We live in a world of social media where your users most likely read their emails while being at the supermarket checkout, waiting at the bus-stop or in the middle of checking their latest tweets. So, pay attention to the behavior of your customers and do not talk to them as a pure sales victim but as a human being - because that’s what they are.

Reassess your content

You do not need more but different content - more customer-oriented content. To find out what your customers want, make use of your blog as a source of information, as well as Twitter and Facebook entries, in addition your customer service communication, as it is there where you get ideas for more user-friendly content.

Make them laugh from time to time

It is okay to be funny - your audience likes that and responds to it. With humor, you draw attention to yourself and make your message more personal. Of course, this is not the only way to be noticed. But always make sure that your voice is in line with your company, your brand, and the image that you want to represent.

Take a look at one of our previous articles that will give you an impression: http://www.mediabuzz.com.sg/asian-emarketing/Content-Marketing/1734-visualizing-your-content-for-maximum-impact

Give your customers and employees a chance to speak up

Numerous studies show that customers and prospects appreciate the opinions and reviews of like-minded people. Well, most probably you already know that these ratings have a much larger impact than just advertising. But have you already implemented that in your e-mail communication? Integrate user-generated content in your messages. Reviews of customer-references give your email the human touch and generate more revenue as a result.

Last but not least, when you start to give your content more personality, please remember that we are not just talking about a passing trend or a new marketing buzzword, but a way to include the thoughts of your customers and employees in your email messages, that way improving the dialogue.

Empathy on eye level is expected today, so reduce the unnatural "advertising slang" and talk to people in a very personal and respectful way.

By Daniela La Marca