How to Make Your Customer the HERO

Hooray! 

You got someone to sign up for your email list. 

The thrill of attaining more names for our email list makes most entrepreneurs jump for joy. After all, time and time again, as a business owner, you will be told…” you’ve got to have a huge email list,” or if you don’t have a list you will inevitably be asked, “Why don’t you have a list. You MUST have a list!” So we spring into action and begin to beg for email addresses so we will have a huge list to sell to… surely that will lead to quick sales, right? 

Sadly this is the mindset and strategy many companies and entrepreneurs use to engage with the ‘names’ on their email list. Because let’s face it, this type of mindset is looking at it as “just names on a list” versus this is a real person with real emotions, real thoughts, real problems, leading a busy life. When a business owner looks at the names on an email list as just a data-mining exercise or collecting them for analytics purposes, they are missing out on future revenue—it’s as simple as that. 

Don’t be ‘That Guy’

When people add their name to get your lead magnet, they indicate they have some level of trust and belief in you, your product, or service—this is a huge deal! Unfortunately, all too many marketers go from “hello, nice to meet you,” to the ‘bedroom’” so to speak, when they get an email address. Oftentimes, only one welcome email is sent to their ‘new friend’ before immediately asking for a sale. That’s like asking your blind date to go back to your place before the water glasses have even been filled. To say that would be jumping the gun would be an understatement. Yet many businesses operate this way when engaging with their email list or other potential customers.

But what would happen if the business looked at the list of names of people with whom to build and nurture a long-lasting relationship? 

How would it look? 

How would it make the customers feel? 

How would it change the relationship dynamic between business entities and potential buyers? 

When your business/brand becomes a guide with the intention of becoming a trusted ally to those who put their names on your list. When a business goes from “just another company that wants to sell me something” to one that cares about me and my problems, that’s the type of business relationship consumers are searching for right now. 

Outside in, not Inside Out

Companies that do not shift their perspective to viewing potential customers as humans rather than just some names on a list will be left behind as others adapt to meet the needs of their customers. Business owners who make the shift, who nurture the relationship and cultivate it, will be the winners. 

Going from a seller of goods and services to taking on a guide mentality can take some time to get used to, but this strategy is much more powerful and acts as the necessary catalyst to shift from the “what’s in it for me” business model to “what’s in it for the customer” model. Empathy is that catalyst.

Empathy’s Role in Mid-Funnel Marketing

If you step back and look at the word empathy from its etymological roots, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, we will find, “Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion.” As a business owner, when we look at empathy as a passion for understanding and fulfilling the desires of our costumes—everybody WINS! 

Yet, based on most of the marketing we see, this one component is missing from the vast majority of businesses, entrepreneurs, and corporations striving so hard to get customers yet falling flat time and time again.

It’s only when you put yourself in your customer’s position and have an empathic mindset that you will be able to inspire them to take action.

As a marketer, it is your job to always keep the customer front of mind and understand where they are in their journey. This makes copywriting and creating content much easier because you begin to “speak the language” of your consumer. You will know it’s starting to work when you hear phrases like, “you took the words right out of my mouth. It’s like you knew what I was thinking. Thanks for helping me sleep better at night because ‘x’ problem was keeping me up at night.”

Listening and empathizing with your customer or potential customers gives you numerous insights into what they desire and need solutions for. Brilliant marketing strategists use this information to create mid-funnel marketing campaigns that nurture the customers’ journey. Approach your mid-funnel marketing efforts with the mindset that it’s all about ways to build the bond and further nurture the relationship as you become a trusted guide and advisor, their loyalty increases, as are the chances they will purchase from you at a later date. You want to think about this process like that of being a farmer.

Don’t be a Marketer, be a Farmer

Every farmer understands there is a process to working the land—a dance with plants and harmonizing with the natural laws that govern all things. The farmer knows with absolute certainty that there are steps he must take if he wants to have a successful harvest. One cannot go from land covered with weeds and overgrowth to being able to plant delicate seeds with any real hope of a fertile plant taking shape. Even someone with no farming experience would agree that it would not work as described above. Yet as marketers, we tend to think this way about serving our email list and expecting to get the crop we desire. It doesn’t work that way in nature or our marketing efforts.

That’s why it is so imperative to act and think like a farmer when developing your mid-funnel marketing campaigns. The farmer has empathy for his land and his seeds which he desires to become little seedlings that sprout into crops that yield bountiful harvests. And while the farmer may wish the seeds to go from in the dirt to harvest, he knows he cannot rush the process of mother nature. He understands he is joining with and working in cooperation with the natural laws of the land. There will be sunny days, some blue skies, and some days filled with rain, but the farmer does not panic because all these changes are necessary to bring to life the seeds he planted. 

Empathetic Marketing is Better Marketing

The farmer is successful when he knows and accepts the stages a plant goes through, the journey it takes to become a bountiful harvest. But as a business owner and marketer, do you know the path your customer goes through before they ultimately buy from you? Do you understand your customer’s journey?

Well… if you don’t, you probably should figure it out asap. Otherwise, you will never be able to have empathy for potential or repeat customers. Put yourself in their shoes to act as their trusted guide and solve their problems. 

During the mid-funnel marketing phase, your goal is to keep consumers engaged with you, so their desire for your product or service goes up with each engagement they have with you. When you start with empathy, you speak in a way that causes people to take action. This makes for a more natural sales process than the “sign up/buy from me NOW” model. Creating a customer experience within their journey nurtures them in such a way that they are eager to sign up when your cart opens when you launch a product or service, or when you create a new course, et cetera.

Once you are the pilot on their journey from point A to point B to point C to point D… you are miles ahead of most of your competitors who don’t take the time to understand this crucial process. The process of creating a customer success path calls for empathy, imagination, creativity, and thinking about it from the perspective of being a guide rather than the hero of this journey. Your customer is always the HERO of the journey… not us as the brand, product, or service. When you realize your customer is the hero, this creates immediate empathy for them because as a guide to someone, we must empathize with them to help them solve their problems.

Make Your Customer the HERO

Yoda was empathic to Luke Skywalker… was he not? Yet Luke Skywalker, not Yoda (his guide), saved the day when he defeated the Death Star. Luke was the hero. 

I’ll leave you with this contemplation—when in doubt—ask yourself, are you Yoda or Luke Skywalker in your mid-funnel marketing and storytelling? If the answer is Luke… use the force to go back to the drawing board and give some tweaks to where you are with your empathy and what does your customer’s success path journey look like?