You know that feeling… that horrible sinking feeling at the end of a conversation when someone you’ve just met asks for your card and says “I’ll definitely be calling you - I could really use your service!” But, somehow, you just know that you won’t be hearing from them.

That’s exactly what my client Sue was fed up with when we spoke last week. Sue has given out 100’s -maybe even 1000’s of business cards in the 5 years she’s been in business. She told me “I’m so sick of seeing them go out, and then hearing from so few people that have them…” But then Sue said “the thing that bothers me most is - I KNOW these people need me. I know I can help them! I WANT to help them!”

It’s really hard knowing that oodles of people are out there that definitely need you, but they just won’t call darn it!

Sue’s exasperated question to me was “what is it going to take to get these people to pick up the phone?”

There are pieces that you can put in place in your promotional efforts that will inspire people to call you.

Marketing (or, business promotion), is actually a support system in your business. Your marketing efforts support whatever it is that you do in your business. Your marketing needs to work for your business. The first thing that needs to happen is, people need to feel heard, and seen - they need to feel a connection with you, and they need to know that you deeply understand what they’re going through, and how you can help them.

Let’s look closer at Sue’s business. She’s a Reiki Practitioner. And so far, her marketing has included attending networking events. Developing a web site, creating brochures, and putting fliers up around town. She’d like to start a newsletter but doesn’t feel she has enough people on her “list” to make it worth-while.

Now, if you think about marketing as a support system - how exactly are your current marketing efforts supporting your business? For Sue, her marketing materials are beautifully designed. They are laid out nicely, they are well written… but they only talk about Sue and her practice. They say hardly anything about her potential clients. So, when someone looks at her marketing materials, they see that Sue is well qualified, and probably feel safe going to her… but they don’t leave potential clients feeling heard or seen.

In order for your marketing efforts to truly support what you do, they need to empathize with your potential clients - even before they talk about your business.

The empathy piece is vital to your marketing efforts. Vital. Without it, your potential clients don’t feel heard.

Look at your current marketing materials. What kinds of information do they contain? Things like your business phone number, web address, maybe some benefits of working with you… all good stuff - but - if you don’t empathize at all with your potential clients in those marketing materials… they may think you’re a very nice person, but it may leave a lingering question - “yeah, but can she really help ME - does she understand what I’m going through?”

When you meet someone for the first time, they are also meeting your business for the first time. When you meet someone for the first time, would you invite yourself over for dinner? Probably not - you build a relationship, rapport, connection before you get to that point.

Your marketing needs to support your business in the same way. When your business meets someone for the first time, that person needs to feel a connection with your business - and how it can specifically help them (or someone they know). Again - that’s where the empathy piece is so important.

From there, it’s vital to have way for that person to continue to build a relationship with your business. How to do that? With a newsletter. And we’ll get more into that next week. We’re going to follow Sue more, I’ll fill you in on what Sue’s doing (hint: she’s finally developing that newsletter!), and we’ll talk about how to do it.

For now, take a look at some shining examples of empathetic marketing materials and see if you can see a difference between what you’ve created, and these examples:

Create A Thriving Business <— Yes that’s me - I walk my talk

Extraordinary Women Thrive

Behind the Scenes LLC

Any questions about using empathy in your marketing? Any questions at all about marketing or promotion? Let me know!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 3:06 am and is filed under Authenticity In Entrepreneurship, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.