Consumers are tired of the hard sell. They don’t always want promotional materials thrown in their faces with ‘buy me’ demands. Instead, they want businesses to understand what they want and need and guide them into a sale without shock factor tactics.
Businesses may achieve their desired sales targets by connecting with their consumers on a human level. While changing sales tactics can be tricky, you might experience some success by taking these approaches:
Listen and Respond to Customers
Businesses can’t hope to reach their target audiences and give them what they want if they don’t ask, listen, and respond. For example, if loyal customers repeatedly tell you they don’t feel appreciated, you might address the issue by offering random discounts and including branded business gifts in their orders.
When customers share their frustrations on your social media pages about shipping delays or other matters, empathize with their complaints. You can also be transparent about what the issue is and how you plan to address it.
Understand Your Audience
A huge part of being able to connect with customers on a human level is understanding who they are as people. That way, you can customize your marketing to suit their unique needs, preferences, and pain points.
Fortunately, gaining an understanding of target audiences is something most businesses do at the start when creating their business plan. It involves conducting surveys, analyzing data, and creating buyer personas. The more you learn about your audience, the easier it can be to connect with them.
Use Casual Language
There’s always a time and a place for casual language. That time and place is usually whenever and wherever you’re trying to encourage customers to buy your goods and services.
Depending on your industry, you might use more conversational language and steer away from formal language and corporate jargon to seem more natural. Conversational language tends to be more relatable, familiar, and comfortable for most audiences.
Be Transparent
Business owners make many mistakes. After all, there are real humans behind those flash websites and bright neon open signs. However, it’s how you respond to those mistakes that makes all the difference in your customers’ eyes.
Be transparent and upfront about a mistake you made. Explain why it happened and share details on how you hope to stop it from happening again. Your customers may appreciate your honesty and remain loyal.
Highlight Your Business’s Humans
There’s nothing wrong with being solely focused on marketing your goods and services. However, it can mean that you rarely take the time to show off the people providing them! Connect with your customers by showing them that real people are behind the scenes, creating all the magic!
You can highlight the employees, business owners, and even contractors and vendors who make your everyday operations possible. Videos, testimonials, and photos are all great marketing options worth exploring.
Be Socially Responsible
You can do more than sell products and services your customers need and want. You can sell products and services while being committed to social responsibility. Think about social issues you’re passionate about and how they can align with your brand values. You can then come up with ways to make a positive impact and connect with your customers on an entirely new level.
Connecting with customers on a human level isn’t always easy when the hard sell has always been your primary focus. However, by listening to your customers, highlighting the faces of your business, and being entirely transparent, you may be surprised by how much easier it is to address and connect with your loyal customers.
