If you’re in the marketing industry, you’re probably seeing the word “empathy” a lot these days. “Empathy” was a trendy word before March 2020, but with all of the effects of COVID-19 on our health and our businesses, marketers are being counted on to treat their audiences with empathy.

We should look at the Dictionary.com definition of “empathy” so we’re on the same page:

“The psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”

OK, let’s reframe that in the context of marketing: Our customers want to feel understood. We want our customers to feel understood. Our marketing and our copy should look and sound empathetic, like we get their problems, we feel their pain, and we’re here to offer help.

How can we make our copy feel empathetic?

I know everyone says this, but you’re trying to build a relationship with your customer; you’re talking with them, not at them. Think about the last conversation you had with someone going through a rough patch. Here’s one from me:

I’m in Des Moines, Iowa, and a hurricane-force storm recently blew through town, toppling trees and knocking out power everywhere. My situation wasn’t as bad as others’: We lost power for 56 hours and threw away maybe $50 worth of food, and I put two small piles of branches on the curb for pickup. 

But a friend across town had none of the same issues. Power was on, trees were fine, and life wasn’t upside down. She listened as my wife and I complained, and she replied, “I hear you, this is the worst. Our freezer is empty; do you want to use it?”

That’s it. That’s empathy. She acknowledged our problem, related to our problem, and offered us a solution.

I’ve heard that Apple’s service employees are trained to do something similar, to be empathetic using the “feel, felt, found” formula:

Apple’s ‘Feel, Felt, Found’ approach recommends that Apple Geniuses acknowledge the customer’s emotion (“I can see why you’d feel that way”), link it to their own feelings (“I too felt that the price was a little high”) and then turn it around with their personal experience (“I found it’s real value because of all the built-in software”).

It’s so simple, but it’s so easy to take for granted. Why can we talk to our friends like this, but we can’t talk to our customers the same way?

Back to my previous point, people want to feel understood. They want to be heard. These are tenets of design thinking. It’s psychology, in that it battles depression. It resolves conflicts — including ones we may be creating as marketers if we’re not listening.

“Listening” can sound like a hard thing to do when you’re sitting at a computer with a cursor blinking at you, commanding you to “talk.” So, take time to look at your company’s social media platforms and the comments people leave. Look up your competitors — or your heroes — on Amazon and read their reviews. Call some old customers and ask questions.

Or, like adults used to tell us when we were kids, keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth closed. (I always liked, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.”)

It’s when we listen that we learn. When we know what our customers’ problems are, and when we know we have a solution for them, and we talk to them like they’re people, that’s when we’re being empathetic.