–Risha Pandey (Class of 2020-22, IBS Hyderabad)
Does your business sell to other business? That means you’re in B2B marketing. Selling your business directly to consumers? It’s B2C. and if your business markets to government agencies, well that is B2G.
These classifications are appointed with good intent for marketers; they’re designed to help us qualify our marketing audiences but there’s a common and arguably thread that unifies these audiences and it’s called human to human marketing.
WHAT IS HUMAN MARKETING AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
It represents the concept that behind every business, consumer, non-profit, government body, there is a human being who makes decisions about the company.
We often tend to deviate from this fact- especially in today’s highly digitalized marketing world where robots, artificial intelligence and other forms of machine learning prevail. Human involvement in marketing builds trust it taps into people’s emotions and research shows that this is one of the most important element in the decision-making process of the buyer’s journey as business does not have emotions but people do.
WAYS TO APPLY H2H MARKETING
- Talk like an actual person– experts say that it is best when a person encourages businesses to ‘stop trying to be perfect and talk like an actual human.’ When it comes to the actual words you’re using to describe your business, striving for perfection can quickly become your weakness. Make sure that you’re using easy words and phrases as complicated and robotic language is difficult to be comprehended by everyone.
- Humanize your robots– Bots are everywhere. They’re now an established part of marketing but make sure that even here, an H2H mentality applies and your bots do not actually have to sound like robots and impersonal. Easy language should be used that’s casual and conversational and the functioning should not be too complicated.
- Embrace your shortcomings and be hyper transparent– providing an honest and putting forward the shortcomings is a critical trust- builder. No product or service is right for everyone but when you talk about your own shortcomings, you’re ahead of your buyer’s concerns and objections. For example- Dominos launched a nationwide campaign to tell everyone how bad did their pizza taste-before they made it better and this hyper transparency helped them in increasing the sales by 15%.
- Use stories to become more memorable– research shows that if people love your brand’s story, 50% are likely to buy from you in the future and 15% will buy the product immediately. Story telling marketing is a necessary ‘human element’ for marketers in any industry.
- Incorporate user-generated content– user- generated content is a vital element for every H2H marketer’s toolbox as consumers are 92% more likely to trust their friends over advertisements when it comes to purchasing decisions. Various ways to incorporate UGC are sparking conversations on social media, encouraging people to share photos of your service or solution in action, reviewing you on third party website, etc.
THE RISE OF H2H MARKETING
As human and consumers, each one of us crave for a sense of acknowledgement. Personalization should be a key factor that every brand should utilize to engage its customers. Addressing a customer by their name or even remembering their choice of coffee says a lot about human marketing.
Businesses don’t have minds of their own neither do they have emotions and our marketing strategies do not align with this fact and then the result is a dull robotic content which can be unsatisfying to the buyers and to resolve this issue, H2H marketing is important.
HOW IMPORTANT IS H2H MARKETING
The rise of internet and social media platforms have drastically altered the marketing landscape. As a consumer, a sense of acknowledgment shows a level of appreciation. In order to connect better with the consumers, it is important that H2H marketing prevails in the market as H2H marketing pertains to the experience and interaction one faces with a particular brand and google won’t do justice to it.
FUTURE PROSPECTS OF HUMAN TO HUMAN MAREKTING
As millennials and genz takes a more prominent role in society, brand should put forth a stronger focus towards human marketing. Millennials and genz are both heavily concerned with connectivity. This includes human based interaction through digital channels using modern technology.
References- https://www.ethinos.com/blog/the-rise-of-human-to-human-marketing-how-to-make-it-work/
