They're Not Targets, They're Human

Versium’s own Chris Matty was featured in a recent Forrester report on humanizing B2B marketing. The punch line: Empathy is the key to humanizing marketing, for both B2B and B2C customers, and it’s essential. With the hyper-personalization of consumer markets, our business customers now expect a lot from companies, and it’s easier than ever to lose trust and your ability to connect with your customers.

As pointed out in the Forrester Report, “As humans, we yearn to have our feelings, experiences, and attitudes acknowledged. We are not “targets” or “behavioral profiles” and norare our customers.” Chris Matty, CEO at Versium, puts it this way: “A business buyer’s humanity — attitude, emotions, and mood — affects the way they make decisions.”

So, making sure your marketing is in line with that humanity — in line with all the parts of it — is just as important as having your technical details and customization correct. Emotion affects “every stage of the B2B buying process, from engagement to renewal”, and every stage is susceptible to that emotional influence.

The good news is, the AI, machine learning, and data insights that Versium provides can help you here. Having access to the details of your B2B customers as both business people AND consumers gives you a more well-rounded and complete view of who your customers are, what their motivations are, and through that rich contextual information, you gain insights into how you might engage with your customers at a more emotional and empathic level.

From the Forrester report: “To engage the B2B consumer, marketers and sellers must stop shouting their messages and focus on creating two-way conversations.” What would it take to make our marketing communications not shouting, but instead invitations and openings for further dialog?

The Forrester report lists 3 key actions you can take, along with your AI investments:

• Lift your EQ and RQ — Practice both emotional intelligence, and the ability to pull the human side out of the data.
• Lean into warmth over perfection or efficiency — Spend the time to develop real relationships and human messages. This article emphasizes engagement, empathy, and emotion. That human connection is far more powerful than the best marketing angle, pitch, or campaign.
• Blend professional and consumer signals to create richer profiles — Here’s where Versium’s combined B2B and B2C LifeData® makes things easier. You can easily get consumer insights, contact information, and online social connections for your business contacts to understand the whole person, and hence, be able to connect with them as such.

This synopsis has hopefully opened up some new possibilities in your quest to humanize your marketing. To read the full report, see Humanize B2B Insights With AI — Three Ways To Boost Buyer Experiences With Empathy, Engagement, And Emotion. Contact us to see how Versium can help.