How empathy will improve your marketing & sales pipeline

Brian Carroll

@brianjcarroll

How Empathy Will Improve Your Marketing & Sales Pipeline

@brianjcarroll

The Problem

Photo credit: http://jephmaystruck.com

@brianjcarroll

The Problem

Photo credit: http://jephmaystruck.com

@brianjcarroll

It begins with empathy

Photo credit: http://theleadingedgeblog.com/

Sharing another's feeling and thoughts

Empathy is the marketer’s intuition.

@brianjcarroll

Case Study: Empathic Marketing

Watch the video

/

Source: http://www.cfstwo.com/

http://www.cfstwo.com/Video/CBS_Evening_News_CFS2.mp4

@brianjcarroll

@brianjcarroll

Karen Thomas-SmithVice President, Provider Marketing and Reference ManagementOptum

@brianjcarroll

Results to-date

• An integrated campaign that has generated over 12,000,000 impressions

• More than 10,000 downloads of gated content

• Results that have surpassed the team's goals by 250%

• Over $120 million in sales pipeline creation to date

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/video/how-optum-generated-closed-contract

@brianjcarroll

1) Put your customers first

Instead of trying to sound interesting to others,

be interested.

Photo credit: http://blog.referralinstitutenn.co.uk/

@brianjcarrollSource: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/video/how-optum-generated-closed-contract

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2) Understand their motivation

What are the steps they need take to say “yes”?

@brianjcarrollSource: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/video/how-optum-generated-closed-contract

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3) Stop pushing, start conversing

Develop conversations, not campaigns.

Photo credit: www.openingabar.com

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Quality

Patient Access

Medical Necessity

Reimbursement

Financial andClinical Analytics

Population HealthManagement

AlignedIncentives

Providing Care

ClinicalCare

Coding andDocumentation

Care DeliveryModel

Managing Health

Prepare

for Change

Optimize

Performance

Invest

New Capital

Patient Satisfaction

Cost

Navigating the journey from providing care to managing health


@brianjcarroll

4) Focus on helping, not selling

The best marketing feels like helping (because it is)

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Client learning and relationships


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5) Give content they’ll want to share

It’s all about their relationships

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Landing Pages

PRIMARY CONTENT

Banner Ads

Blog Series

Email Templates

Optum.com/PURL

Reimagining content

SUPPLEMENTAL CONTENT

@brianjcarroll

Content machine


@brianjcarroll

6) Remember that proximity is influence

Empower those closest to your customer achieve this

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Connecting Lead Gen/Sales


“It's very difficult to design something

for someone if you have no

empathy.”

Stewart Butterfield, CEO

Slack

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/slack-ceo-starts-job-interviews-with-this-question-2016-2

“I fundamentally believe that

empathy is the most powerful force

in B2B marketing.”

Alan Cohen, Chief Commercial Officer

Illumio

Source: http://idg.me/22vNKtR

“The need for empathy towards the

buyer is huge. It’s a differentiator…”

Doug Brown, Chief Marketing Officer

IBM Systems

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/inside-ibm-digital-marketing-the-empowered-consumer-and-thought-leadership/

@brianjcarroll

7) Practice empathy

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/8043877054

Be the change you want to see

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Empathy case study on the right message

26

Background: ActiveNetwork is a large event management software provider

Goal: To increase total lead inquiries (phone calls + form sign-ups) from

visitors who abandoned the free trial sign-up process

Research Question: Which email tone will result in a higher rate of lead

inquiries?

Test Design: A/B single factor split

Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/research-topics/email-marketing/

email-copywriting-change-tone.html

@brianjcarroll

ControlTreatment

Empathy case study on the right messageUsing A/B testing



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Standard Sales Tone

Control

Empathetic/Service

Tone

Treatment



email-copywriting-change-tone.htmlc

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Treatment

Empathetic/Service Tone

7.08% Conversion Rate

Control

Standard Sales Tone

1.58% Conversion Rate



email-copywriting-change-tone.htmlc

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ControlTreatment


!By addressing the customer’s anxiety (with empathy)

through the tone of the email copy, they saw a 349% increase in total lead inquiries



@brianjcarroll

7) Practice empathy

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/8043877054

When organizations allow a deep emotional understanding of

people’s needs to inspire them—and transform their work, their

teams and even their organization at large—they unlock the

creative capacity for innovation.

~ IDEO’s Empathy On The Edge

Be the change you want to see

@brianjcarroll

Takeaways

Empathy is your marketing intuition.

You can be high-customer or high-self. Be high-customer.

People don't want to be marketed “to,” people want to be communicated “with.”

People don’t buy from companies, people buy from people.

Apply empathy inside to positively impact those outside.

Thank Y [email protected]

@brianjcarroll

Get presentation slides at

www.b2bleadblog.com/EmpathyDF16

Business

How empathy will improve your marketing & sales pipeline