The past years were challenging for many companies struggling to find a source of resilience in the dynamically changing world.

Those who aspired to grow had to adapt to the new needs of their customers quickly. And what is vital when you intend to focus on your customer in your marketing strategy is empathy.

We can only learn our customer’s pain points and perspectives through empathy, a learnable skill incorporating feeling, thinking and acting.

You can choose from an impressive range of tech tools supporting quantitative and qualitative analysis as a marketer. These tools have been around for quite a while now, so no wonder they can overcome the limitations of the human brain. Technology outsmarts people in numerous marketing automation tasks.

Still, as David Meerman Scott highlights in his “New Rules or Marketing and PR”, there are many things that machines cannot do. In the chapter “Remaining Human in a World of AI”, David quotes Paul Roetzer of the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute, who lists what AI cannot offer: curiosity, creativity, empathy, emotion, intuition, and maybe most of all, imagination. And according to Simon Baron-Cohen:

“98% of us can improve our empathy skills at any point in our lives.” (Zero Degrees of Empathy, 2011, University of Cambridge).

Science also suggests that one way of building our understanding of other people is through immersion in literature.

“The empathy we feel for book characters wires our brains to have the same sensitivity towards real people” (Raymond Marr, York University, Toronto)

But it takes more than being empathetic to be successful in creating and maintaining long term relationships with your audience. We may only successfully connect with our audience through marketing campaigns as long as we remain genuine and authentic. Creating emotional marketing campaigns for the sole purpose of manipulating customers isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

Empathy is vital when your goal is to build long lasting relationships throughout the entire customer journey. With that in mind, don’t forget to celebrate today – Happy National Empathy Day!

Is Metaverse just a pipe dream, or are we going to see businesses leveraging its power to boost sales?

If the thought of being able to teleport yourself anywhere in the world through a portal gives you a thrill, then undoubtedly, you’ll be excited to hear that a headset in Metaverse is going to make this dream come true. And all of your friends will be able to join you in this immersive experience without leaving their homes.

So what is Metaverse?

‘Metaverse’ is a concept of a digital environment where virtual avatars representing real people experience immersive digital interactions.

So as if watching something via VOD “when and where you want to” wasn’t enough, now we’ll be able to “be” when and where we want to. The sky is the limit. Or is it? Feel like visiting Pluto? No problem. Have dinner on the Titanic? Want to watch Napoleon win in Austerlitz in 1805? Or perhaps you’d like to celebrate Lady Gaga’s birthday at her party thrown in Metaverse? While finding yourself in these extraordinary circumstances in real life might be problematic, experiencing them in Metaverse will offer an impression of you being there. With all your friends. From the comfort of your home!