Empathy is about sensing another person’s pain and connecting with it. During this global pandemic, we share in each other’s suffering. Many of us are experiencing anxiety, isolation, and uncertainty, making it easy to empathize with those around us.

When marketing your brand, using an empathetic tone can be challenging, but it’s essential in today’s environment. We surveyed more than 100 professionals across various fields, and 75% of them reported that the main takeaway from this pandemic is that empathy drives sales.

While that might sound like a misnomer considering it doesn’t sound like you are being empathetic if you are just trying to sell your products or services, the trick is to do it with complete honesty.

How do you do it?

Describe how you are keeping people safe

Whether that is your customers or your employees, your potential leads want to know what you are doing during this pandemic to keep people safe (because that is the number one goal right now for virtually everyone).

“The ongoing pandemic has taught us the importance of communicating with honesty and empathy. We’ve found how important it is to strike a balance between prioritizing individual needs and continuing to perform our job to the best of our ability. When it comes to marketing, adopting an honest and empathetic tone is essential. We can’t ignore what’s on everyone’s minds, but we can communicate with our customers that we are doing all we can to manage the situation and keep our employees safe,” says Monica Eaton of Chargebacks 911.

Be sensitive in your tone

Start by stepping in your customer’s shoes and figuring out their pain points. Don’t be political or off-brand just because that might be the thought of the day. Be true and honest and your sensitivity will shine through.

“When it comes to content marketing, I’d say that the biggest lesson I’ve learned is to be really sensitive about the tone of our messaging. Over the last couple of months, we’ve had to rethink our customers’ priorities to determine what’s worth communicating, making sure that we’re balancing marketing goals with customer empathy. Given that we’re in a pandemic, there’s the conundrum that businesses are generating nearly identical messaging across site banners and emails. The content din makes it more difficult for audiences to discern one brand from the next. So we are constantly looking at ways to differentiate our content marketing strategy so that our own brands still stand out from the competition,” says Allan Borch of Dotcom Dollar.

Be a valuable resource

Rather than espousing all of the great points about your products and services, write content that tells your audience how you can help them. Your content should still have a related angle to what you sell, but in a way that is not salesy and is still helpful.

“Conversion-focused informational content allows you to do that (content that has strong call-to-action to commercial content). For prospective leads and clients, it’s not about selling them more services right now. It’s about being the ultimate resource during tough times. Being their fiduciary during these times will make them clients for life,” says John Pinedo of Freedom Bound Business.

Describe the impact on your business

When people can relate to your struggles, they will want to buy your products and services. When you describe how Covid-19 has done damage to your business, your employees, and your customers, your audience will develop a sense of trust in you.

“Every week we were fielding new questions or concerns surrounding how COVID-19 was (or could be) impacting businesses and/or processes, and keeping on top of it has been a challenge. However, this also provided an opportunity when it came to our nurturing communications. This is (or has been) a time that people don’t want to be sold to, which is completely understandable. However, they do want to be informed,” says Jaclyn Monaco of National Positions.

Simply ask how you can help

If you truly don’t know how to help, ask your audience how you can. Whether you use your blogs or social media, your customers will be thankful just for the offer. And by listening to their answers, you can find ways to both develop new content that is helpful and to actually help during these trying times.

“I have found the best asset for content marketing during COVID-19 is talking to other small business owners. It’s important to check in with them and see how they are feeling and doing. Ask if there’s any way we can help and learn what they are doing to navigate through this unprecedented time. Their insight has been incredibly valuable. It has allowed us to create content that presents a call to action with audiences, but is also inspiring and uplifting to read and share. We will work together to get through this together,” says Deborah Sweeney of My Corporation.

We’ve all learned many lessons during this pandemic and in the content marketing world, being empathetic if you previously didn’t prioritize it, is one of the best ways to do so.