web content & social media services

The Empathy Map: Know what your audience wants

Surely you made a comment around the lines “ Nobody will see this” about a TV program that you hate, and then you think “But really what madmen watch this?

Then someone comes and tells you.. “ Not everyone has the same taste as you ” That’s correct. This person is right.

Because no all people are the same , we define us through our circumstances, surroundings, and lived experiences. All these are reasons why we are different from each other.

This is what we have to keep in mind when we think about creating a social media strategy.

We need to know to whom we are going to speak to ensure that our content is interesting to the reader.

To know the likes of our target audience we want to show you a tool that is very useful and help you to get to know them: the Empathy Map

¿ What is the Empathy Map?

The Empathy Map is a tool that will help you to create a simple and easy profile of your client.

Now you may wonder, what is so special about it?Basically it will help you to put yourself in the shoes of your client . Technically speaking it will help you to empathize with him/her, get to know his/her environment, aspirations and concerns.

Probably now you are thinking that this is impossible or maybe that you know everything about your client, so you don’t need this tool. Well, first of all it’s very easy to use, even if you think that you know your target audience you should do it, because it will help you to get to know your client better and give him/her the things that he/she wants.

Here’s a picture for you to see what an Empathy Map looks like:

Empathy-Map-empty-EMGcanvas

It is very simple to do. It has 6 question blocks:

¿What does he/she see?

You should describe what his/her environment is like. Who are important people for him/her, like his/her mother, boy/gilfriend, father. What kind of opportunities is he/she exposed to and what kind of problems does he/she have.

¿ What does he/she hear?

This step describes what the client listens to in his environment, what his friends, family, say to him, what are the things that he listens to in the professional environment, to whom he listens to carefully, or who leans on to make a decision, if he allows himself to take advice or the opposite and makes the decision on his own.

¿What does he really think and feel?

Maybe this is the more complex part. It is about trying to find out what is in your client’s mind.

This requires a 100% empathy exercise. You have to leave yourself behind to put yourself in the shoes of someone else completely.

You have to reach the point where you know all aspects that really matters to him. What motivates him, for example, to get promoted at work to earn more money or instead to work without stress. What dreams and aspirations he has and what his concerns are.

¿What does he say and do?

Imagine what your client will say or do. How he behaves in public, if he likes to talk to everyone he mets or on the contrary he is shy and more of an observer.

Pain – ¿What frustrates him?

This is all about thinking about your client’s concerns, for example, being unemployed, not earning enough to cover expenses, or climate change. What are the obtacles that keep him from achieving his goals, for example, not having as much influence as Leonardo DiCaprio to raise awareness about the realness of climate change.

Gain – What motivates him?

Think again about the main concerns and motivations of your client. Which are the goals that he wants to reach, how he does he measure it, if for him success means getting ahead in his career or on the contrary it means to have the cooking skills of Jamie Oliver. This depends on how we defined these concepts previously

All these questions serve to help us to get to know our target audience better.

What content is relevant for them, if they want to read it, in which social networks we should share them, etc. There’s the possibility that our target audience prefers one network over another. Ultimately what we want to do with this is improve the relationship with our clients.

It requires some time to do it right, but once done, you will see that it was well worth it.

We encourage you to give this practice a try and may tell us about it.

Let’s empathize!