Ten years ago I thought the phone (for voice calls) would be consigned to museums around the world and I would be a museum curator, or worse still, an exhibit!
The big push towards digital content and digital touch points scared me a decade ago. It scared me because content, posts and messages would be pushed out and the people would respond and take up a product or service that instantly appealed to them.
This tsunami of voluntary engagement hasn’t washed over us. In fact, it is going in reverse.
What has been overlooked for some time is the power of the human follow up and the power of the human touch point in all types of settings and situations.
No matter whether they are personal, social or business. Us humans are wired in the same way as we’ve always been. Nothing has changed. We still respond to the magnetic force of human interaction.
In recent months, commentators have been reporting about the return of face to face networking. To be fair, it never went away. It’s just been a little less popular than before the pandemic.
A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to attend a webinar to discuss outbound marketing (where a business initiates contact with potential customers) because:
“Many of the best marketers in the world are coming back to Outbound Marketing now that Inbound Marketing (where a business seeks to attract customers through content to create a buzz) is becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to predict.”
And last week, I had a returning enquiry. At the beginning of the year, a professional services company elected to spend their marketing budget, solely on email marketing.
It’s really challenging to get the full benefits of a service across in a series of emails during a splash and dash campaign.
Digital, including emailing, is good for creating a market and helps with the heavy lifting of reaching people in a cost-effective way.
However, a targeted telemarketing campaign to reach out to those who’ve read and engaged with what has been delivered to them, is important to have in place.
The human touch and human contact is the cherry on top, in terms of engagement and this business has now switched its focus.
Digital and analogue make for a powerful combination. And this is where there is real momentum.
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. We can all sense a mysterious connection with each other.” – Meryl Streep
A mysterious connection doesn’t happen over an email. We have to speak with others and be present to understand what they are feeling and then talk through their next steps.
Thank you for reading.
