We never hear it as much as we would like. And as we get into the holiday season, there’s a small part of us that wants to hear it a little bit more. It is called “Thanksgiving” and the “Season of Giving” after all.
“Thank you”
These two words have the ability to change the way we feel at any given moment. They can change how we look at a person, or our next interaction, or even if we make a purchase.
For Public Relations pros, the words, and the concept, also go a long way with our key audiences and can have a much deeper impact on the success of our campaigns.
The “Thank You Mindset”
The “Thank You Mindset” puts your key audiences front and center. As strategic leaders and communicators, we should focus on who our audiences are, what they want as individuals and how they consume content.
We use demographics like age, race, household income and location to give us clues as to who our audiences are.
But it’s no longer enough to have the quantifiable demographics to generalize your audiences. They demand more and we have to deliver that experience through the content we’re creating.
We should also focus on what drives them to take action, what their motivations are, what their core values are and who they are as individuals, also known as psychographics, or the study of values, personality, lifestyle, opinions and interests of people of a certain community.
What do our audiences think and why do they think it? What kind of content do they want to engage with, and how do they want to consume it?
These are all questions we need to answer, but if you’re not coming at it with the mindset of thank you, or it being about your consumer, not about you, you’re bound to get it wrong.
You may have also heard this referred to as empathy, which is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”.
If you’re not naturally an empath, putting yourself in your audiences’ shoes and understanding their motivations, feelings and driving forces may be a difficult thing to grapple with.
And let’s face it, most of us Type A outgoing personalities will need to shift our thinking a little to get this right.
Just remember, we can’t create content WE want to consume, or even what we THINK our audiences want to consume. We should create content purposefully and with intention, using available data and insights, and deliver a meaningful message to our audiences.
“A Meaningful Message,
or Pandering Without Purpose”
The good news is that the tools are out there to help us better understand our audiences. If you have the resources, you can dig into audience preferences through surveys or consumer data research.
But, it doesn’t have to get that complicated. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter provide valuable insights on what and how audiences are engaging. We have the ability to put Google analytics tags on content to see audience behaviors, and poll our current audiences with free survey tools.
This means we have everything we need at our fingertips to communicate with understanding, and with a “Thank You Mindset” that will put your audiences first and give them the experience and content they need to be an advocate, customer or fan of your brand.
This holiday season, don’t forget to drop a nice “thank you” in someone’s direction, and make sure you’re planning your content around having the “Thank You Mindset”.
Just for fun, here are 7 alternatives to saying “thank you” that can help every communicator through the holidays (via Forbes.com):
1. “I appreciate you.”
2. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
3. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”
4. “You made this easy.”
5. “You’re so helpful.”
6. “What do you think?”
7. “I’m impressed!”
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