If you ask a room full of writers what skill matters most, you’ll hear a lot of talk about craft-related proficiencies: concept, character, three-act structure, description, pacing, and, of course, the ability to twist a sentence in an emotionally appealing way (aka voice).
Ask a group of marketers the same question, and they’ll give you a different set of proficiency-based answers: strategic thinking, positioning, segmentation, compelling copy, and all things digital; SEO, SEM, CRO, and on and on.
All of those skills are important. Most of them are essential. But none of them are the most important.
There is one skill that anchors both honest writing and marketing. It’s the skill that powers character development and customer connection. Without it, you don’t need any of the other tools because you don’t have a lot worth listening to.
The skill is empathy.
Writers:
It’s easy to think that writing well means writing beautifully. But gorgeous prose without emotional truth is like a guitar without strings.
Stories don’t mesmerize us because of their sentence structure but because they gut us. They allow us to step inside someone else’s pain and to experience their journey. For a reader, it’s a magical ride.
Only writers who understand people on a deep level can pull it off. A good writer knows what his/her character fears, wants, and needs. (A great writer knows far more than that.) The understanding doesn’t come from fancy writing. It comes from empathy.
Marketers:
Creating compelling copy, SEO, CRO, CTRs… All of these tactics are tools. But if you don’t genuinely care about the person on the other side of the messaging, the tools won’t work.
The best marketers don’t just talk about their product. They talk about the person in pain and what that pain feels like. You can’t do that without empathy.
I’m not talking about sleazy, manipulative, fake empathy that bad sales reps use long enough to close deals. I mean the real thing. When you’re able to feel their pain like they do, you earn the right to say, “Hey, it’s going to be okay because we made this for you. It will take the pain away…”
Empathy Takes Work
We all like to think we have empathy. It’s easy to feel compassion for those who are just like us. But what about others? What about those who are nothing like us?
Empathy is the ability to see the world through another person’s eyes, even when their life looks nothing like yours. It’s like a muscle. It takes work to strengthen it into something formidable.
It’s not about being “nice” or “sensitive.” Those are too easy. Empathy is about being fully open to the experiences of others, suspending judgment, listening, feeling, and constantly asking, “What does that feel like?”
It connects you to others’ happiness, fear, longing, and suffering. It can be brutal, but it’s worth it because connection is the currency of both quality storytelling and honest marketing.
Embrace Your Superpower
Many people view empathy as a soft skill that can be developed later. Others deliberately ignore it as if they’re afraid of what it might do to their psyche. The worst of us ignore it without even knowing we’re doing so.
I recommend a different path. Embrace the challenging task of building empathy. Practice it the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, disagrees with your political views, or insults one of your most sacred beliefs.
It won’t be easy. Sometimes it will hurt. But it’s worth the work because it will give a solid foundation and an edge. Both will appear in your work. Practice it enough and you’ll take your game, whether writer or marketer, to an entirely new level.
