What does it actually mean to incorporate user empathy in your product marketing?

User empathy helps put the customer at the very center of everything product marketing does. It's about living through the customer's experience during all the marketing touches, website experience, onboarding, and day-to-day usage of the product.

For product marketing teams having user empathy is an essential soft skill to succeed. Embracing empathy comes to motivating all teams to listen to users and learn how they feel while interacting with your product. User empathy comes as a by-product of almost every PMM program and deliverable:

1) User research

The research will result in a better understanding of users' needs and pain points. It will provide the team with customer insights and a sense of purpose when it comes to building the product and improving the lives of users.

2) User personas

Visible personas ensure that all the stakeholders — researchers, designers, product managers, engineers, marketing, and sales teams — are on the same page and know the customer and their expectations from the product.

3) Building empathy maps

Empathy maps are a visual tool used by design teams that put users first (human-centered design approach). After filling in the empathy map, the team experiences customers' struggles firsthand, causing them to form a stronger connection with users.

4) Customer journey mapping

Customer journey mapping is another design tool that allows teams to gain empathy by understanding a user's behavior during all stages of their journey. 

5) User stories

User stories put focus on the user's needs. It's a feature used mostly by product managers or engineers to describe how a product feature brings value to the customer.

5) A day in customer support

Having a practice of working in support at least one day a quarter can give any team member a huge boost of user empathy. 

6) Using your own product

Not all products are possible to use internally. But if your company is a user of your own solution, then this option is essential for you, as it will allow all the team to see how it feels to use your product firsthand.