Connecting with People: Personal Approaches to Digital Marketing

Whether you’re a small business, a local player, or a global enterprise, one truth applies to all of us:

Our audience is made up of people.

And people come with natural biases and instincts. One of the strongest is the need to connect. We seek relationships. We’re wired to be social.

We already know this.

Yet so many brands still overlook the easiest way to build that connection—by showing their human side.

We’ve worked with hundreds of companies on web projects, and we hear the same thing over and over.

• Small businesses ask how they can look bigger.
• Big businesses ask how they can seem smaller.
• But in reality, every brand should focus on looking more human. More approachable. More real.

The irony? It’s simple. The fastest way to connect with customers, visitors, and future prospects is to show them the people behind the brand.

BE MORE HUMAN IN YOUR CALLS TO ACTION

At the pivotal moment—after questions are addressed and proof is shown—the strongest sales pages deliver a clear call to action.

• A great salesperson knows when to ask for the deal
• A great sales page knows when to ask for the lead

But not all CTAs carry the same weight. Some feel more personal, more human. Look closely at the calls to action on your site. Do they have any faces nearby?

Adding a team member’s photo next to a CTA changes the visitor’s experience immediately. It draws the eye, and it subtly answers the question: Who will I connect with if I take this step?

We’ve measured as much as a 40% increase in click-through rates on pages with faces near their CTAs. And frankly, it makes perfect sense.

Which of these two CTAs grabs more attention? Which one makes it clear who you’ll actually be speaking with?

Take a closer look at your calls to action. Do they just say “Contact us” without any real context? Are they tailored to your brand, or could they belong to any company online? Do they sound natural and conversational?

Now, focus on the verbs. Notice how they lower the sense of commitment for the visitor:

• Chat with an expert about…
• Schedule time with a founder…
• Ask your toughest question about…
• Explore your project ideas with a strategist
  

BE MORE HUMAN IN YOUR SOCIAL CONTENT

Our brands publish content daily. While these posts often come together quickly, each one involves a series of small but important choices about the words and visuals.

Those choices shape how personal—and ultimately how engaging—the post feels.

Images, in particular, play a major role in driving click-through rates (CTR). According to LinkedIn’s marketing team, posts featuring quotes tend to generate higher CTR than those highlighting statistics.

Do you want me to keep it professional and concise like this, or make it more conversational and audience-friendly?

Quotation marks might just be the most powerful key on your keyboard.

Even a 30% boost in clicks can dramatically increase the traffic your posts bring to your website—especially when multiplied across hundreds of posts over the years of a social media strategy.

LinkedIn’s research also compared posts featuring objects versus those featuring people. The results were striking: posts with images of people consistently drive higher click-through and conversion rates than those without.

BE MORE HUMAN ON YOUR 'ABOUT US' PAGE

Over the years, we’ve worked on countless web projects and gained access to hundreds of GA4 accounts. By analyzing this data day after day, clear patterns begin to stand out. One of the most consistent is this:

“About Us” pages are almost always among the top-performing pages on a website.

The reason is simple—people want to connect with people. Visitors are curious about who you are, who started the business, and who’s behind the brand. They’re not just looking for products or services; they’re looking for the story and the people driving it.

That’s why so many clicks land on the “About” page. People want to put faces to the name and see the real humans behind the company.

Which of these two images feels more relatable? Probably the kickball team, right? Still, so many About Us pages stick to a mission statement, a touch of marketing jargon, and not much else.

The strongest About Us pages go further—they share the brand’s origin story, introduce the people behind it, and highlight the values that drive them. That’s what helps visitors feel a genuine connection with the brand.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There are plenty of reasons businesses hesitate, but most boil down to familiar excuses:

• Internal politics – “Who should be included?”
• Reluctance – “I don’t like how I look.”
• Photo quality worries – “Our images aren’t good enough.”
• Talent poaching fears – “What if competitors reach out to our team?”

While understandable, none of these hold more weight than the value of showing humanity. Being human isn’t complicated—we all do it every day. Highlighting the most authentic part of your brand—your people—doesn’t have to be costly or difficult. Until you do, your brand will remain harder for your audience to truly connect with.