Human-to-human marketing, also known as H2H marketing, focuses on humanizing brands and building genuine human interactions. The goal is to build lasting customer relationships.
As AI agents are entering the retail space, customers still value human-to-human interactions. A recent survey by Vogue Business found that loss of creativity and less human interaction rank among consumers’ top concerns about retailers using AI. SurveyMonkey found that more than 60% of consumers don’t think AI can replace a human in customer service. Just as they drive many other elements of a business’s strategy, consumers’ preference for humans sends a clear signal to businesses: H2H marketing is a worthwhile pursuit.
This guide covers what human-to-human marketing means, how it differs from other marketing approaches, and how brands can stand out with a human-to-human marketing strategy.
What is a human-to-human marketing strategy?
Human-to-human marketing prioritizes forming genuine connections through empathy, transparency, and authenticity. In practice, this means telling stories about the humans behind your brand, celebrating customer success stories, and integrating human-to-human messaging throughout your marketing materials and tactics.
The tactics used in H2H marketing can help build brand trust and foster customer loyalty. According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer special report, 73% of consumers say a brand that authentically reflects today’s culture increases their trust. In a Bloomreach and Emarketer survey, 58.4% of marketing and retail professionals said that creating emotional connections through beliefs and values works best to build customer loyalty on a more personal level.
Human-to-human marketing strategy vs. other marketing strategies
Ultimately, the goal of all marketing efforts is to reach your brand’s target audience, but there are some key differences between H2H, business-to-business (B2B), and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing:
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B2B marketing is built around logic. When you’re selling to another business, you’re typically speaking to people who need to justify the purchase to a manager or a board member. B2B marketing focuses on return on investment (ROI), efficiency, and other quantifiable benefits.
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B2C marketing focuses on emotional benefits.B2C marketing leans into how a product makes someone feel, or the social and emotional benefits of the product.
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H2H marketing focuses on human stories. Instead of crafting messaging about product benefits, it uses storytelling with brand founders, customers, or employees sharing what a day behind the scenes looks like.
Examples of human-to-human marketing
- Examples of human-to-human marketing
- Celebrating the people behind the business
- Sharing a personal founder story
- Transparency about the journey
H2H marketing shows up in the everyday decisions brands make about how they communicate, what they share, and who is behind the brand. The following ecommerce businesses have each found a way to put people at the center of their marketing:
Celebrating the people behind the business
Gaby Bayona, founder of Vancouver-based modeling agency Stranger and several bridal brands, including Truvelle and Aesling, has made a name for all of her businesses by celebrating the human beings behind her brands.
“The idea was to celebrate the people who are within it,” Gaby says on Shopify Masters. Rather than focusing on a model’s measurements like many other agencies, Stranger includes personal profiles of each model. “We always like to know what you do in your free time: What do you do? What makes you excited? What are some things that people would be surprised to know about you?” Gaby says.
This human-to-human approach is working. Gaby says Stranger is now one of the busiest agencies in Western Canada and has even inspired other agencies to take a people-first approach.
Sharing a personal founder story
Actively Black founder Lanny Smith didn’t start his career as an entrepreneur. After an injury sidelined his NBA career, he found a new purpose by building an athleisure brand to inspire fitness and uplift the Black community.
In the early stages of Actively Black, Lanny says people wanted to know who was behind it. “People were asking who’s the founder? What do you support? What are you about?” Lanny says on Shopify Masters. He says people want to know where their hard-earned money is going. This pushed him to start telling his own story.
“I’ve actually found that the more and more I’ve started sharing my story, sharing my heart, sharing my why, that’s probably worked better than any advertising that we’ve done,” Lanny says. This personal approach helps customers feel more connected to the brand, which inspires them to tell people they know about it, he says.
Today, Actively Black continues to share people-first stories. To promote its latest collection, called “Black Women are Superheroes,” it launched accompanying social content featuring the women behind the brand, like Lanny’s wife, Bianca, and his mother, Alfreda.
Transparency about the journey
Michelle Razavi, cofounder of protein bar and nut butter brand Elavi, experienced record sales when she shared a production mistake instead of hiding it.
“I feel like we have to be perfect. We can’t make mistakes, never show the struggle. And the times that we have gone viral and hit record sales are when we had a pretty intense production mistake,” Michelle says on Shopify Masters. One event in particular stands out; a large batch of nut butters wasn’t sealed properly. Instead of throwing out the batch and never telling customers, Michelle shot a video with her phone, letting customers know the situation and offering a large discount on “oopsie jars.”
“It allowed us to really build a vulnerable moment with our consumers and have this deeper connection that we’re human, we make mistakes, we own it,” Michelle says. This transparency resulted in doing a month’s worth of sales in one week, she says.
Michelle continues to share her own personal journey as a business owner on Elavi’s social media, mixing both personal stories and product updates.
Tips for building a human-to-human marketing strategy
- Involve your customers
- Embrace social media storytelling
- Hire employees who reflect the customers
- Use AI strategically
As an owner and founder of several bridal wear brands, Gaby prioritizes a human-centric approach that connects with her customers. Here are some H2H strategies she uses to build successful brands:
Involve your customers
On her personal social accounts, Gaby often takes her audience behind the scenes of her design process and asks questions like, “What do you think?” and “Did we make the right decision?” She then uses real customer feedback to adjust designs or even inform what will be released.
“There are dresses that we weren’t going to release, but we did because of the conversations I had with clients directly through my social channels,” Gaby says.
While Gaby’s go-to marketing platform is social media, she also uses customer surveys, reviews, and feedback forms to gather customer feedback. Using feedback, you can create marketing content that acknowledges customer input, like a social media campaign or email newsletter that tells the story of the updates.
Embrace social media storytelling
Without a large marketing budget to launch any of her bridal brands, Gaby focused on organic social media marketing. What might seem like a setback worked. “I'm glad that I was able to build the company off an organic approach, because it’s been successful so far,” Gaby says.
As the creator behind much of the bridal wear content, Gaby has organically grown several accounts to more than 100,000 followers without any ad spend. “I would say our content looks quite different for bridal brands in our scale because of how much of a user-generated content (UGC) approach we take,” Gaby says. The content feels like it’s coming from a friend sharing an authentic moment of how a dress looks, how it moves, and with minimal editing.
Hire employees who reflect the customers
Another factor to consider in H2H marketing is hiring the right people. Gaby makes it a priority to create an environment where people can be authentic in the workplace, and she also hires to that end.
“I aim to hire people who are their true self so that when they’re talking to clients, they’re talking as they would want to be talked to,” Gaby says. This adds to the brand’s authenticity and delivers a more human service experience.
Gaby says it also helps with training and onboarding. Rather than forcing strict brand guidelines that employees have to cross-reference frequently, employees can act naturally when interacting with clients.
Use AI strategically
Gaby says she avoids using AI to create any creative assets or images, but that it does have a purpose. “I use AI for general research or something I would ask an assistant,” she says. She also says she uses it to help with smaller creative tasks, like coming up with names for dress designs.
This approach reflects a growing trend of brands ensuring they’re not using AI-generated materials in their marketing. Clothing brand Aerie, for example, came out with a campaign in 2025 promising to use real humans in its campaigns. Baby diaper brand Coterie also promised its followers that all of its content will be 100% written, designed, and created by humans.
Human-to-human marketing FAQ
What are human-to-human marketing examples?
Examples of human-to-human marketing include a founder sharing their story on social media, a brand owning up to a mistake, or a company featuring customer success stories. Brands like Actively Black, Elavi, and Truvelle have all built strong connections with their audiences by prioritizing authenticity from the humans behind each brand.
What does H2H mean in marketing?
H2H stands for human-to-human marketing. It’s the idea that there’s always a real person on the other end of your brand messaging or brand interaction. H2H marketing prioritizes empathy, transparency, and fostering genuine connections with customers.
What is an H2H marketing strategy?
An H2H marketing strategy is a marketing approach built around real human connection rather than purely data-driven or transactional messaging. In practice, it means implementing customer feedback, then telling a story about it, sharing a founder’s journey, and showing up in the most authentic way possible.
