The Power of Propinquity

Yes, you read that right. The word is propinquity. To be honest, I’ve just recently heard the word. It’s odd, yet kind of fun to say. Propinquity means nearness or closeness in space, time, or relationship. In terms of marketing and sales, propinquity is important because it leverages the principle that people are more likely to engage with and purchase from businesses that create relationships that feel close and personal.

Being Personal and Present

Personalization is a cornerstone of effective marketing. By harnessing the power of propinquity, businesses can implement highly personalized processes and campaigns that connect with, and resonate deeply with customers based on their needs, location, interests, and behaviors. This approach involves deeply understanding your customers — where they are and what they care about. Then tailoring your efforts to create close relationships that build trust and create strong bonds over time.

Propinquity with customers can be compared to creating a relationship with a good friend. It’s all about being personal, present, and human. Just as frequent interactions and proximity foster deeper friendships, consistent engagement and closeness to customers can build stronger relationships. When a business or person is easily accessible and regularly interacts with their customers in helpful ways, it creates a sense of familiarity and trust. This ongoing relationship encourages loyalty and repeat business, much like how friends become closer through regular contact, support, and shared experiences. 

By being present in the customers’ lives, you can build a connection that goes beyond mere transactions.

Creating Awareness

Every relationship has a beginning. Before a business can nurture and build strong, close relationships with customers, it must create awareness and connect with its target personas. The concept of propinquity applies here. You need to position your business so you’re close to your potential customers when they actively have a need at the beginning of their buyer’s journey. Keep reading for two simple examples of how you can do this.

Connecting with Local Customers

Digital marketing tactics such as local search engine optimization (SEO) can help businesses create awareness and connect with nearby customers. You’re working to position your business as a local provider online during a time when customers are actively searching for what you do. To do this effectively it will take time, money, and an ongoing effort to achieve this visibility. But it will be worth it in the end.

Research indicates that people often prefer to work with local businesses in their city or region because they feel a sense of community and shared identity. A survey by SCORE found that 82% of consumers currently use local businesses, with many citing reasons such as more personalized service, trustworthiness, and better quality work compared to national chains. Additionally, 72% of respondents were willing to pay more for these perceived benefits. This preference suggests that customers view local businesses as part of their community or “tribe,” reinforcing a sense of belonging and mutual support. (SCORE).

A simple, but great example is where a local bakery can use local SEO to rank higher in search results when someone nearby searches for “bakery near me.” If a business hasn’t invested in a strategy to do this, the customer may not even know that they exist. Creating an ongoing strategy and doing the work necessary to optimize their website with location-specific keywords, creating a Google My Business profile, and encouraging satisfied customers to leave positive reviews are critical. By being easily discoverable and close to local consumers when they have a need, the bakery can effectively leverage propinquity to drive sales and grow its customer base.

Staying Top-of-Mind with Any Type of Customer

These days, modern customers are busy and distracted. When they have a need, you need to remember the concept of propinquity so you’re top-of-mind when they have a need. As we mentioned, Investing in strategies to meet customers “where they are” in their buyer’s journey is important. Some customers might be ready to buy and you need to be there as an option when they’re ready. But many customers aren’t always ready to buy right now. But, there will be a point in the future that they’ll have a need and you need to be there in their mind as an option. Just like local SEO, this requires a consistent investment. So when the time comes and they have a need for your products or services, you’ll be there in their mind as a top choice.

To stay top of mind with customers, businesses should consistently engage with their audience through various online channels. Email marketing is a powerful tool for this, allowing businesses to send regular updates, personalized offers, and valuable content directly to customers’ inboxes. 

Regular activity on social media platforms is also essential. Regularly posting and responding to comments on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn keeps the business visible and maintains an active presence in customers’ lives. 

Another effective tactic is content marketing, which involves creating and sharing high-quality content that resonates with the target audience. This can also consistently reinforce your expertise, quality, reliability, or physical location in the minds of your customers. 

All this exposure fosters familiarity and top-of-mind awareness, making customers more likely to remember and trust the business when they have a need.

Nurturing and Retention

“It costs over six times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one.”

Source: ExactBuyer Blog

Your sales teams can leverage propinquity to nurture and build stronger relationships with potential and existing customers to close, retain, and upsell customers. Personalized communication and advice, Regular face-to-face meetings, check-ins, and personalized follow-ups, for no other reason except to just touch base, can help to create a sense of closeness and trust. This personal touch is especially important in B2B sales, where long-term relationships are crucial.

The concept of investing applies here, and unfortunately, this is where many businesses fail. They’re too busy finding the next customer and closing the next sale, and they don’t invest in the relationships that retain customers. Sometimes that can just mean emailing, calling, or meeting up with a customer for no reason at all. This can help you to identify issues that you can address before the relationship begins to erode and they start to look for a new provider. It can also help you to identify opportunities to help them, guide them, gather feedback, and connect on a personal level. You may even become friends. Many times, investing in being present and close to your customers can return more to the growth of your organization than any new marketing campaign or advertising spend ever could.

Being present when needed can differentiate your sales approach from competitors as well, even if it’s in a virtual way. Virtual meetings, while obviously not physically close, can still provide a sense of psychological proximity if conducted with a personal touch and regularity. Data shows that increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by 25-95% (Porch Group Media).

Getting Started

There are many other ways that organizations can embrace the concept of propinquity. You could write a book about this that includes other things like creating community around the business, hosting free events for prospects and customers, geo-targeted and persona-based advertising, loyalty programs, and providing exceptional education and support. In general, you just need to invest and look for every way possible to connect to customers and build strong relationships from the very beginning.

Propinquity is a powerful tool in business strategy, enhancing marketing, sales, and service efforts to create a cohesive and customer-centric approach. By leveraging physical and psychological proximity, businesses can better attract, engage, and delight their customers, and this is how you grow. Whether through personalized marketing, relationship-building sales techniques, or proactive customer service, the principle of propinquity can drive significant growth and foster lasting customer loyalty.