Think back to the first encounter with your favorite waitress at the cafe you frequent or the first encounter you had with your ‘friends who became family’. Did you really feel the same way about them then as you do now? Probably not and understandably so because, the more you saw each other and interacted, the more both of you found similarities and formed a stronger bond. Proximity is the name of this ‘game’, better coined as propinquity by social psychologists.

The propinquity effect in the paper “The Spatial Ecology of Group Formation” by psychologists Kurt Back, Leon Festinger and Stanley Schachter (1950) is explained as an interaction with people that happens ‌frequently that helps in making friends. Through frequent meet-ups, people get to know about each other and their nature, enabling them to like each other and eventually want to meet more often because they both find each other attractive and develop a close bond.

In our present time and age, most consumers have an urge to consistently interact with brands and I believe you have an idea what it means for your sales metrics should you decide to be silent in the digital space and not interact with the ever-evolving consumer . 

The hot takeaway from this is simple; live rent free in the minds of your brand’s key stakeholders by constantly engaging them with relatable content in the digital space. I could emphasise more on the phrase ‘content is key’ but that’s a blog for another day. Simple tactics you as your brand’s decision maker can employ to ensure your at the top of mind of the consumer are;

Re-targeting: Also known as remarketing, with its core principle being that it’s easier to push previous consumers down the sales funnel than it is to convert new consumers that have engaged with a brand. Why is this, you may ask? To simply put it, re-targeting helps position the brand at the top-of-mind of the consumer hence, allowing them to get to the point of conversion when they’re already close because of the frequency of interaction.

Multi Platform advertising: Think of this as the art of storytelling using different platforms. A good story is one that’s told so many times, but it sounds different every time because of the messaging and such is the case with multi-platform advertising.  Any consumer who hears the same message enough times from different sources has it at their fingertips and is more inclined to interact with the brand in question.

Consistent posts: Ask most people from a failed relationship what the breaking point was and more often than not you’ll hear “there was no consistency”. Humans want to consistently feel satisfied and when you can no longer increase their dopamine as you previously did by satisfying their needs, it’s only a matter of time before they call it quits and look for an alternative source. Consistently posting relatable content for your target audience and customers makes sure they can always interact with it, hence you are always only a thought away and easier to access.

For any further questions on how to maintain proximity with your customers, do not hesitate to email us at godigital@triodigital.co.ke  or through our contact page by clicking here, because, haven’t you heard? We get the internet.