It’s time to focus marketing on customer needs: U-turns allowed!
Are you having trouble getting the response you used to with your marketing efforts? With 3,000+ ad messages bombarding us every day, is it any wonder? Are you going nowhere fast on the road of traditional marketing? Take a U-turn!
Get back to the roots of your business
What if a company was genuinely concerned about helping you solve your problems? What if someone took the time to learn about your concerns and enabled you to succeed? Would you pay more attention to the messages from this business?
Define nurture marketing
This is what I call nurture marketing, and here’s how I define it:
nurture marketing (nŭr´chər mär´kit´ing) n. educational promotion designed to improve customer outcomes and grow affinity for a business
I contacted Jim Cecil, the father of nurture marketing, and asked him about his definition. This is his response: “I initiated the term nurture marketing in 1994 as a differentiator between the traditional sales process of relentlessly scavenging for low-hanging fruit and that of farming one’s own harvest in the context of customer relationship cultivation. I uncovered the exact strategy we call nurture during a major market research project studying ways successful, professional service providers gain access and ultimately a position of influence with CEOs of small- and medium-sized businesses.”
My personal definition of nurture marketing excludes recurring contacts because I have seen companies reap huge sales after conducting a single educational promotion. While I deviate from Cecil, I recognize the value of frequent messages. Cecil writes in Nurturing Customer Relationships, “Nurture marketing is a process of communicating over an extended period of time to build top-of-mind position in the minds of your customers.”
Educate to differentiate
I am not sure whether Cecil agrees with me. But I think that in the 15 years since he coined the term nurture marketing, education has become an even more critical component of the technique. Cecil writes, “Nurturing…is the kind of business therapy your customers need when their pain keeps them awake at night.”
While other marketing tries to scare potential customers into buying, nurture marketing alleviates fear. For example, a bank or real-estate company could educate prospects about how to buy their first home. By sharing knowledge with targeted audiences, your business is viewed as an ally.
Which direction is your marketing headed?
