As a commercial real estate professional, there are no Black Friday specials that pertain to your business. Surviving Thanksgiving, for you, does not mean sending of emails with subject lines stressing urgency in striking a deal before it’s “too late.” No “One Day Only” or “Beat the rush” language in your communication with clients. That’s not how the commercial real estate industry works. To succeed at this time of year, you need to do what you always do, build relationships and nurture leads.

Why not start with a “Thank You.”

It’s not unusual around this time of year to receive emails from vendors or others we work with thanking us for our partnership, service, commitment or similar. It’s a nice gesture that’s as simple to execute as hitting “send” from our email clients. Because of its simplicity, however, the importance that the act of saying “Thank You” holds, can easily be overlooked.

The word “thank” stems from the Latin word, “tongēre.” The root “tong-” means “think” and the original way of expressing gratitude to someone else was “I will remember or think of what you have done for me.” If you consider that one phrase, “Thank You”, it encapsulates the entirety of our sentiment toward our customers—it expresses gratitude and informs the customer that you are thinking of them and that you have their interest in mind. Saying “thank you” may be the quintessential lead nurturing activity.

Other ways of saying thank you

The goal of lead nurturing is to maintain a relevant and consistent dialog with both current customers and those with viability for a future relationship. No matter where a customer resides in the buying pipeline, it’s important to nurture your relationship. The vast majority of new leads never develop into sales. However, punctuating the importance of lead nurturing is the fact that companies that engage in the exercise develop 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

Fortunately, lead nurturing doesn’t have to be a burdensome task.  Showing prospective customers that you’re thinking of them, can take a number of different forms. Chances are your probably doing some of the right activities already:

Newsletters are great way to nurture a relationship. First of all, if you have a prospects email address, they’ve already raised their hand to say that they are interested in a relationship with your organization. While each article you publish may not necessarily hold something for everyone, they should each be skimmable, informative and provide enough facts and information that the reader walks away feeling like their time spent reading the article was worth it.

Automated personalized emails generate up to six times more revenue, according to Hubspot. Automating those emails makes staying in touch easy. The tools for creating a programmatic email marketing campaign that responds to the actions of your prospects are abundant. Setting up your email marketing in this manner also creates a rhythm for connecting with customers, a critical component in building and maintaining relationships with your audience.

Do a little research. Knowledge is power, some say. So too is knowing your customers. A bit of research utilizing social media like LinkedIn or tapping into your contact management system can provide the insights that demonstrate to your customers, once again, that you’re interested in them.  Research can help grow your business, by establishing yourself as a subject matter expert on the most important topic of all—your prospective customer.

A little can go a long way in showing customers that you care. Overt gestures, like sending cookies to the office are nice, but not always necessary. Sometimes a customer just wants to know that you’re thinking of them. On a one-to-one basis, forwarding an article of interest, Re-Tweeting a recent announcement or adding a like to their Facebook page are certainly others ways of nurturing.

As you enjoy the holiday season, don’t miss the opportunity to say thank you to your customers. It’s a polite gesture that can make all the difference in the world. Thank you!