Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

For products and services -- especially those with long purchase lead-times -- lead nurturing can allow a prospective supplier to establish credibility, remain top-of-mind, or even become actively engaged in the prospective customer's decision-making process.

Er, as someone representing an e-mail marketing agency, shouldn't you know this?

I like to compare sales and marketing with agriculture. There are various steps in agriculture, such as selecting a field, selecting or improving a plant, plowing, planting, irrigating and cultivating, inspection, reaping, storing, and distributing the fruits. The nurturing of leads in business-to-business sales is analogous to irrigating and cultivating your crops in the field. Sometimes it takes a long time for an interest to grow into an opportunity, and you can help by providing encouragement and information and calls to action. In my opinion, during irrigation and cultivation process, you are looking out for the best interest of the plant, rather than the immediate gratification of the farmer.

Is this a good idea? It can be a long investment of time and resources, which might not pay off if you're in a highly competitive field, and you will be competing on price against others will not spend their time and money nurturing opportunities over time.

Lead nurturing can be a very good investment if you have a unique or specialized product or service, and can educate your customer over time about the importance of features unique to your product.

If you can get your suspects and prospect interact and participate, you may be able to build relationships and rapport over time, might earn you "right of first refusal" when opportunities arise.

But, in my opinion, sending an endless stream of emails does not lead nurturing. I personally have a newsletter folder. I for anything that looks like an email newsletter to this folder, unread. Once every couple of months, I delete them all. Generally speaking, I have no interest in reading material to help someone else make a sale. I am interested in reading material which will benefit me personally. I am looking for things which will nurture me personally and help me to grow. That sort of information, in my opinion, builds relationships and rapport and nurtures your prospects (not necessarily your opportunities) over time.

This is a topic of great interest to me. If Anyone reading this would like to discuss this further, on my leg, and send me an email. Take care.