If you sales team has a lead, not a prospect, how do you turn that lead into a client down the road? Lead nurturing is the process of developing relationships with contacts that have been made but aren’t yet ready to buy.
The definition of Nurturing is: to take care of, feed, and protect someone or something – and that is precisely what you want to do with your leads. Companies attract prospects using content marketing (social media, blogs, articles, presentations, etc.) into the sales funnel. Then they nurture them with additional content such as case studies and white papers to move them closer to the end of the sales process.
With that in mind… If you have a very long sales cycle, lead nurturing is critical. At every stage of the sales process, and through every step of the buyer’s journey, you have to focuses marketing and communication efforts on listening to your prospects needs, and then provide the information they need.