Yesterday I spoke as part of BtoB Magazine's Leading Edge demand generation virtual conference -- talking about "Connecting the Dots:  Leveraging Content Marketing and Lead Nurturing Together for B2B Demand Generation."  I really like the topic, but I particularly like the idea of helping B2B marketers 'connect the dots' -- something we try to do at Silverpop's B2B Marketing University series (Twitter: #B2BUniversity).  BTW -- we are at the Dallas B2BMU event today.

With all of the strategic and technological insights flying around the B2B marketing universe these days, cutting through and figuring out where you should be investing your time and money can seem as challenging as tackling your actual B2B marketing projects.  To that end, one concept I believe is misunderstood in the current environment -- and with which we still very much need to connect the dots -- is that of nurturing. 

Too often we make nurturing synonymous simply with basic email nurturing or with drip nurturing campaigns -- both tactical activities -- but we miss the bigger picture.  Nurturing prospect/customer relationships in B2B marketing and sales is not new, nor is it merely tactical.  Arguably, nurturing has been at the center of nearly all B2B marketing and sales activities for decades.  But as you might suspect, 'something' seems to have changed; the nurturing dialogue and the nurturing activities we're talking about these days seem very different from those in the past.

Today we're less likely to reach out to a prospect to invite him/her to spend time with our sales representatives at our box seats at a baseball game, and we're more likely to offer a series of relevant, content-ba