Lead nurturing is the practice of maintaining ongoing contact with prospects identified as not yet ready to make a purchase. By implementing marketing programs that gather information about where leads are in the buying cycle and moving them along in that process while favorably influencing them toward the company and its products, marketers are better able to influence and support revenue generation, and to measure the impact of marketing campaigns on sales results.
The length of your individual lead-nurturing programs can vary greatly. But a good general rule is to actively nurture leads for the length of your average sales cycle. If they still haven’t become marketing-qualified as ready for sales, you can move them into a long-term nurture program that enables you to unobtrusively stay in front of them and ascertain when they re-engage or enter an active phase of the buying cycle.
For more tips and tactics on lead nurturing, download Silverpop’s white paper, “From Cold to Hot: Lead-Nurturing Programs that Generate Sales.”
