Forsome sales, a single postcard or letter mailer will do the trick. But for more complex products, the sales cycle can be longer. In this case, marketers willoften send different types of content at different times based on what their prospects require in order to move forward. Gently nudging them along with the rightcontent at the right time is a process called lead nurturing.

Althoughthe actual number of “touches” with marketing content will vary based on the type and complexity of products and services, lead nurturing has three basicstages:

Early/Awareness Stage: At this stage, the prospect may not be aware of your product, or if they are, their knowledge is limited.Your goal is to create that awareness. They can’t buy your product if they don’t know about it! At this stage, you want to provide free access to content.Early/awareness stage content often includes white papers, research papers,curated content, infographics, and webinars.

Middle/Consideration Stage: At the middle/considerationstage, the prospect is aware of your product but hasn’t yet made the decision to buy. You want to provide information that will help that process along. Atthis point, you can also start qualifying prospects as warm and hot leads soyour sales team can stay in contact with them. Middle/consideration stage contentis often gated, so you can identify and qualify these leads. The content might include RFP templates, calculators, guides, and analyst reports.

Late/Evaluation Stage: At this stage, you will becommunicating only with the most qualified leads, so you want to make their purchase decision as easy as possible. As with the early/awareness stage, late/evaluationstage content should be free and ungated, including product demonstrations,success stories, and video testimonials.

Researchshows that nearly 80% of qualified leads never convert into sales because of the lack of lead nurturing. Don’t miss out!

Needhelp with your lead nurturing process? Give one of our business development experts a call!

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