Just like any relationship, a customer relationship needs time and attention to reach maturity. The brand’s messaging and culture must remain consistent from the first marketing material the prospect sees to even after the time they sign on the dotted line. Nowhere is it more important to have a combined approach to sales and marketing than with lead nurturing. Leads need to be taken care of and invested in until they are ready to purchase from the business.
Targeted Content Marketing: Marketing writes the content; sales delivers it. While most marketing content is sent out as a broadcast, sales can use additional content to keep relationships open and building.
At the nurturing phase, long-form content is also useful for building a relationship. Commitment to the brand and the selling process increases as a prospect continues down the nurturing path, so the sales team must monitor this and provide content appropriate to the prospects commitment level.
Relationship Management: While using the words “relationship” and “management” next to each other might imply a misunderstanding of both to those outside the sales field, sales professionals know that with the countless client interactions that go on each day and the sheer number of prospects, organizations that don’t have some system in place for managing this will get lost in the noise.
Prospects in the nurturing phase continue to receive marketing messages, and BIG works to make sure sales and marketing strategies are working in tandem to move the relationship towards the buying phase.
Lead Qualification: Recognizing when a lead is ready to buy is half the battle of selling. Beginning the conversation too early risks driving them off, and waiting too long risks them taking their business elsewhere. Qualifying leads is a process that involves intuition combined with past experience. BIG brings just this experience to sales teams that struggle with identifying when to strike the iron.
