Maturing a lead, or B2B lead nurturing as it’s commonly called, is all about making the right move at the right time. Enticing or even perhaps seducing the prospect to make a next step in his or her buyer journey.
With prospects prefer to orient themselves (i.e. without ‘help’ of your sales exec) in up to 70% of their buyer journey, vendors benefit from taking it slowly. Sometimes perhaps continue to bite their nails, fighting their impatience. Or perhaps just ask their customers when they didn’t mind being contacted by an account manager or sales executive in their most recent buying process.
The other day – in fact it was only yesterday when I checked it to be absolutely precise – I downloaded a promising Sirousdecisions/Marketo whitepaper on marketing automation. To be precise, I actually saved it to my harddisk and then shared it with a colleague for her information and review.
Just after lunch today (!) I received the message below kindly enquiring me about the need to ‘follow up’ on my recent interest and to schedule a call later this week. My reply reply included a compliment on his eagerness and the kind request to “please could you amend your B2B lead nurturing process to better suit your buyer persona’s tight agenda”. Let’s hope Kevin is listening.
I think that Kevin seemed very professional, and it is more personal that he contacted you and politely requested a time that would be convenient for you to be contacted.
His question itself was politely phrased indeed. The example was merely given to highlight how the chosen timing in lead follow-up makes all the difference. That is, in the eyes of the beholder.