Demand generation practices are normally categorised as inbound or outbound; ideally, the two should be combined to create the optimum conditions for lead generation, nurturing and sales conversion.
The challenge businesses face, is to get your offering in front of potential customers and then, given that most B2B purchases have sales cycles measured in weeks, months or years, to find methods of building and nurturing a solid relationship that keeps your business at the front of the prospective customer’s mind.
Ultimately, a successful long term sales process depends on the relationship that your sales team develops with each customer.
The role of marketing in this context is to help you identify and explore possible opportunities, create new leads and then to support the lead nurturing process throughout the sales cycle – essentially enabling you to maintain the dialogue while adding value to the customer experience as a means of creating differentiation, positioning and leadership.
Our latest white paper – Demand Generation – explains how to generate sales leads.