The Secret of Prospect Cultivation

Any business without a strong follow-up plan isn't likely to go very far. Prospect cultivation is one of the most important aspects of a marketing plan. How are you suppose to turn leads into clients without a strong plan?

When it comes down to it, prospect cultivation isn't really THAT complicated. It just means treating your leads like human beings, providing them with what they need and being a trusted contact in their life until they're ready to buy. It's important to send them the kind of information they would actually find useful.

For example, a real estate agent may have 10 prospective seller leads they are cultivating. Rather than contacting the leads all the time asking if they are ready to list their home, an agent may want to send them weekly emails with pertinent information, such as tips for raising home value, a checklist "Open House" tips as well as bi-weekly updates on the market and their home value.

That is what prospect cultivation is all about - consistent and persistent follow up. The agent in the above example came across as a trusted and helpful expert rather than a pushy salesperson. Every business should develop a similar method of following up with their leads and tweak it until it's the best it can be.

One thing that can throw a wrench in prospect cultivation efforts is the sheer number of leads to follow up with. For a company dealing with hundreds of thousands of leads, a systematic plan is a must. Sales people can't just randomly contact leads with no rhyme or reason.

Luckily, that's where a beautiful thing called technology comes in - automated follow-up software to be exact. Otherwise known as a customer relationship manager (CRM) or contact management system (CMS) these programs can help manage and automate your follow up. This helps cut down on confusion and time-wasting on your sales floor.

All the many different programs available for prospect cultivation tend to have similar features: email drip campaigns, task scheduling and alerts, calendars, etc. The email campaigns allow you to automatically send informational emails to leads on a regular basis. They often incorporate a sales call and script into the schedule as well.

A company can often get a CRM system built to it's own specifications and have it include many other features. Unfortunately, many companies today don't even realize what CRMs are available, and if they do they don't realize what a difference it could make for their business. If you're not utilizing some sort of automated follow-up system, chances are your prospect cultivation is suffering.

About the Author

About the author: Ashley Lichty is a copywriter and SEO at ProspectMX.com. Get more information on prospect cultivation, lead generation and other topics from ProspectMX.com.

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