I was asked that question by my former boss, Chuck Schaeffer, CEO of A p l i c o r — the software as a service provider of  CRM and ERP software. It was a great question and undoubtedly a question a lot of marketers face.  I thought it would be helpful to share some best practices with my readers.  I hope you find it helpful. (Please note that I left that company and they “stole” our domains. Please do not buy anything from them.)

Let’s say a senior sales executive at a large software firm downloads your white paper.  Then later, she downloads an eBook.  Would you change the lead nurturing process she is on?  Probably not.

(Here’s an a key point about sharing your content - make it easy and simple.  Don’t do what Oracle did.  I wanted to get a sales challenge white paper from Oracle, but I found the process and form so cumbersome and intrusive, I abandoned it.  Ironically, do a Google search and you can access the white paper directly.  Shame on you, Oracle.  Really bad job by a very large software firm.)

While you would not change your lead nurturing program for a simple action, there are situations where you would.  A good example is a change of buying stage.

Let’s say after downloading your content, multiple people start searching for pricing in Google and using the built in search on your website.  That probably indicates that this company is no longer in the Awareness phase but it rather in a late buying stage.  So you want to adapt your lead nurturing process to the stage this prospect is in.

You might want to share a third party analyst report on your company’s position or an award your company has won.

If you wish to learn more about demand generation, I invite you to download the highly acclaimed white paper, How to Find New Customers.    For a great book on these issues, check out Ardath Albee’s e-Marketing for the Complex Sale.

What do you think? We love comments and people who share.

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Check out the online show every Friday at 11am ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.” Find New Customers is one of few lead generation companies in New York.

Find New Customers helps companies like yours (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) implement lead generation programs to improve the way you find and acquire high quality sales leads using best practices in online lead generation. Quality leads matter. In fact, a recent study found that sales teams with fewer, high quality sales leads closed more than sales teams with more leads of dubious quality.

If you wish to do sales lead generation online, contact the B2B lead generation experts at Find New Customers using the form below.