"In light of the economy, more and more marketers are concerned with late-stage leads," says Karen Landis in a recent post at the My Educated Guess blog. "While many marketers won't discount [newer] leads entirely, they will stop messaging them on the theory that they are too early-on in the sales cycle." That's a huge mistake, she warns: "By the time these leads are contacted again, they may have already decided on another vendor."

Instead, she suggests, it is crucial to gently urge each and every lead along the buying cycle. The key to doing so? Relevant message content.

"This means getting rid of the one-size-fits-all emails being sent each month to all potential leads," Landis advises. "The exact method of re-messaging will vary … so it's extremely important for marketers to take their company's buying cycle into account, along with different ways of re-messaging to different types of leads."

Choose among the options for tailoring your outreach to each prospect's situation and needs:

• Phone calls
• Emails
• Printed mail
• Invitations to events

"The key is to figure out the process that makes sense for your product/solution and to make sure that leads are being targeted not just consistently, but correctly," Landis concludes. "Ideally, the communications should feel like resources and help leads as they move through the process."

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