This came up in an online conversation with Chris Laub recently (Chris did a podcast for me on market Research a while back).

Chris was making a point that recently so much emphasis in marketing has been on “funnels” and an obsession with getting a quick sale (usually via some combination of Facebook Advertising and a webinar) that everyone is overlooking the power of nurturing relationships for a longer-term win.

It reminded me of what, for me, is perhaps the most powerful aspect of focusing on long-term nurture rather than just short-term sales.

It's the simple fact that for most of us, it's much, much easier to do.

If you're focusing on a short-term sale you have a limited window of opportunity. That means your webinar or your sales page or video has just one shot of making the sale. So it has to be really good.

It takes an immense amount of skill to get a high number of sales when you've just got one shot. It's like trying to hit the bullseye with just one arrow. Only the very best can do it consistently. 

If you don't have that super-high level of marketing skill then going for a sale quickly will fall flat and come across as pushy.

On the other hand, any of us can hit a bullseye given enough shots, no matter how bad we are at archery.

And that's why a long-term nurture approach is much easier for most of us. 

We don't need to write the perfect sales letter or run the perfect webinar or be brilliant at Facebook Ads.

We just need to keep in touch regularly and do a decent job of it.

We need to be interesting and valuable enough that our audience doesn't tune out. But we don't need to hit the bullseye every time.

Eventually, one of our follow-up messages will click for some of our audience. The accumulation of value will hit the bullseye for them.

Keep going consistently and we'll end up hitting a bullseye for enough audience members to outperform the guy trying to do it with one shot no matter how skilled he is.

For me, that's the true power of long-term nurture. That even those of us who aren't brilliant salespeople, writers or presenters can have great success with it.

As long as we stick with it.