Every B2B marketing expert in life sciences, pharma, healthcare, and technology knows that sales don’t happen overnight. In fact, the buying process can stretch out for over six, 12, or even 18 months.
Your prospects aren’t dragging their feet—they’re just doing their homework. They want to be sure they’re making the right decision—finding the right product or service to serve their organization’s needs.
So how do you win long B2B sales cycles when it takes that long? Strategy, consistency, and a little patience.
Let’s break it down.
The B2B Marketing Sales Cycle is a Marathon, not a Sprint
When buyers first discover your brand, they may not be ready to buy just yet. They’re learning. They’re comparing. They’re educating themselves on their problem and all the possible solutions, and those solutions include yours.
That process unfolds in what marketers call the customer journey—a series of stages your prospect goes through from awareness to consideration, and then to buying. If you haven’t already, check out our blog post on how to map your customer journey to learn more.
As potential customers move along their journey, they need to encounter your content at every step, to acquire the information they need to make a confident, educated, and researched decision that fits their company’s needs.
What Content Works Best?
To win long sales cycle in B2B marketing, you don’t need to flood your prospect’s inbox or overwhelm them with lots of PDFs. Instead, build a smart content strategy, providing content types that match where they are in their journey:
- Top-of-funnel (awareness): Blog posts, FAQs, videos, podcasts, and thought leadership pieces.
- Middle-of-funnel (consideration): Webinars, white papers, and case studies.
- Bottom-of-funnel (buying): Product sheets, ROI calculators, and testimonials.
These pieces should all be offered on your website for access at any time. However, don’t underestimate the power of a great email nurture stream. These automated B2B marketing campaigns, which send content out a little at a time, regularly keep your brand in front of your prospects by delivering content over their entire buying journey.
Guiding Prospects through a Structured Nurture Stream
Not sure where to start with your B2B marketing, content strategy, or your nurture programs? We’ve got some ideas for keeping in touch with prospects and customers.
And if you’re worried about how to create all the content for a nurture stream, fear not! You might be surprised what content you have that’s already on your website—or that you have in a file folder that could be posted on your website—and could be included in a nurture stream.
You might consider starting with a content audit. The audit is a deep dive into your existing content to evaluate its relevance, impact, and alignment with your marketing goals. This practice will highlight your content’s strengths and weaknesses and assess the range, depth, and quality of your materials (like blog posts and infographics).
B2B Marketing Tip: Avoid Gating Content in Nurture Streams
We get it—forms are important for lead generation. They capture the prospect’s contact information so you can identify their fit as a prospect. Forms should be included in all the landing pages that you’re using in your media plan and for external advertising and marketing.
If someone is already in your nurture stream, however, it means they’ve already filled out a form to get into your database. Asking them to do it again within the nurture will come off as annoying—or worse, like you don’t even recognize them.
Instead, use direct download links in your nurture emails. Remove the friction. Make it easy. You’re building trust—and that trust pays off months down the road when they’re finally ready to buy. Keep it simple.
The Long Game Requires Strategy
To succeed in long sales cycles in B2B marketing, keep these principles in mind:
- Be consistent. Regular touchpoints keep your brand relevant. Create a regular cadence that provides content to your prospects at least monthly. A newsletter is a great way to accomplish this, in addition to any nurture streams. Other touchpoints can even include visits at trade shows throughout the year.
- Stay relevant. Align your content to your buyer’s journey. If your potential client works in an environmental lab, for example, don’t create a nurture stream for them that’s about the food and beverage industry.
- Provide knowledge. Each piece of content should provide information that helps the prospect with their pain points. Case studies and exclusive research you can provide are great examples.
If your team treats every interaction with a prospect like a meaningful step on a longer journey, you won’t just be selling—you’ll be building relationships that last well beyond the first deal.
Want to be the company they remember when it’s time to buy? Our B2B marketing team at Brandwidth Solutions helps life science, healthcare, and tech brands build smart, strategic plans that reach the right people and bring in results that count. Want to learn more? Contact our team!