You can't nurture people (leads) you don't know

All the talk of lead nurturing is pretty exciting. Who doesn't want to increase their sales by recycling leads that aren't qualified right now? There is just one big hitch---you can't nurture people you don't know. The vast majority of your qualified, but-not-ready-to-buy leads are anonymous. And, it turns out to be pretty hard to identify those people. The goal, then, is to get the qualified prospects to identify themselves. One of the best ways to do this is through a Web site. Only a Web site can easily connect past behavior to future nurturing. And the primary purpose of the Web site should be to induce your qualified prospects to identify themselves. Ideally, you can get them to signup for a scripted automated nurturing path. But, if not that, then at least you need to know who they are. With that information, you can start the process of nurturing that prospect. So, don't underestimate the effort it takes to convert anonymous visitors into nurturable leads. And focus all your marketing efforts on getting that identification.