Prospect cultivation isn't hard at all. It just involves treating leads like human beings and not being too pushy. It means building a trusting relationship with them and becoming known to them as an expert in your field that they can rely on. It's important, when following up with leads, to send them information relating to your products and services that they may be interested in.

A Realtor may be cultivating 10 seller leads. Would constantly calling and asking "Are you ready to list with me yet?" make those leads want to work with that agent? Probably not. However, sending weekly emails about market updates, their own home's value, and tips for raising home values as well as giving a quick phone call twice a month to see how the lead is doing would go a long way to cultivating that prospect into a client.

The agent comes across more as a helpful expert than a pushy salesperson - THAT is what prospect cultivation is about. You build up trust and a relationship with each lead. Every company should have a follow-up plan for each type of lead they have (prospective client, past customer, etc) and fine-tune that plan down to a science.

Of course, when you have hundreds of thousands of leads to follow up with, prospect cultivation can wind up a bit complicated. When dealing with thousands of new leads per week, how can you possibly coordinate follow-up. When should a salesperson call a lead? How often? What do they talk about when they do call?

That's where an automated follow-up system comes in. There are plenty of programs available called customer relationship management (CRMs) and contact management systems (CMS) that can automate much of the follow up a sales force must do. These programs can take prospect cultivation to a whole new level.

Most CRM/CMS's provide email campaigns - a series of pre-written emails that go out weekly or bi-weekly over a period of time on different topics the lead may be interested in. Many of these campaigns will also schedule in phone calls once or twice a month to the lead as monthly 'touch points' to ensure the lead receives the information. Consistent and persistent follow-up is TRUE prospect cultivation.

A CRM provides many other features as well, and many can be built to a company's specifications depending on what features are most important to their particular plan of follow-up. The surprising fact is most companies today are totally unaware of what a CRM system is, and just how much time and money it can save them on follow-up. All in all, strong prospect cultivation tactics is one aspect of marketing many companies miss the mark on.