Is lead nature — who the prospect is — that matters in B2B marketing?

Or what I do to keep in touch and build a relationship — lead nurture — that predicts lead value and conversion to sales opportunity?

People ask this all the time. (Which is fantastic, by the way!)
“Why Invisible Marketing? Isn’t marketing about getting visibility?”
Well, here’s how I think about it.
I have enjoyed, talked about, and experienced deep emotional connections with super-cool Superbowl ads for products I’ve never bought and companies with whom I won’t do business.
But I earn a living [...]

Book review time.
The Elevator Summary: Thorough, clear reference book explaining how to measure what marketing is supposed to produce. Knowing what the metrics mean doesn’t tell you how to improve them, but this book does tell you what the metrics mean.
Standout Moments: The Customer Profitability chapter. For example, Prospect Lifetime Value = response rate x [...]

The post:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/first-ten-.html
The B2B sale is a relationship sale. What Seth describes is selling into referrals. This is the way most businesses actually grow. Better than 70% of sales come from or through existing customers in many companies and industries.
To scale up in that sales environment, it makes sense to apply a process mentality to figure [...]