Observations
Touchpoint Scenarios Without a Salesperson: When the client matures on their own
How many potential deals are “sleeping” in your CRM right now? How many were assessed as “good” but postponed for “later”? Hundreds? Thousands? These are your “long bench” — a huge, valuable, yet frozen asset.
The problem is that salespeople are a limited and expensive resource. They can physically handle no more than 10–15 active deals at a time. They focus all their attention on those who are “hot” right now. They never have time to get to the “bench.” Consequently, hundreds of promising contacts, which your marketing department has already paid for, simply “go stale” in the CRM.
The solution is to build an automated system that works as a “virtual assistant” for your sales team. This assistant would communicate tirelessly with your entire “bench,” warm up their interest with useful content, and return to your salesperson only those “players” who are fully “mature” and ready to step onto the field.
This article is a guide to creating such automated scenarios. We will break down their architecture and provide three templates ready to implement for different types of “sleeping” leads. It’s a guide on how to leverage your entire asset, not just the top layer.
Scenario Architecture: Trigger → Sequence → Goal
Before looking at specific examples, let’s break down the “skeleton” on which any automated nurture scenario is built. This is your main template. It consists of three simple, logical blocks. Understanding this architecture will enable you to design any scenario with marketing, even the most complex ones.
1. Trigger: This is a specific event in your CRM or on your website that launches the entire sequence. Automation should not be chaotic; it is always tied to context. The trigger provides that context. Examples of triggers include: “A new lead filled out the ‘Download White Paper’ form,” “The salesperson moved the deal to the ‘Lost (no budget)’ status,” or “There has been no communication with the contact for 180 days.”
2. Sequence: Once the trigger is activated, a series of automated touchpoints is launched, most often in the form of email messages. The key word here is value. These emails should not be sales-oriented. They should educate, help, and demonstrate your expertise. A good sequence has its own rhythm and logic. It may consist of three to five touchpoints spread over several weeks or months, offering different types of content, such as case studies, articles, and webinar invitations.
3. Goal: Any nurture sequence must have a clear goal—a client action that signals their “maturity” and serves as a reason to return the contact to the salesperson. As soon as the goal is achieved, the automated sequence stops to avoid interfering with live communication. Examples of goals include: “The client clicked the ‘Request a demo’ link” or “visited the pricing page for the third time in a week.” Reaching this goal should automatically create a task in the CRM for the responsible manager. “Call — the client is ‘warm’ again.”
This simple “Trigger → Sequence → Goal” architecture is a universal constructor. With it, you can design dozens of scenarios for different situations, which we will discuss next.
Scenario No. 1: “The Long Game” (Working with Lost Deals)
For whom: Qualified clients who said “no” due to “no budget,” “priorities changed,” or “chose another vendor.” These clients are your “golden” assets and must not be forgotten.
The goal is reactivation. When the contact downloads your report or registers for a webinar six months later, the system will record this activity. A task is automatically created for the salesperson: “Client X is active again. It’s a great reason to call and find out how their situation has changed.”
The trigger is when your salesperson moves the deal to the status “Lost” with the corresponding reason.
Instead of being forgotten, the contact is automatically included in the “Long Game” sequence. This sequence involves low-frequency communication (one email every one to two months) but is very valuable. You are not selling. Rather, you are sharing strategic content, such as an annual market state report, an invitation to your flagship webinar of the year, or an announcement of a new product version release.
Scenario No. 2: “Mini-University” (Educating New Leads)
This is for “raw” leads who have downloaded general material (top-of-the-funnel content), but are not yet ready for a call with a salesperson.
- Trigger: Filling out a form to download a white paper or guide.
- Instead of an immediate sales call, which could scare them away, the system launches an educational “Mini-University” sequence. Over the course of two weeks, the system sends three to four short emails that further explore the topic of the downloaded material, establishing your expertise.
- The goal is qualification. The marketing system tracks which of the thousands who downloaded the guide opened all the emails and clicked the links. Only the most engaged contacts who passed the scoring process are handed over to the sales department as hot leads (MQLs).
Scenario No. 3: “Resuscitation” (Waking Up a “Sleeping” Database)
Who: All contacts in the CRM with whom there has been no communication for six to twelve months.
- Trigger: Inactivity for N days.
- The sequence involves one or two powerful campaigns per year with a strong informational purpose, such as “We conducted the largest salary survey in the industry. Would you like to receive a copy?”).
- The goal is to “shake up” the database. First, clean the database of “dead” email addresses. Second, you identify several unexpected “gold nuggets” — old contacts who have a current need.
Your CRM is an asset, not a graveyard.
It’s the “long game” with lost deals, “educating” new ones, and “resuscitating” old ones. These scenarios prove that automated nurturing is the only scalable way to extract value from the 90 percent of your database that salespeople will never have time to reach.
This is perfect synergy. Marketing designs and maintains this automated system. The sales department then receives a constant inflow of self-matured, loyal clients who are already educated.
Use this “Trigger → Series → Goal” framework as your template for creating any nurture scenario. Save this article to your corporate knowledge base. Use it in your marketing meetings to design your most important scenario first: reviving “lost” deals.
