Have you ever purchased a car? Or a home? Personally, I rent and over-utilize Uber, but I can imagine that the typical consumer of these valuable items does not simply hop on Google, type in “new car,” and hit “buy now.”
Along with real estate and automotive, there are a plethora of other industries known for their longer sales cycles, such as most industries within the B2B space, software, consulting services, insurance, finance, and the list goes on. Basically, anything that costs a heavy penny and/or has a contract tied to it typically falls into the longer sales cycle category.
Marketers are continuously trying to create engaging content, generate buzz, and nurture leads, in an effort to shorten the sales cycle and push more people through it, but with the longer decision-making process the challenges are much higher. Yes, products and services with longer sales cycles typically cost more and lead to more revenue, but marketers need to make sure that they’re not spending more of their budget to gain the sale then the sale itself is actually worth (cough, cough, ROI is critical).
