Response time and engagement with higher value products/services with longer sales cycles?

I posted this answer on my blog, but would enjoy the discussion here, as well.

This question is in response to a statistic that Scott Mersy shared about engagement opportunity declining after 30 minutes from when a lead visits your website. I think the answer depends on your perspective. In a longer cycle, you'll want to follow up with something useful - "I noticed you're interested in [topic] and wanted to let you know that we also have a white paper on the subject. May I send it over?"

The point in a longer sale is to be helpful, build your company's credibility and share expertise that has them coming back to your company for more answers to questions about how to best solve their problem. We talked about responsiveness in relation to increasing a prospect's level of engagement. So, in a longer sales cycle, don't think of following up as a sales call, think of it from a nurturing perspective.

Being helpful and not "selling" will keep the prospect from feeling stalked. And, a follow-up could also be an email with a link to related content - doesn't have to be a phone call. This is when knowing the prospect's stage in the buying cycle can be helpful. For example, you could set up auto responders for prospects with scores below #X who access specific content and set up an alert that notifies you to call them if their score is closer to sales qualification.