← DictionaryNurture
also called nurture sequence, lead nurturing
Building trust and readiness with a lead over time before asking for the sale.
Staying useful until they are ready.
What It Is
You will find Nurture in the Marketing layer, alongside the rest of Demand. The canonical meaning is building trust and readiness with a lead over time before asking for the sale.
It is an idea you reason with rather than a deliverable you hand over, so two teams can both hold it correctly and still apply it differently. Once it is defined that clearly, arguments about it usually stop.
How It's Used
Nurture earns its keep in campaign planning, channel choices and the reporting that follows them. It is usually discussed together with Email Automation, Drip Campaign and Middle of Funnel. The practical test is whether a decision changes because of it.
Why It Matters
The cost of being vague about Nurture shows up later, not today. When it is unclear, spend keeps moving but nobody can say what it bought. It is worth pinning down before anyone builds on top of it.
It is a way of thinking, not a thing you can hold. Staying useful until they are ready.
Termshift™
How the meaning shifts depending on who is using it, and where.
Practitioners use Nurture as shorthand and expect no explanation — building trust and readiness with a lead over time before asking for the sale.
Outside the industry, most people would just say: staying useful until they are ready.
The Bottom Line
If you only keep one thing about Nurture: staying useful until they are ready. Everything after that is detail.