How to Nurture your Leads and Gain a Competitive Edge
If I was to ask you what your biggest marketing challenge is, I can bet that many of you will say: ‘trying to convert leads into sales’.
I know this because a staggering 65% of businesses haven’t implemented lead nurturing yet. If you don’t have a clear process for nurturing leads, then you’re losing valuable visitors that are coming to your website that could potentially (and eventually) become paying customers.
Because guess what?
Only 2% of sales conversions are made during the first point of contact, roughly 80% develop between the 5th and 12th touchpoint.
In all my 25 years’ experience working with serviced-based companies, I’ve come across two distinct camps when it comes to lead nurturing:
The first is what I call the ‘Eager Beavers’. They are businesses who expect their website visitors to land on page and ‘Book a Call’ or ‘Get a Quote’. Immediately! It’s a little bit like going on a first date and presenting a marriage certificate. Whoa hold your horses….. you haven’t even kissed yet…. You’re just getting to know each other, right?
The second camp are what I call the ‘Hopeful Harrys.’ These types of businesses don’t do anything at all to nurture their prospects but expect their phone to be ringing with enquiries. Then after 3 months, they give up on their marketing, declaring that: ‘It’s just not working!!!’
Sound familiar?
The truth is, if we want to be successful at lead generation, we can’t just give up the ghost. We need to take our prospects on a journey with regular touchpoints and signposts along the way so that you stay top of mind for when the time comes that they’re ready to buy.
A drastic shift in the buying cycle
Amongst so many developments in the digital landscape right now, including Google’s AI-generated search results, the ‘pay to play’ nature of social media platforms, there’s also a dramatic shift in buyer behaviour. Today’s buyers are more informed and independent, making it harder for us as marketers to influence their decisions. They expect immediate responses, personalised solutions, and value-added content.
So how can we nurture our prospects early in the buying journey so that we build strong relationships?
How to capture leads on your website
Lead magnets are like an exchange of value for both you and your website visitors.
They provide valuable content for your website visitors, while also giving you their contact information so you can continue to communicate with them and move them further through your sales funnel.
Lead magnets come in different formats and mediums, including:
- A valuable piece of content (eBook, a Blueprint, a Checklist or an in-depth research report).
- An interactive piece of content such as Quiz, an assessment or an online calculator
- A webinar you are hosting
- A series of videos that exclusive to subscribers only
Having a lead magnet is the simplest and most efficient approach to growing your mailing list and we all know how valuable a mailing list is going to be in 2025!
Automating your visitor data into your mailing list
Once you have your lead magnet, you need to link it directly to your Email Client (like Mailchimp, MailerLite or Hubspot) so their contact information is automatically stored within your mailing list. This allows you to set up a marketing funnel so that you can nurture these prospects by sending them personalised and relevant content.
Nurturing leads at different stages of the marketing funnel
Not all prospects who visit your website or download your content will be at the same stage. Some may be just starting their research, while others are evaluating and comparing different options. By tailoring your content to their specific stage—whether it’s top-of-funnel awareness, middle-of-funnel consideration, or bottom-of-funnel decision-making—you will increase your chances of converting them into customers.
You should have several lead magnets on specific pages of your website. For example, you might have a price comparison checklist lead magnet on your pricing page that shows how competitive your product or service is compared to others in your industry.
For the awareness stage, you may want to focus on how-to content that really showcases your expertise and provides helpful and relevant information to visitors who want to be educated on a particular topic.
Understanding what piece of content your visitors are engaging with will allow you to set up a relevant lead nurturing funnel that’s specific to the stage they are at in the buying cycle.
A typical 60-day Lead Nurturing Funnel for those at the Awareness Stage
You are going to need roughly 8-10 touchpoints in your marketing funnel over a period of 2-3 months. During this time, we strongly recommend using some paid remarketing campaigns on social media channels such as LinkedIn and Meta – depending to reach your audience on multiple touchpoints.
We’ve put together a typical high intent Lead Nurturing Programme for prospects who enter the funnel in the ‘Awareness stage.’ We’ve chosen the Awareness stage, because it encompasses the broadest audience. It’s also the hardest to market to because these individuals may not even know they have a problem or need a solution. Notice that the sales call comes right at the end, and this may not even be a hard sell. It might be an invitation to a webinar or offering a free audit or assessment.
Lead Nurturing ‘housekeeping’
Now that your lead magnet and nurturing funnel is up and running, there is some regular housekeeping to do to keep your content relevant and your mailing list up-to-date:
- Track email open rates and click-through rates: What content are they most engaging with? Create more of it once you know what resonates.
- Cleanse your list regularly: Remove anyone who hasn’t open an email in the last 90 days or put them through a separate re-engagement funnel.
- Test how your emails look on different devices: Is the Call-to-Action high up on the page on mobile? It might need to be adjusted for mobile devices.
- Don’t send your Sales Team leads just because they’ve downloaded a Guide. Going in for the hard sell might put people off. Gently nurture them first before they become a Sales Qualified Lead.
- Stay ‘campaign’ focused: If you’re just starting out with lead nurturing, don’t try and do everything all at once. Choose an audience segment and create tailored content with a funnel for that one audience.
Remember that perfection is the enemy of progress. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but having a lead magnet up there with a basic funnel is better than doing nothing!
Whether you’re just starting out with a lead nurturing programme for your business, or you’ve tried different things and you need help refining your strategy, we’d love to help make this a success for you and help you generate more sales.