Lead nurturing is often misunderstood as a sequence of emails or a passive wait for prospects to be ready. In reality, it’s a proactive, human-centred approach that builds connection, earns trust and creates a path to meaningful conversion. But for it to work, it must be intentional, rooted in relevance, timing and empathy.

To explore what effective lead nurturing really looks like, we’ve gathered insights from six professionals who use tailored strategies to stay top of mind and build lasting relationships. Charlotte Ross-Scott, Graham Smith, Margaret Buj, Alex Wilke, Clare Whalley and Douglas Mulvihill share how they each engage prospects with purpose, whether through strategic content, bold qualifying questions, or simple, thoughtful follow-ups.

From B2B sales to coaching, their approaches reveal a common thread: successful nurturing isn’t about chasing leads, it’s about showing up with clarity, value and patience. Here’s how they turn interest into intent and prospects into paying clients

Charlotte Ross-Scott

Customer Success & Professional Development Strategist, Penny Blake Associates

Effective lead nurturing requires what I call a “keep warm strategy” which is a systematic approach to maintaining meaningful engagement with prospects throughout their buyer journey. Core Keep Warm Tactics include:

– Regular touchpoints through monthly or fortnightly calls (tailored to client preference), exclusive event invitations, and positioning key contacts as thought leaders within their industries help maintain momentum and build trust.

– Create Ownership and Investment – Involve prospects in company product decisions and future business planning. When potential customers feel they’re part of something bigger and understand their role in the solution they’re considering, conversion rates increase significantly.

– Empower Your Team – Train customer success managers and account managers in essential relationship management skills, active listening, and time management. Service quality directly impacts retention and organisations can lose up to 95% of customers due to poor service delivery (Forbes).

Lead nurturing isn’t just about moving prospects through a funnel, it’s about building genuine partnerships that convert prospects into loyal advocates for your business. This keep warm strategy transforms transactional relationships into collaborative partnerships, resulting in higher conversion rates and long-term customer loyalty.”

 

Graham Smith

Marketing Director

First, ask yourself why and who are you nurturing? The why should be easy. To eventually win new customers. The who is often where people trip up.

Generally, nurturing campaigns involve content marketing. Delivering valuable insights on the needs, wants, pains of your target audience keeps them engaged over a sometimes lengthy period.

But who are they? Have you checked they are ICP and the right persona? If you are targeting law firms with a SaaS product that always gets signed off by the Chief Operations Officer, are you sending content to a Law Student working at McDonalds? Are you hoping they may become a COO at a Solicitors at some point in the distant future?

Looking at your existing ‘good’ clients, do they generally employ 500-1,000 staff? So why are you nurturing companies that employ less than 50?

Be brutal and cut non-ICP and irrelevant personas from your nurturing, otherwise, you’re kidding yourself that you have an amazing nurture pipeline.

And ask why people are consuming your content. Is it to just educate themselves? If they don’t have a problem you can solve, you are again inflating your nurture pipeline.

At some point you need to ask a bold question. Something like “Are you considering a solution like ours in the next 6 months? If so, here are the questions other execs asked potential suppliers. Click to see the 5-point list.” Only people looking for a new supplier will click.

This approach has helped me cut my nurture list by more than 60%. Yes, that can be frightening. But you now have a nurture list of *real* prospects and a realistic view of the pipeline.”

Margaret Buj

Interview Coach at Interview Coach Ltd

As an interview and career coach and LinkedIn Top Voice with nearly 20 years of recruitment experience – including at Mixmax, a U.S.-based SaaS company – I’ve learned that nurturing coaching clients is about trust, clarity, and consistent value over time. Most clients don’t buy after the first interaction – and that’s okay. My strategy is designed for the long game.

My Go-To Lead Nurturing Strategy:

-I use a mix of educational content, personalised follow-up, and strategic touchpoints to keep prospects warm. That includes:

– Free monthly LinkedIn webinars where I provide practical, actionable advice

– A nurturing email sequence after each event with tips, free resources, and an intro to my coaching offers

– Thoughtful, personal follow-ups – especially to those who engage or attend events

– Occasional social proof, like client wins or testimonials, to build trust and show results

This approach gives potential clients time to see me in action, build familiarity, and self-select when they’re ready. It also ensures I’m not constantly “selling” – I’m just showing up, giving value, and staying top of mind.

Often, people reach out weeks or months (even years in some cases!) after first attending a session or seeing a post, saying:

I’ve been following your work for a while and I’m finally ready to invest in coaching.

That only happens when you nurture leads with patience, relevance, and a clear path to action.

Results:

This approach has helped me consistently book 1:1 coaching clients without paid ads. Just by combining trust-building content with personalised follow-up, I convert a strong percentage of warm leads – often from one webinar or LinkedIn interaction.

Tips for Others:

-Give more than you think you should – generosity builds trust

-Follow up with relevance, not pressure – reference what they engaged with and offer help

-Don’t underestimate the power of a personal note – even a short LinkedIn message after an event can reignite interest

-Lead nurturing in coaching isn’t about chasing people – it’s about consistently showing your value until they’re ready to say yes.”

Alex Wilke

Director Sales and Marketing

Be generous and share knowledge. Make a real effort to understand your prospects – their goals, concerns, hurdles, time lines – and see the whole process from their perspective. Add value at each touchpoint or contact – make it about them, not about you… Earn mutual respect and be prepared to move on/take a break if the timing isn’t right. Ensure that your solutions are a cultural as well as technical fit – keep it simple, even if it’s complex…

Clare Whalley

Meta4 Business Coaching

My go-to lead nurturing strategy is to start on the best footing from the get-go. At the beginning of the enquiry process is to ask the potential customer to complete some preliminary questions about themselves, their challenges, wants and needs. This helps them to increase their clarity on what they’re really looking to get solved and why and what the best outcome would look like. It enables you as the ‘seller’ to stand out from the crowd and show you are ready to listen from the outset -you know lots about their situation before you even chat with a potential prospect.

This works really well in service led businesses. You are the expert here, asking the right questions will help you to show, not tell this, from the outset.

Douglas Mulvihill

Marketing Director

Most prospects won’t convert after one touch. That’s why lead nurturing is the real MVP of B2B marketing.

In my career across SaaS, financial education, and life sciences, I’ve learned that smart nurturing is part science, timing, and just being human.

I use a mix of:

-Behaviour-based CRM journeys (HubSpot)

-Content that educates and helps

-Timely 1:1 outreach via email and LinkedIn

At Ringover, that approach helped me drive £47k in pipeline from LinkedIn alone, no ad spend, just relevant follow-up. More recently, I used a similar strategy to convert cold family office leads into over £250k in course revenue.

Top tip: Lead nurturing isn’t about constant selling, it’s about staying helpful, relevant, and top of mind until they’re ready. Most of your competitors won’t have the patience. That’s your edge.

By following the lead nurturing approaches shared by Charlotte Ross-Scott, Graham Smith, Margaret Buj, Alex Wilke, Clare Whalley and Douglas Mulvihill, you can move beyond surface-level engagement and start building relationships that convert. Whether it’s through consistent touchpoints, bold qualification tactics, value-driven content or thoughtful personal outreach, these experts demonstrate that effective nurturing is both strategic and human.

The key takeaway; prioritise relevance and real connection. Focus your efforts on the right people, offer support that aligns with their journey and be willing to nurture patiently. When done well, lead nurturing doesn’t just guide prospects through a pipeline, it builds trust, creates advocates and drives sustainable growth.

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