The Critical Role of Nurture in Building a Sustainable Pipeline

To achieve business goals that reach for your vision it’s essential to build a sustainable pipeline, and lead nurturing is about creating meaningful and ongoing connections with prospects, even when they’re not immediately ready to buy. This approach not only ensures that leads are consistently moving through your pipeline but also significantly enhances the quality of conversions over time.

However, many businesses continue to rely on outdated assumptions about the lead funnel, assuming it’s a straightforward, linear journey. This linear model, where a prospect progresses neatly from awareness to decision-making, fails to capture the complex and often unpredictable paths modern buyers take.

Examples of Marketo Revenue Cycle Models

Indeed, on average, approximately 13% of leads convert into opportunities, meaning about 87% of leads do not progress to this stage and studies indicate that between 40% and 60% of deals in the pipeline are lost to indecision rather than to competitors.

As a result, nurturing must adapt to reflect the reality that the customer journey is dynamic, nonlinear, and relationship driven.

The Value of Nurture in a Complex Buyer Journey

At its best, nurturing serves as the bridge between initial interest and eventual conversion. According to industry data, most leads—often as high as 60-70%—are not ready to make a purchase when they first engage with your brand. Pushing these leads too aggressively towards a decision risks alienating them altogether. Instead, nurturing allows you to build trust, demonstrate value, and stay top-of-mind until they are ready to buy.

But nurturing is about more than just keeping the conversation alive. By providing personalised, relevant content at the right time, you’re guiding potential buyers through their unique decision-making process. This might involve answering questions, addressing pain points, or simply offering insights that reinforce your brand’s credibility. Over time, this approach not only creates better-informed leads but also ensures they feel confident and supported when they’re ready to make a purchase decision.

Recognising That the Funnel Is Not Linear

The traditional sales funnel assumes a logical, step-by-step progression: leads move seamlessly from awareness to consideration to decision. But buyers don’t behave that way. They zigzag between stages, revisit earlier steps, and rely on multiple touch points before arriving at a decision.

A buyer might download a white paper one week, ignore your emails for a month, and then engage with a webinar weeks later before finally reaching out for a demo.

This non-linear behaviour makes nurturing more complex, but also more critical. A strong nurture strategy is less about pushing prospects down a straight path and more about being present and valuable wherever they are in their journey. It’s about building relationships that extend beyond a single campaign or touchpoint.

For example, instead of bombarding leads with generic offers, effective nurture involves understanding their specific pain points and tailoring your communications accordingly. A lead who’s still researching solutions needs educational content to build awareness, while a prospect closer to a decision might benefit from case studies or free trials. By meeting prospects where they are and adapting to their shifting needs, you’re positioning your brand as a trusted partner—not just another vendor.

Nurture as a Long-Term Strategy

Building and maintaining long-term relationships is the heart of a sustainable pipeline. Nurture campaigns are not just about short-term wins; they’re about creating an ecosystem where leads feel consistently engaged, supported, and valued. This approach pays dividends in several ways: 

1. Higher Lead Conversion Rates: When leads are nurtured effectively, they’re more likely to convert. In fact, nurtured leads have been shown to produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities compared to non-nurtured leads.

2. Improved Customer Retention: A nurturing strategy doesn’t stop after the sale. By continuing to engage with customers post-purchase, you strengthen loyalty and increase the likelihood of repeat business, thus increase the life-time value of that customer.  Also, repeat business is achieved at a lower cost than needing to find new customers all the time.

3. Greater Pipeline Stability: A focus on nurturing creates a steady flow of well-qualified leads, reducing the feast-or-famine cycles that often plague sales teams, and impact operations.

Additionally, nurtured leads tend to make purchases that are 47% larger than those of non-nurtured leads.

The Role of Technology in Nurture

Marketing automation tools have transformed the way businesses approach nurturing. From email drip campaigns to behavioural tracking, these tools allow you to deliver highly targeted and timely content at scale. However, automation alone isn’t enough, to be successful, nurture must remain human at its core, focused on building genuine relationships, not just checking boxes in a workflow.

As buyers control the journey and the funnel is anything but linear, nurturing is the key to building a sustainable and resilient pipeline. But, it’s about more than just staying in touch, it’s about creating long-term value, building trust, and adapting to the unique needs of every prospect. By focusing on nurture, businesses can, improve lead conversion rates and also lay the groundwork for stronger, more enduring customer relationships. In the end, the brands that succeed will be those that prioritise relationships over transactions, delivering value at every stage of the journey.

Written by: Diane Dawkins, MA DipM MCIM

Diane is a seasoned marketing professional with a wealth of experience in marketing communications and digital marketing. With a Master's degree in Marketing Management and over 20 years of industry experience, Diane has worked with Fortune 100 companies and well-known B2B and OEM businesses.