Lead Generation & Nurturing for Long Sales Cycles

In my 5 years as an entrepreneur, I've learned that creating valuable digital assets is key. I created a digital marketing course with 25 videos as a lead magnet 5 years ago and it has generated 2 million leads. The majority of my customers came from promoting this lead magnet through Facebook and Google ads, building strong brand recall and making it easier to sell future products.

Although the lead magnet wasn't perfect, it's been successful for 5 years and I've spent nearly $1 million on ads to promote it. Now I'm focused on creating more lead magnets to generate leads at a low cost and keep selling to them.

The two key metrics in my business are cost per lead (CPL) and revenue per lead (RPL). As long as RPL is higher than CPL, you can keep running ads as long as other business costs are manageable.

Generating a million leads in a month requires 35,000 leads per day, which is challenging to achieve with just one lead magnet. The solution is to have multiple lead magnets and not increasing the budget too much for one to maintain high margins and optimize for revenue.

Many have recognized the importance of leads that take time to mature. Recently, a member who has been following me since 2017 joined our high-ticket mastermind: AlphaClub.

He was willing to pay a high price for our premium mastermind program because he had spent a lot of time in the funnel, receiving valuable emails and learning from me without being overwhelmed by promotions. A new metric to consider is "time in the funnel."

If people spend a lot of time in the funnel, they are more likely to trust you and pay a high price for your offering. Many business owners have short cycles in which they expect results from their marketing campaigns, but few think about creating a marketing funnel that runs for years without much effort.

While some say the money is in the list, the real money is in the relationship with your list. If you are seen as an expert and solution provider for their challenges, you will reap the rewards.

The most effective way to manage your lead database is to use a CRM tool for lead nurturing, not sales. Tools like ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit can help create a system where once a lead enters the system, they are automatically nurtured through a sequence over time, without any additional effort from you.

One of the best ways to get people into your email database is by offering them a free resource, such as a free 30-day course or free access to a tool. This not only helps them get into your database, but also helps them engage with your emails and receive value from them on automation. This builds trust with them and can be leveraged into sales of high-ticket products in the future.

I hope this article gave you an understanding of the importance of not only lead generation, but also lead nurturing, which builds trust with your audience.

If you haven't created a lead magnet yet, it's time to create one before you sell your products and services. To get their attention and build trust, you need to engage with your audience over time.

Trust is automatically built through repetition, but many people will only trust you after spending a lot of time engaging with your content.

As suggested by Daniel Priestley in his book, "Oversubscribed," a person should have at least 11 interactions with you and spend 7 hours consuming your content, which could be through emails, blog posts, YouTube, or podcasts.