Turn lurkers into leads

You’re posting, educating, and showing up consistently and somehow your revenue still feels like a coin flip. Meanwhile, the same names keep popping up in your Instagram Story views and the same people keep opening your emails. Those lurkers are not “cold” and they are not proof your marketing is broken. They’re usually undecided, and your content is missing the pieces that help them feel clear, safe, and ready to move. 

We walk through the practical marketing strategy shifts I use with clients to turn warm audiences into leads and paying customers. We talk about why timing matters more than most entrepreneurs want to admit, how to create nurture content that speaks directly to the people already watching, and how to answer real objections without sounding pushy. You’ll also learn how to rotate sales angles so you reach more buyer motivations, from results and relief to identity, efficiency, and safety, especially in a market where trust is harder to earn. 

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Transcript

Think Like A CMO Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Think Like a CMO, the podcast for entrepreneurs who are ready to stop doing random acts of marketing and to start thinking like the chief marketing officer your business really needs. What's up? I'm your host, Sarah Gemmel. I'm a marketing strategist and consultant helping small business owners build marketing ecosystems that actually create predictable results. Around here we talk about what it really looks like to step into your role as the CMO, to see the big picture, lead your marketing with strategy and psychology, and to stop wasting your time with productive, busy work that isn't actually getting you anywhere. This is all about no fluff, honest conversations, potent strategies, and practical insights that you can use right now to make your marketing work smarter for your small business. If you are showing up consistently, posting, educating, giving value, but your sales are inconsistent at best. Your content right now is not a predictable or reliable way to build your revenue. But the thing is, you got lurkers. You got people, you see them watching your Instagram story, you see them opening your emails. So how do we get these lurkers off the fence? I'm gonna break it down for you step by step in this episode. You already know what my motto is. If you're not taking notes, I'm not doing my job. We're gonna break down the exact steps I walk my clients through that when they have all these lurkers, okay? All these fence sitters, all these fans, all these watchers, how do we get them to move forward in making a buying decision

Why Lurkers Do Not Buy Yet

SPEAKER_00 1:36

in a way that feels good for both of you? Over the last 10 years that I've been in marketing, I have been trying different things and doing all the things to learn all about how to take what I'm already doing and to make it higher converting. I remember back when I was in personal training, I had built a global fitness platform. We were hitting five-figure months consistently. But before that, we were doing a bunch of content that got a bunch of, you know, like you're so awesome and you're so inspirational and you're so cool and we love you. And, you know, look how at the time I was skinny and fit and I was in my, you know, young 20s, and it was like, oh my god, you look amazing. But it wasn't giving me a consistent or predictable lead flow or cash flow. And I realized that I was wasting so much time creating this content that was getting attention, it was getting fans, but it wasn't actually feeding a pipeline. So I made it my mission to figure out how I can make what I'm already doing have a bigger impact in my business. That has always been my mission as a business owner, whether it's marketing, it's networking, it's sales, it's whatever, admin time even. And in the last 10 years, I've also learned how to do it for other people. We've helped over 1,300 business owners in counting with their marketing. And there are shifts happening that when you implement what we're about to talk about, you will notice that all these people who have been sitting on the fence and watching your stuff and they've been fans, or maybe they're just silently lurking and you don't even know they're there, they will start to come forward and they will start to ask you how they can work with you and how they can hire you. I have this happen on a pretty regular basis. I made some major changes to my business back when my son was born, which was September of 24. We made some major changes in the offers, and with that came a major overhaul to the marketing and the messaging, and I had to get really, really clear on like what is it that I do, how am I helping people, how is it packaged up? And when we started implementing this improved messaging and stronger positioning and all these things, right? I started noticing that I had networking partners and business friends and people that had been in my world for years were now turning around and asking me how to work with me, right? So I've seen this happen in my own business over the last few years, and I also see it happen every single week with our clients, whether it's a done for you client or a done with you client. We are implementing these strategies to really get a bigger bang for their buck in their content. What are you spending time, energy, and money on? And how can we have a bigger impact? So, anyway, let's get right to it, okay?

Reframe Lurkers As Undecided

SPEAKER_00 4:17

The biggest shift that you can make is reframing how you look at lurkers and fence sitters, okay? The people who are lurking are not cold. They're not necessarily the wrong audience. They are simply undecided. They are not getting something that they either want or need to hear from you in order to move forward. They are in the consideration phase, they might even be in the pre-contemplation phase. They might still be deciding if they even have a problem, right? They might be considering their options or exploring services with people. They are waiting for you to give them more clarity. They are waiting for you to make them feel safer. And to be honest with you, they might just be waiting for the right time. A lot of small business owners really discount the importance of time. When it comes to marketing, you might be talking to the right people, but they're not at the right time to invest in a solution. And it has nothing to do with their mindset. It might really just be their circumstances. Think about a plumber, right? A plumber is doing all this marketing and staying top of mind so that when your toilet breaks, you know who to call. Same thing with a life coach. They might not be ready or actively seeking a solution right now, but that could change in a month, in six months, in a year. You're never going to convince them to be ready. But when they are ready, you can be there to meet them where they're at, and you can be there and have the marketing that's ready to catch them and say, let's explore this together. Whenever I look at helping someone to create better converting content, right? I look at these key pieces. There's about five of them. Usually I add an extra one because I get to flap in my gums, but I have five.

unknown 6:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

We're going to see where this podcast takes us.

Nurture Warm Audiences With Depth

SPEAKER_00 6:10

But number one is that the nurture content you create for your warm audience has to be specifically for your warm and your hot audience. You cannot try to speak to your cold audience and your warm audience at the same time. You have to create more content that speaks to the people who are already watching. So many small business owners are caught up creating content, speaking to strangers, focusing on top of funnel, right? Trying to get more visibility, more traffic, more eyeballs. But what they've missed is the opportunity to go deeper and to speak to objections and hesitations and answering FAQs, sharing more about the process, sharing more client wins. You don't need to create content that specifically says, if you've been thinking about this, here's why. And if you have this objection, let's handle it. But you know your audience, you know what their objections are, what their hesitations are, you know what their desires are. And if you don't, you should, okay. And I mean in-depth. We really need to understand what these people want. And it's not just that your people feel overwhelmed and they want to have peace of mind. We have to go deeper than that. And time and money is a you know an objection we hear a lot of, but what is the true fear and hesitation behind the time and money objections? How can we subtly answer those objections, handle those objections within your content? How can you tell a client story that shares a transformation that looks just like theirs? How can you handle an objection through education or a perspective shift?

Sell From Multiple Angles

SPEAKER_00 7:53

This next one is so important because as humans, we are very habitual, right? We like to stick to routines and habits and what's comfortable. You might really like posting on Instagram because that's what you've always done. It's easy and it just becomes part of your daily routine, right? Well, the same thing goes for the types of content you create and the sales angles you take. This is so underutilized. You have to sell from different angles. And remember that your buyers are all buying for different reasons, but right now your content is only speaking to one buyer type and one type of buying decision in order to break it down for them. This kind of feeds on the last one that we just talked about, right? But how can you share more about the results, about what they get when they join the program? Not deliverables, results. How can you speak more to relief? What is removed when they buy or purchase your solution, whether it's a product, it's service, it doesn't matter, right? How can you speak to the identity of who they can become once they accomplish X? Another sales angle you can take is efficiency. How much time and effort is saved when they invest financially in this solution? And lastly, talking about safety. This is so important right now. There's a huge trend about uh the trust recession. You can agree with it, you can disagree with it, but it's a trending thing right now. And it's important to speak to your ideal audience and to make them feel safe in their decision. How can we reduce the risk for them? Right? Is it a 30-day money-back guarantee? Or is there, you know, something that you can do to reduce the risk financially, but reducing the risk emotionally or mentally might also be highlighting just how much support they get. This is a really great time to answer FAQs and meaningful FAQs, not that surface level bullshit, okay? I mean like really get down to the nitty-gritty of what are your people asking? What are they wondering about when they see this product or service that you have? And how can you say, listen, I know exactly what you're thinking right now, and here's the answer. I want you to feel like a full-body fuck yes when you hit check out on this product, regardless of how much of an investment it is. If you are only speaking to one of these sales angles, you're only speaking to results, relief, identity, efficiency, or safety, you are missing 80% or more of your buyers. It is time to switch it up and talk about your sales and your approach from a different angle.

Match Content To Buyer Behaviors

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Number three is the perfect flow from one and two, okay? But buyers do not all have the same buyer behavior. You know that, okay? You've been in the game long enough. You know that everyone buys for a different reason. There's all kinds of different buyer behaviors. We talked about sales psychology, marketing psychology. But are you creating assets in your marketing that speak to all of these buyer behaviors? We talked about taking different sales angles, but now how do we meet different buyer behaviors where they're at? So I'll give you four really easy examples. Okay. One is the logical buyer. They need proof, they need the process, they want to see deliverables. Your emotional buyer wants to see the vision. They want you to speak to the possibility. They really want you to lean into who they could become, what their life could look like, what their business could look like. The skeptical buyer needs trust and transparency. How can you add more of that real and raw authenticity and transparency in your marketing assets? And the fast action buyer is someone who thrives with urgency and they need simple, they need clear, and they need like that next thing. So your fast action buyer is the one who is clicking the button in the hero before they even scroll to see the rest of the landing page. So between number two and number three, that we just talked about, right? Taking different sales angles and talking to different buyer behaviors, you just created weeks worth of content ideas without having to come up with any new topics. You can talk about the same topics, the same thought leadership, the same offer, but in so many different ways. I get all the time, Sarah, but should I be talking about the same thing over and over? Girl, yes. Okay? This is part of marketing. Part of marketing is saying the same thing over and over and over again so that they remember you, so that they can build trust in the consistency of your brand so that they can buy in with their belief, and then when they're ready to buy, they know that you're the expert who's been talking about this for infinity, and you are the absolute go-to person that they simply cannot overlook.

Build Credibility Without Bragging

SPEAKER_00 12:57

This one is actually not related to the content type at all. But number four, okay, is subtle and consistent constant credibility. How can you position yourself as the expert and subtly brag on yourself all the time, okay? We see two extremes in this. Most business owners either overdo it where it's kind of braggy and a little bit name-dropy. And then there's the other part of entrepreneurs, this is especially for my female heart-led entrepreneurs, okay? They avoid it completely. They don't want to seem braggy, they want to be humble. Fuck humility, okay? You do not need to be humble, and you also don't need to be braggy, but we can work in your credibility to what you're doing in a very natural way. Credibility isn't about saying, here's why I'm credible and creating marketing all around that. It's a pattern of naturally adding in language to what you're already creating, right? How can you share more of your own wins? How can you share more of your client wins? That's a really great way to do it. How can you, um, I don't know if you noticed at the beginning of this podcast episode, I mentioned that I've been in business for 10 years. I helped over 1,300 business owners. I built a fitness business to five figures. I worked it into the intro of this podcast episode. But what it did for you is it got you to be like, okay, this girl knows what she's talking about, hopefully. I mean, you made it this far. So it probably did its job, right? But I didn't have to say, here's why you should listen to me, right? And I do see some people get on stage and do that, and it's so awkward, right? It's so awkward to get on stage and be like, why should you care about what I have to say? And it's not to brag, but this is to tell you that I know what I'm doing. And it's like, skip all that shit. Let's throw it in there naturally. They don't even know they're getting the credibility. Your audience should never have to wonder if you're good at what you do and if you get results, if you're a service provider, right? If you're selling products, they should never wonder if your product is worth their money or if it's actually going to be the quality that it looks like online. Okay, we're running through these quick as fuck,

Fix Your Call To Action

SPEAKER_00 15:18

but here we go. You ready? The last one, this is so important. Again, it's not really necessarily related to the type of content or the type of marketing. A lot of times when I see business owners who have decent engagement, decent views, they have these lurkers, they have people watching, but they're not actively buying. It's an issue with the CTA. Okay. So I want you to picture if I share a post and it's like, I feel I built this fitness business. We were serving women all over the world, we were making five-figure months consistently. I had a team of 12. Here's how we did it. One, I work in the credibility, two, it's interesting. Three, it gives a lot of value. And then at the end, I just don't give a CTA. I don't tell you what to do next, right? It's like giving you marketing blue balls. We just had this foreplay, and then like, oh, okay, I'm gonna go home, right? Or the CTA is too vague. Something like, um, DM me to get started. DM to get started with what? Like, what are we doing? Why am I gonna DM you? What are we getting started with? The other problem in CTAs that I see all the time is it's not a natural tie-in to what the piece of content was, right? Or maybe you're not giving them a low barrier enough entry point to start this conversation with you. Think about what am I creating and what is the logical next step for my buyer? How do I make it so clear that their natural next step is to slide in my DMs or to book a call or to visit a website? What is that logical next step? How do I make it so clear and easy to understand? And not clear and easy to understand to you, okay? To them. Are they so crystal clear on what that next step is? And is that next step low friction and low barrier? If you're going from a cold piece of content for cold audience right to a sales call, it's probably gonna be pretty low converting, right? New people don't want to just get on a sales call with you, right? People in your Instagram stories don't want to just sign up for the newsletter for no reason. We need to think about how is the easiest thing. When I'm on Instagram, I just want to comment or a DM or get them to visit the link in my profile, right? I just want to get you onto the website. And then I can trust that my website will do its job from there. Or I just want you to DM me. Let's have a no pressure conversation about your marketing, right? Or comment this keyword and I'll send you the link to this podcast or a link to a freebie. It's low friction. It's easy to understand. It also meets them where they're at. If not making a piece of content like what we're talking about in this episode, where it's talking more to the warmer or hotter people that have been watching my stuff for a little while, then I might say, right, comment a clarity call or comment clarity or DM me strategy and let's book a call and let's talk about it. But I'm reserving that for people who are further down the pipeline, who are more warmed up and more nurtured and are ready to actually move forward with a call. If you do not give them a reason to buy, if you don't give them a reason to say yes, or if it feels unclear or it feels like a lot of work, they will stay as a lurker. They're gonna sit right there, they're gonna sit their happy little ass on the fence and they're gonna keep commenting and liking on your stuff and never buying. At the end of the day, lurkers don't convert because something is missing. It is not your job to just create more noise. You don't need to create more and more content. You need to use your marketing to remove their hesitation, to make them feel safer, to give them more clarity in exactly what you do, what you offer, and what they're gonna get when they move into that next step. And you already know if you are showing up in your content, you're actively marketing, but it is not a predictable or reliable way to convert viewers into leads and leads into sales. This is exactly what we fix when we work together on your

Clarity Call Invite And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 19:34

marketing. So make sure you check out the show notes of this episode. You already know if you made it to this part of the episode, I'm inviting you to get on that clarity call. Let's talk about your marketing. Let's make a plan for turning your marketing around so that you can create more of an ecosystem that consistently attracts, nurtures, and converts dream clients on repeat. Okay. I'll leave you some other resources there in the show notes, but you already know my calendar is open for you. And I want to challenge you to get on a call with me and really let's dive into this marketing shit together. Okay, it's time to stop doing it alone. It's time to stop, you know, keeping yourself so close to your marketing without an expert set of eyeballs, giving you that outside perspective of exactly where those gaps are and how we can turn them around quickly. Oh Lord, we got through a lot today. Thank you so much for tuning in to Think Like a CMO. If this episode helped you think about your marketing in a new way, I want you to go ahead and make sure you're following the show so you don't miss any future episodes. Leave us a review if you're feeling frisky, feeling friendly. And if you're ready to tighten up your strategy and create a marketing plan that actually works for you, go ahead and check out those show notes like we just talked about. You'll find everything there. But remember, you are already the CMO of your business. Let's make sure you're thinking like one.