With budgets tightening and opportunities on hold, can you imagine telling a qualified prospect that your agency doesn’t want their business? 

I have some news for you. If your agency is like most, it’s leaving money on the table by failing to convert interested prospects into closed business after a meeting. And failing at this crucial phase of business development—post-meeting nurture—is effectively telling your potential clients that you don’t want their business.

Think about the messages you send when a prospect tells you they’ll be re-evaluating their agency relationships in May, and you don’t reach out to them in April to see how things are going. Or when you end a great call by saying you’ll follow up with an asset the prospect has asked for, but you don’t send it until 2 weeks later. These are sure ways to discourage someone’s interest by showing them they’re not a priority.

We look at conversion starting from the top of the funnel versus the bottom. How you show up, follow up, and engage with the prospect throughout sets the tone for a potential relationship.

Post-meeting nurture fails are by far the most frequent form of new business self-sabotage we see with agencies. But why?

The First Meeting Fallacy

We often hear agency leaders say, “just get me in the room,” as if some magic will unfold there that makes the sales process irrelevant. To be fair, many agency leaders do perform well in the room (if “performing well” means generating interest in working with the agency). But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Winning new business isn't just about nailing the first meeting—it's about everything that happens after. 

A good meeting is just the beginning of a process. A process in which you will build a relationship, stay top of mind, and demonstrate value through a solution-based approach. Wooing the prospect until the stars align at the right time, and “it just makes sense” to partner on something.

Here’s what usually happens: The initial meeting goes well. The prospect seems engaged, the chemistry feels right, and there's strong interest in potential collaboration. And then...silence. Awkward, frustrating silence. Because it’s not that the prospect isn't interested, but that the agency dropped the ball on what should be a carefully orchestrated nurture campaign. They didn’t establish next steps, get buy-in from both sides, or set responsibilities and timelines for both parties.

Real-World Example

Picture this: Your agency just met with a promising retail brand's new VP of marketing. They're planning a major digital transformation in the next 12 months. The meeting went well, but they're not ready to move forward immediately. What should you do?

The right move is to build a strategy to bring this future opportunity to reality. Instead, most agencies would send a thank-you email and add them to a generic newsletter list. And that's where the opportunity starts slipping away.

How Agencies Lose at Nurture: Strategy Vacuums, Communication Breakdowns, and Failure to Deliver Value

Before they work with us, we see many agencies operating without a clear nurture strategy. For example, relying on sporadic "check-in" emails or generic follow-ups that add little value. This approach ignores the complex nature of modern buying cycles and the need for sustained, meaningful engagement. 

Not all prospects are equally ready to move forward. Considering budgets, internal shifts, other agency relationships, and external forces (like the current economic uncertainty), it’s not uncommon for a year to pass between a friendly meeting and closed business. Instead of letting these valuable opportunities fall through the cracks, agencies can get better at pulling them through to close.  

After years of leaning on search consultants and RFPs for new business opportunities (which are further down the path by that point), agencies need to better adapt to the way new business is won now. There are more conversations earlier in the sales process, and prospect audiences are often less familiar or warm towards the agency going into the meeting (compared to referrals, personal contacts, and curated selections of agencies).

Laying the Groundwork for Nurturing Success

The groundwork for successful nurture is laid in the first meeting. It is only the first step of many to convert this business to close. You must gain enough information about the prospect’s needs and situation to carry you through the next steps with relevant messages. 

Beware of meetings focused on “wowing” the prospect with what your agency can do. They may succeed in making a great impression and end on a positive note. But an agency-centric approach to meetings sets the stage for agency-centric follow-up that doesn’t connect.

Let’s compare an agency post-meeting nurture fail to a success to illustrate why this matters.

Example of a Nurture Fail

An agency meets with a B2B software company interested in rebranding. After the meeting, they send the standard thank you email, and then follow-up two weeks later asking if there’s been any updates. They then check in monthly-ish with messages about “checking in” or “touching base,” and after a few months, stop following up altogether.

Example of Nurture Done Right

Here’s what a strategic approach could look like for the same prospect:

• Follow the meeting with a detailed summary, including specific insights discussed
• Share a custom analysis of their competitors' brand evolution
• Forward relevant B2B software industry reports with personalized annotations
• Invite them to an exclusive agency webinar on B2B branding trends
• Try to get buy-in to calendar another meeting a few months out. The prospect may not be open right now, but you won’t know if you don’t ask.
• Ask if they will be attending a specific industry trade show or event
• Create monthly micro-insights about their market positioning

The difference is obvious. The nurture fail example comes off as agency-centric, generic, and only interested in the business, not the individual or their company. Done right, you will add value and differentiate your agency with each touch, pushing the sale forward (and not by overtly “selling”). This helps set the tone for what it would be like to work with your agency: focused, specific, and targeted.

Which emails would you open? The emails drop off in the fail example in part because it’s pointless; they don’t inspire engagement and the prospect has learned to ignore them. Even if the agency doesn’t see where they went wrong, they “get” that sending more of the same won’t matter.

Your Fail is Your Opportunity

The high rate of agency failure with post-meeting nurture is a huge opportunity for agencies to pick up much-needed wins in 2025. You can step your game up here with highly relevant insights, tailored solutions, and personalized (exclusive, even) opportunities to connect and learn. 

Other ideas to provide practical value post-meeting:

• For a retail prospect: Create a mystery shopping analysis of their current customer experience.
• For a B2B technology brand: Develop a mini content audit with three specific improvement opportunities.
• For a travel brand: Stay at their location, have a meal in their restaurant. Use a day pass to their spa and gym facilities. Then share the experience with the prospect.
• For a healthcare prospect: Share a regulatory compliance checklist for their marketing materials.

Delivering value requires targeted, personalized, and tailored content (though the resource expenditure for your thoughts on a news item is lower than for a mini content audit). Unfortunately, agency teams are often short on resources and commitment to create prospect-specific content that addresses unique business challenges. 

You can determine what’s manageable for your agency, and where AI tools can help shave time. But first, you’ll need a system to prioritize your potential opportunities and invest resources accordingly.

Three Actionable Steps for Better Post-Meeting Nurturing

1. Create Your Nurture Infrastructure

Tech Tools

Mapping your nurture plan over sustained periods requires a CRM system designed to support prospect management, such as HubSpot or Salesforce. 

Within it, you may want to:

• Define prospect scoring criteria, including engagement levels, response rates, and content interaction. You can also apply scoring criteria-based qualification status and how you assess the opportunity.
• Develop automated—but personalized—follow-up sequences. This does not mean sending the same message to multiple people. 
• Build a content management system for easy access to relevant materials.

Process Development

You’ll need a roadmap to identify your key touchpoints. We suggest creating a standardized post-meeting protocol, which might include:

• Same-day meeting summary
• 48-hour value-add follow-up
• 7-day custom insight delivery
• 30-day progress check with specific value proposition

2. Build a Content Creation Framework

Develop a Content Bank

As we move down the sales funnel, relevance and value become even more important. Agencies with one or more defined niches will have the advantage here; it’s easier to build relevant content banks with a clear specialization in a few industries, or even a few service areas. 

We suggest taking a strategic approach to planning content, so that you can maximize its mileage while also planning for tailored versions that are highly relevant. Taking a broader focus is much less useful, and may not deliver your expected payoff. 

Always keep in mind the type and format of content your prospect will likely respond to, their level of subject-matter expertise, and where they are at in the sales cycle. If it’s not delivering clear value to them, consider whether it’s still worth investing in.

Your content bank might include things like:

• Industry trend analyses
• Competitor benchmark reports
• Best practice guides
• Case studies
• White papers with valuable research and insights
• Custom assessment tools
• Market insight reports

3. Implement Engagement Tactics

High-Value Touchpoints

This is where agencies have some great opportunities to differentiate themselves and build relationships. Consider extending personal and exclusive opportunities to your high-value prospects, such as:

• Roundtable invitations
• Custom research sharing
• Guest invites to an industry conference where you’re speaking
• Personalized video messages
• Interactive workshops
• Social events for agency clients
• Advisory board opportunities

Don’t forget to keep out-of-town prospects in mind when you’re traveling to their city! Ask them if they are free for lunch, and come with questions and relevant information to share. If you have something tangible to leave with them, such as a copy of your soon-to-be-published white paper with notes on what it might mean for them, all the better.

Advanced Nurture Strategies

Besides high-level touchpoints, agencies can shine with high-value prospects in the post-meeting nurturing period by layering on these advanced strategies and tactics.

Multi-Level Engagement

The decision to engage an agency is usually made by a group, and that may include more decision-makers and influencers than those you’ve met. If resources allow, go further to map out all stakeholders in the prospect’s organization. 

Lay out a strategy to influence each stakeholder, even if it’s just to build awareness of your agency. Because different roles respond to different content and formats, customizing content for each decision-maker can elevate your impact. 

When you extend your reach across the prospect organization, you can build relationships across departments and create more favorable conditions when they are ready to engage.

Trigger-Based Nurture

Develop your roadmap by integrating a response plan for specific triggers, such as:

• Leadership changes
• Company announcements
• Market changes
• Competitor activities
• Budget cycles
• Fiscal year planning

Tracking this information is easy with automated news notifications and AI tools. While the effect is upgraded nurturing, there’s no reason not to integrate it into every post-meeting nurture effort, regardless of resources.

The Path Forward

The agencies that perform better in 2025 and beyond will be those that recognize nurture as a critical business function rather than an afterthought. This requires 1) a fundamental shift in how agencies view the post-meeting phase of business development, and 2) the creation of a strategic nurturing process designed to deliver value and build the relationship.

Here's a 3-step action plan to get started:

Step 1: Audit Your Current Nurturing Process

Evaluate what you’ve been doing by reviewing follow-up efforts in the previous quarter. What was done differently for won versus lost opportunities? Where are there gaps in your nurture system? If possible, survey clients and former prospects about their experiences between meeting and closed business (or lost opportunity).

Step 2: Build Your Foundation

Ready your CRM and content, align your team on the new approach, and configure your measurement tools.

Step 3: Launch Your Nurturing Program

Identify your top five prospects to start. Create your roadmap, incorporating periodic check points and triggers. Test different approaches to see what works best. Adjust, optimize, and expand as needed.

New business success in an uncertain economic landscape requires a strategic approach to post-meeting nurturing. It’s more than just adopting a “no good opportunity left behind” mentality—plans and process will help shift your response.  

Remember: The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in better nurture programs—it's whether you can afford not to.

Read more:

• Why Your New Business Meetings Rarely Turn Into Actual Business
• Tips to Make the Most of Your Next Prospect Meeting
• 6 Ways Agencies Botch Prospect Meetings
• How Automation Can Support Your Agency New Business Process

Image credits: Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash; Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash; Photo by Nick van den Berg on Unsplash