Solved: Boost Top of Funnel Marketing (Step-by-Step Guide)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation in Nottingham. It's a common problem, struggling to get leads when you're starting to think about marketing. A lot of people get told to focus on "top of funnel" and "brand awareness", but honestly, for most businesses needing leads, that's a surefire way to burn through cash with very little to show for it.

The real issue isn't about reaching the widest possible audience; it's about reaching the *right* audience at the exact moment they need you. We need to completely reframe how you think about the "top" of your funnel. It's not about shouting into the void; it's about being the first person to answer when someone whispers for help. I'll walk you through a different way of looking at this that focuses on getting you leads that actually turn into customers.

We'll need to look at your customer's nightmare, not their postcode...

Before we even touch on marketing tecniques, we have to get this right. Most marketing fails because it starts with the wrong question. People ask "Who is my customer?" and answer with demographics: "Homeowners in Nottingham, aged 35-55, with an income of £X". This is almost useless. It tells you nothing about *why* they would ever buy from you.

You need to ask a different question: "What is my customer's nightmare?" What is the specific, urgent, and expensive problem that keeps them up at night? Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. Let's make this real with a few examples for a Nottingham business:

• If you're an accountant: Your ICP isn't "small business owners in NG2". Their nightmare is staring at a letter from HMRC, feeling a knot of dread in their stomach, and realising their messy spreadsheets could lead to a massive fine. They're terrified of getting it wrong and losing their business.
• If you're a plumber: Your ICP isn't "someone with a leaky tap". Their nightmare is the sound of water dripping at 2 AM, the growing damp patch on the ceiling below, and the vision of thousands of pounds in water damage. They feel helpless and need an expert *now*.
• If you're a web designer: Your ICP isn't "a local company needing a website". Their nightmare is seeing their competitor's slick new site pulling in all the local business, while their own outdated site brings in zero leads, making them feel invisible and left behind.

When you define your customer by their pain, your entire marketing stratgey changes. You stop selling "plumbing services" and start selling "peace of mind at 2 AM". You stop selling "accounting" and start selling "the confidence to face an HMRC audit". Everything from your ad copy to your website landing page should speak directly to that nightmare and position you as the only logical solution. This is the foundation. Without it, you're just another business shouting generic messages that nobody hears.

Think about it. Once you know the nightmare, you know what words they're typing into Google. The accountant's client isn't searching for "proactive financial advisory"; they're searching for "help with HMRC letter Nottingham" or "emergency accountant". That's where you need to be.

I'd say you need to completely rethink 'Top of Funnel'...

Now let's tackle this "top of funnel" idea. The traditional marketing model tells you to start with Awareness, then move to Consideration, and finally Conversion. For big brands with massive budgets like Coca-Cola or Nike, this makes sense. For a business in Nottingham that needs leads to pay the bills next month, it's a disaster.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: when you run a "brand awareness" or "reach" campaign on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, you are explicitly telling the algorithm to "find me the cheapest people to show my ad to". And who are the cheapest people? They're the ones who never click, never engage, and certainly never buy anything. They're not in demand, so their attention is sold for pennies. You are literally paying to advertise to the worst possible audience for your business.

I remember a client who came to us after spending thousands on a Facebook reach campaign. They had impressive numbers—their ad was seen by 100,000 people in their city. The number of actual leads they got? Two. It was a complete waste of money. Awareness is a byproduct of doing good work and making sales, not a prerequisite to it.

You need to flip the funnel on its head. Your top of funnel isn't a vague cloud of "awareness". Your top of funnel is a much smaller, much more valuable group of people: those who already have the nightmare and are actively looking for a cure. Your job isn't to create demand; it's to capture it.

This simple shift in perspective is the most important change you can make. Stop trying to make people aware of you and start making yourself visible to people who are already aware of their problem.

You probably should focus on Google Search first...

So, where do you find these people who are actively searching for a solution to their nightmare? For a local business in Nottingham, the answer is overwhelmingly Google.

When someone's boiler breaks, they don't scroll through Instagram hoping to see an ad for a plumber. They go to Google and type "emergency plumber nottingham". This is what we call high-intent traffic. They have a burning problem and they need it solved right now. Being the first result they see is the most powerful marketing you can do.

This is why, for almost any service-based business, Google Ads should be your first port of call. It allows you to place your business directly in front of potential customers at the exact moment they are looking to hire someone. You're not interrupting their day; you're providing the solution they're desperately seeking.

How to approach it:

You'd want to build campaigns around keywords that signal strong commercial intent. You need to get inside the head of your customer (the one with the nightmare!) and think about what they would type. We'd split these into themes.

The key is to focus your budget on the keywords with high commercial intent and use "negative keywords" to exclude the informational searches. You don't want to pay for a click from someone trying to do the job themselves.

As for costs, it varies massively by industry. We're currently running a campaign for an HVAC company in a competitive area, and they're seeing costs around $60 per lead. But we've also run ads for childcare services where the cost was closer to $10 per signup. Our best performing campaign for a consumer service was for a home cleaning company which got down to £5 per lead. The number isn't as important as whether it's profitable for you, which brings us to the next point.

You'll need to know your numbers to make this work...

The question most people ask is "What's a good cost per lead?". It's the wrong question. The right question is "How much can I afford to spend to acquire a great customer?". The answer lies in a metric called Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Once you know this, you can advertise with confidence, knowing exactly how much a new lead is worth to your business.

Let's break it down:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much revenue does an average customer bring in per month or per year?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue? (Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold) / Revenue.
3. Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? (For one-off project businesses, you can think of this as the likelihood of them not returning for more work within a year).

The calculation is simple: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

This number tells you the total profit you can expect from an average customer over their entire relationship with you. A healthy business can typically afford to spend up to one-third of their LTV to acquire a new customer. This is your target Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

Let's play with some numbers. Use the calculator below to see how small changes can drastically alter what you can afford to spend on marketing.

Once you know you can afford to spend, say, £500 to acquire a customer that's worth £5,000, suddenly paying £60 for a qualified lead from Google Ads doesn't seem expensive at all. It looks like a bargain, esspecially if you know you can convert 1 in 5 of those leads into a customer. This math is what separates businesses that struggle with marketing from those that scale confidently.

And your message must be one they can't ignore...

Okay, so you've found the right people on Google. Now what do you say to them? A boring ad that says "Plumbing Services in Nottingham. Call for a quote" will get ignored. It's generic and blends in with everything else.

You have to use what you learned about their nightmare. The most effective framework for this is Problem - Agitate - Solve (PAS).

1. Problem: State the nightmare directly. Use the exact words they would use.
2. Agitate: Poke the bruise. Remind them of the frustration, cost, or fear associated with the problem.
3. Solve: Introduce your business as the fast, easy, and reliable solution.

Let's see it in action.

See the difference? The first ad talks about the business. The second ad talks about the customer's problem. It enters the conversation already happening in their head. This approach works for any service business because it's rooted in human psychology, not marketing fads.

Finally, you'll need to fix your offer...

The final, and perhaps most common, failure point is the offer on your website. You can have the perfect ad that gets the perfect person to click, but if your landing page makes it difficult or unappealing to take the next step, you've wasted your money.

The most common offender is the generic, high-friction "Contact Us" form. It's lazy. It puts all the work on the prospect. They have to think about what to write, they don't know when they'll hear back, and it feels like a commitment to a sales process they might not be ready for.

You need to replace it with a low-friction, high-value offer. Your call to action's only job is to make it incredibly easy for them to get a small piece of value that moves them closer to becoming a customer.

Instead of "Contact Us", try:

• For a tradesperson: "Get a Free, No-Obligation Quote in 24 Hours"
• For a consultant/agency: "Schedule a Free 15-Minute Strategy Call"
• For a complex service: "Download Our 2024 Pricing & Services Guide"
• For a home service: "Book an Appointment Online in 60 Seconds"

These offers are specific, they promise immediate value, and they reduce the perceived risk for the prospect. We do this ourselves. Our main call to action is a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns. We solve a small problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing. Your offer should do the same. It's the bridge between a curious visitor and a qualified lead.

This is the main advice I have for you:

To put it all together, the path to getting more leads in Nottingham isn't about shouting louder with "top of funnel" marketing. It's about a strategic, focused approach that respects your budget and your customer's time. I've broken down the steps into an actionable plan for you below.

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a very different approach from what most "marketing gurus" will tell you. But this is the stuff that actually works for businesses that can't afford to gamble with their marketing budget. Getting this right involves a lot of moving parts—keyword research, campaign setup, conversion tracking, landing page design, and constant optimisation.

It's a full-time job, and doing it wrong can be costly. If you'd like to have a chat about how we could apply this framework specifically to your business in Nottingham, we offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy call. We can take a look at what you're doing now and give you some concrete advice on what to do next.

Either way, I hope this detailed breakdown has been helpful and gives you a much clearer path forward.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh