Leads and lead generation strategies are the integral and most significant elements of any business. Leads are fundamental to the success of any business. And why that is so? Because leads are nothing but the people, the prospects who have visited your website and have shown interest in your brand. They have given you information about them by either filling a form, or downloading an eBook, or any other means. Whatever it is, organic leads are the most valuable asset of any business, as they are the physical and tangible form of revenue.
Online lead generation strategy must be optimized to that perfect level that none of the leads are gone waste, or go unattended. Securing more and more organic leads is a skill which is not possessed by each and every business. This skill for best lead generation gets honed over time and dedicated efforts. And making mistakes in between this process is not uncommon. But yes, a small error can cost you heavily and negatively affect your overall business and revenue.
So if you are not receiving leads, or if the leads you are receiving or not converting, then you seriously need to scrutinize your lead generation process. You see, identifying the mistakes and fixing them is not rocket-science. Moreover, these issues are quite easy to fix once you detect them. And once you get the bugs fixed, you can save your time and money.
So let’s discuss the problems and errors that people tend to make in their online lead generation strategy, and must get rid of now!
How to increase lead generation
1. Your Leads are Bought, not Generated Organically
Firstly, if you are buying email lists to send email campaigns, don’t ever do that again. Out of desperation people tend to buy email database and supply the same to their sales team to carry out the email sending campaigns. But you have to understand; quality things never come so easy. Resting contact lists will do you more harm in the long run.
Because most of the people you are sending the emails, don’t know you. And there is a high chance of you getting spammed by them. Also, this negatively affects your IP. Quality leads are never for sale. You have to strive hard to get organic leads and slowly nurture them into paying customers.
A good way to get quality and organic leads is to offer a value added service in your emails, targeted towards your prospects and then put it in a lead capture form. Let your prospects fill it up and come to your, not artificially or forcibly, but upon their wish. Another potent way is through Blog posts. Come up with good contents that give value to your target audience. Because most of your visitors often check your blogs, as well as reach to your site via an older blog post.
And lastly, you can offer your readers to download eBooks from your website. Now that’s another authentic way to generate organic leads.
2. Are you Tracking the Wrong Data?
If you are, then shift your focus to a more credible data source. Tally the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the relevant metrics. If you see the KPIs are higher and are catering to the metrics, only then be sure of that data source.
For, e.g., if your Facebook page has a large number of fans and followers, yet the rate of lead generated from your Facebook page is substantially low, then there’s no guarantee of the page to be a good source of lead.
On the contrary, if your newsletter sign-ups or eBook download rate is comparatively low, but a significant percentage of the subscribers are converting into paying customers, then focus on your newsletters and eBooks more. The bottom line is, don’t waste your time around futile lead resources, but concentrate more on the resources that are giving you organic leads.
3. You have a zero Knowledge of Your Target Audience
Don’t do a guesswork! Ever!
Without properly identifying the nature of your target audience, what they prefer, why they prefer and how they prefer, what do the dislike, and so on; don’t approach them with your sales pitch. Though these days, with marketing automation tools and software around us, emails have become more personalized, and the nature of marketing has become more customer oriented.
But still, mistakes happen, and you may send off a sales pitch to a group of target audience completely on the assumption. These things backfire a lot and harm your reputation. Do a through market research, as well as research on your prospects/target audience. And only then come up with an offer or a sales pitch.
So don’t fire in the dark, but take help of tools like Google Trends and Alexa that gives complete demographic data.
4. You aren’t using the best lead generation tools.
Are you aware of the nature of the leads that you get from your website? Who they are, where they are from, where from they landed upon your site, whether they just did a Google search which showed up your website, or did they specifically searched you on Google – and so on.
Only a smart lead generation tool can help you get these micro details. And if you are still not using these tools, then, of course, you are missing a big part. If you are unable to find out these minute details, you will not be able to resonate with your leads and will have a hard time connecting with them. Try to know what your leads are up to once they visit your website. What actions do they take?
There is a gamut of lead generation tools available, but the trick is to find out the best tool that will give you the best insight and high return. You can put various kinds of lead generation assets, on your website, through the help of these tools and templates.
5. Weak Call to Action
Don’t ask too much from your leads. But also don’t stop yourself from asking anything at all. If you think your leads or visitors will themselves know what to do next, or how they should take it forward, then you are making a terrible mistake.
Your instructions must be clear and straight forward. If your website has a feeble call-to-action button which is hard to find out, or which doesn’t much say about the next step, then stop by, and think how you can improve it. Call-to-action buttons must always be noticeable, strong and effective.
And not only on your website. In any of your content marketing tools, namely, Infographics, Videos, PPT Presentations, or any other visual tools, always ensure that an efficacious call-to-action is there. This will goad your visitors to reach out to you and make their journey towards the end of the sales funnel.
6. Not being in a good terms with the sales team
Establish a hand in glove relation with your sales team. If the marketing team and sales team do not perform in unison, it is a big fail for a company. And if this is the same thing happening in your business, then it’s time you must change your set up a bit.
Procure a standardized sales and marketing process which would make both the teams in perfect symmetry. Else you would find enmity between the two teams, which is extremely harmful for your business and lead generation. As your marketing team to take care of the number of leads your sales team needs to create a database, or if they any sales tool. Basically, there must be a cordial relation between you and your sales team, which would, in turn, maintain a smooth lead generation process.
7. Are you not Identifying the Buying Personas?
If you are doing this, then stop!
To convert your leads into loyal customers, you must identify the buying personas, as well as refashion your content across the buying journey. Identify the buyer persona and present your content accordingly. Do not come with your case studies and white papers to a lead who’s just on the verge of converting and making payment. Rather show him product comparison or buyer’s checklists, or what value would they get from your product or services. And to another lead who’s just shown interest in your brand, you may present a case study or customer research or may be a company white paper.
8. Focus your Target
Identifying the social network that is actually generating your lead, is imperative. It may happen that you shift all your focus on Facebook, but your lead is actually on Pinterest or LinkedIn. See what perfectly suits with your audience and then target them tactfully. If your efforts are wholeheartedly, yet the conversion rate is low, then it is quite natural for a marketer to have the blues. So use your demographic information and lead generation tools to identify the perfect lead, analyze the potential of the advertising and social media platforms, and thus concentrate on the appropriate networks.
So I hope by now, you have got an understanding that once you detect these common leads generation mistakes and fix them, you will again get to see quality leads that join your marketing funnel. Avoiding these common mistakes will result in more targeted and valuable leads for your company, which will yield more ROI. Focus on your sales lead generation techniques now, and this will help you refine the quality of the prospects you come across.
Well, there are more lead generation mistakes that marketers make, but the above listed are the most significant ones. We strongly believe this article would help those marketers who are striving hard to get quality leads, that convert. They can prioritize the areas they need to focus and work upon.
Share your own experience with us, if you ever have made any of the mistakes listed above. Also write back to us if you have found a particular error in the list above, that you have been making all this time. What other mistakes you can add on to our list? Feel free to write in the comments section below.
