(ThyBlackMan.com) The primary marketing goal of most businesses is lead generation. All too often companies struggle to produce high-quality leads from their website because they make a couple of really basic mistakes. This article outlines some of the most common B2B lead generation mistakes we all are guilty of making.
Focusing on the product before people
Naturally, when you have a product or service, you’re passionate about, you want to talk about it all the time. After all, selling something is all about the transfer of enthusiasm. The problem is that we tend to focus on the product or service we’re offering and wax lyrical about all the features and benefits instead of focusing on the most important thing, the person you want to buy from you, your prospective customer. If you don’t focus on your prospective customer’s needs and produce content that shows you understand their needs, how your product or service solves a problem they have, and give them a good reason to consider buying from you, you won’t forge a strong connection with them. It doesn’t matter how much information you give to them about your company and its products and services.
When creating content for your website it is best to actually write for a specific buying persona. It is essential that you take the time to build a profile of your perfect customer. Do three different ones if possible. Who are they? Where do they live? What kind of job do they do? Are they married? Kids? What social media platforms do they use? etc. Imagine each of these personas at different phases of the buying process and think about what their needs would be. Then, write content that focuses on these needs and how your company can solve them. Write as if you were speaking to that individual.
Doing this will create a strong connection between you and the customer and produce high-quality leads. Taking the time to build a full profile for each of your buyer personas will definitely boost your lead generation. Buyer personas make you think more deeply about exactly who you are targeting, how they make decisions, which content they prefer, what challenges they face and much, much more. The other brilliant thing about taking the time to build full buyer personas is that it gives you endless ideas for content. This process is a vital part of your marketing strategy.
Creating content for only one stage in the path to purchase
Another common lead generation mistake is focusing content for a buyer persona at only one stage of the buying process. For example, calling for action from people when they’re at the point of making a decision to buy and never posting for the stage when the buyer persona is considering buying from you. Look carefully at the lead generation paths across your website and check that you are appealing to buyers at all stages of the buying process.
Most people who come across your business for the first time are, more than likely, still researching their purchase. They are looking for ways to deal with a problem and are not yet interested which specific company is used, or even what their options are. If your content is focusing on your product or service being the solution without showing an understanding of the problem, they may well become overwhelmed and go back to Google to search again.
When you address the questions buyer personas would be asking at each stage of the buying process you are able to guide them through the process and can use each answer as an opportunity to show that you understand their needs and connect with them before you even get to talking about yourself. A connection that is made with a prospective customer by engaging with them before they even know they need your product or service often leads to the person becoming a loyal, long term customer.
One way of doing this is to design tools or templates for checklists that prospective customers would find useful for each stage of the buying process. When they leave their contact details in order to download these useful tools you are effectively capturing leads early on in the buying process. You can then nurture these people into highly qualified leads using email automation and retargeting.
Not engaging with the leads you have generated
Capturing leads is only one part of the lead generation process. Adding these leads to a general database that you send the odd newsletter out to or inform about a special offer or sale, or even giving them a follow-up call is not going to make a huge difference to your bottom line. If you use email automation to guide the leads you’ve generated through to qualified sales leads you will make a huge difference to your conversion rates. Email automation is a powerful tool that many marketers underutilized.
In our digitally connected world people also prefer an instant response or solution, they don’t want to wait 24 hours for a response. You can deliver a download immediately, follow-up instantly and then drop-feed additional educational content via email that directs them to the next step in the buying process you’d like them to take.
Not bothering with landing pages
Creating well-designed dedicated landing pages for each step of the buying process will increase your conversion rate tenfold. You can tailor your message to address a specific buyer persona need or problem and there are no distractions to lead the buyer persona away from the action you want them to take.
If you’re currently only using forms in your sidebar or footer to capture leads you will notice an immediate difference if you switch to dedicated landing pages without even increasing your traffic.
Not having a device friendly website
Not only will you struggle with good Google rankings if you don’t have a device-friendly website, but you will also lose many prospective customers before you even start. These days a site that does not adapt to various devices, mobile phones, tablets, smart TVs etc. will immediately be seen as outdated and affect the perception of your business.
These are some of the most common mistakes marketers make during B2B lead generation. There are quite a few others like not using pop-ups, not optimizing individual campaigns, not paying attention to the page-load speed of your top-performing pages or analyzing campaign results. However, if you try to address even one of the 5 mentioned above you will notice a marked improvement in the number and quality of leads your website generates.
Staff Writer; Ricky Adams
