Businesses with mature lead-generation strategies achieve 133% greater revenue than other companies. Finding quality leads is one of the primary goals of most marketers to enable peak revenue and growth. It creates trust, credibility, and visibility. However, it isn’t always easy to create the right strategy, especially when it comes to B2B lead generation.
And getting it wrong can get costly. Mastering this skill is crucial if you want to ensure your company’s success.
Thankfully, if you’re reading this guide, you can learn from the past mistakes of other businesses. The key is to tailor your approach and find a custom solution that fits your company. Here’s what you need to know about the right and wrong way to do B2B lead generation.
No Landing Pages
One mistake companies make is skipping the landing page altogether and linking to their websites. You need one for every campaign you’re running. Don’t link to the general website, or you’ll lose out on potential conversions.
Never neglect your website’s landing pages. It’s often the first glimpse into your company that visitors see, and it will have a significant impact on their impression of you.
Landing pages must be uniquely crafted for your campaign and designed to convert.
Understanding your audience and what they need, as well as the latest trends in marketing, will help you achieve the best results. For instance, you can increase a landing page’s conversion rate by 86% if you use a video.
Whether you reuse a landing page for the new campaign or create a fresh one, you need it to stand out and work for you.
No Call to Action (CTA) Button
You can’t expect an increase in lead generation if you don’t have a clear call to action. In fact, the CTA button is a crucial part of your lead gen campaign and can make or break it.
You must have a call to action in mind, whether it’s signing up for a free trial, booking a consultation, or downloading an ebook.
So, what makes a good CTA anyway? That’s a skill in itself, but here are a few tips to consider.
First, start with an imperative verb and strong language to convince someone to act. Examples include “shop,” “join,” “call,” etc. Avoid fluff to keep it concise.
Make it high-value and low-risk. No one wants to feel pressured into trying or buying something, so try the zero-pressure approach to help sway them. Give them value with little risk involved, such as a free trial or consultation.
Another way to make a CTA effective is to create a sense of urgency. It ties to the FOMO (fear of missing out) mindset, which has been frequently utilized in marketing as a way to convince people to act fast. You’ll see it every time you get an email or notification that might say “limited-time sale,” “act fast,” or “this weekend only.”
The tactic works with B2B marketing as well. For instance, you might generate interest and create a sense of urgency by offering a discounted price on your services if they sign up within a limited time frame.
Finally, the design of your CTA button matters. It needs to pop on the page, so it catches your audience’s eye and makes them act. A CTA button that’s hard to find isn’t doing you any favors, and it’s a relatively simple fix.
Lengthy Lead Capture Forms or Poor Placement
Poorly designed forms or ones that request too much information will kill your lead generation.
The more information someone has to put in, the more likely they are to get frustrated and leave. Therefore, lengthy lead-capture forms are going to cost you.
Make your forms easy to understand. Use asterisks to indicate necessary information and allow them to skip other details if they want. Stick to the information you need the most.
For example, if you have a zip code, you don’t need their city and state. You can always ask for more details later if you need them.
Additionally, poorly placed forms never get spotted. You should place forms above the fold so that if someone doesn’t scroll down, they still see them.
Users should see your offer as soon as they land on the page. Encapsulating the form makes it stand out, and it’s more likely to grab their attention.
Not Focusing on Benefits
Companies that focus on promoting the features of their product or service rather than the benefits are pushing people away. You have to provide value, which means demonstrating the benefits of your products and services.
Ask yourself, what does their business stand to gain by working with you?
Your leads won’t give out their email to just anyone. They might already receive upwards of 100 emails every day, and no one has time to go through that many.
If you want to stand out and earn their contact information, you need to demonstrate the value they’ll receive. For example, if you want people to download your ebook, don’t talk about the number of pages it has or the chapters. List the benefits they’ll get when they read it.
Another common example is promoting a webinar. Users expect to learn something, perhaps key information that can help their business thrive in some way.
Message Inconsistencies
When using social media advertising, you must ensure that the message remains consistent in the ad and on the landing page. A disconnect can confuse your users and cost you valuable B2B leads.
Companies that don’t match the messaging are making a crucial mistake. Your Facebook ad and lead gen page should clearly be for the same company, promoting the same service, and with the same messaging.
Using the Wrong Social Platform
Businesses can often make the mistake of neglecting their social media presence or spreading themselves too thin across too many platforms. Either way, it’s not efficient marketing.
Your company doesn’t have to be on every social media platform. Focus on the ones where your target market exists and those that work best for B2B sales.
LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for B2B. It allows you to form connections with high-level decision makers and offers options to target prospects based on the company, job title, etc. Depending on your business, you might also find Facebook and YouTube to be the best places to focus your efforts.
Look for advice that pertains to B2B strategies. Much of what you’ll hear regarding marketing strategies relate to B2C companies.
Creating a business profile on the right social platform is key to generating quality leads.
Not Checking Analytics
How can you tell if your B2B lead generation strategies are working if you don’t check the analytics?
An important part of lead generation is determining which channels drive the most traffic. Is it coming from social sites or mostly organic searches?
The more you know about traffic, the easier it will be to develop strategies in the future to bring in more leads. You’ll know how much time and money to devote to each area and how much you can expect each method to impact your revenue.
Understanding the data also lets you know how users navigate your site. For instance, where do they land, and how much time do they spend on that page?
Additionally, you can check your current conversion rate, determining whether you’re on the right track toward reaching your goal or not. If you’re not achieving the results you want, it’s time to figure out why you’re losing leads. Maybe it’s because you have too many CTAs or are focusing on too many offers at once.
Analytics provide you with quality data that you can then use to hone your strategy.
Not Targeting the Right People
Perhaps the biggest mistake any B2B company can make is to fail to target the right people with the right offer. It’s why segmentation is so crucial.
All leads aren’t the same, and you can’t afford to waste time and money targeting a group that has no interest in your offer. Your leads might be at different stages in the buyer’s journey, for instance.
Let’s say you offer various marketing services to other companies, such as SEO, copywriting, social media marketing, web design, etc. Someone that filled out the form and indicated they needed help with website design may not have any interest in social media marketing.
Not Partnering With a B2B Lead Generation Specialist
A lead generation agency can customize a strategy for your business based on your goals, budget, and industry. B2B lead gen solutions aren’t one-size-fits-all.
Another mistake companies make is trying to boost their leads without discovering what went wrong in the first place. However, working with a specialist allows you to get expert advice on the best methods and solutions, from email marketing to lead nurturing and everything in between.
B2B Lead Generation Made Easy
Use this guide to avoid the common B2B lead generation mistakes that companies make. Now that you know the right way to acquire B2B leads, you can create strategies that boost your revenue and ensure growth.
Here at SalesPro Leads, we’ll analyze your target market and develop a unique solution to fit your needs, bringing in quality leads. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more and get started.