7 Lead Generation Mistakes To Avoid
Over the last decade, the web has offered up dozens of new ways to generate leads and convert customers.
But with detailed targeting capabilities, dozens of social media platforms and ever-changing SEO algorithms, honing in on an effective strategy can be difficult—sometimes impossible, even for the most tech-savvy of brands.
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So what’s an organization to do? Throw five marketing campaigns at the wall and hope one sticks?
It could work, but it’d be time-consuming, expensive and, all in all, wasteful. Save yourself the heartache—and lost cash—and just avoid these seven major mistakes from the get-go.
Not knowing your audience (or audiences).
Being intimately familiar with your audience—its wants, needs, struggles and, most importantly, demographics, is crucial to ensuring your marketing messages resonate. Invest resources into surveying and getting to know your customers before pouring too much cash into marketing or lead generation.
Determine what platforms they use, then segment your efforts, tailor your messaging and go after each audience in a direct and targeted way that really speaks to their unique situation.
Forgetting the call to action—or, worse yet, using the wrong call to action.
Calls to action are crucial if you want your marketing efforts to meet your goals. Are you trying to capture email addresses to nurture later? Gate your content and require an email address for access. Are you looking to build up a social media following?
Encourage your email subscribers, customers and blog readers to like you on Facebook before delivering content. Be direct, be concise and drive visitors toward your goal—they need your guidance.
Spending time on the wrong pages or platforms.
Don’t waste your time optimizing pages people never visit or installing lead generation forms on Facebook tabs no one ever looks at. Funnel your efforts into the most important lead gen venues you’ve got.
Most likely, these are your homepage, your contact page, your blog, maybe a few product pages and one or two key social media platforms. Your analytics should be able to point you in the right direction.
Not giving back.
“You have to give to receive.” “It’s a two-way street.” These aren’t just old adages or rules of the road; they’re key tenets of lead generation, too.
If you want people to give you their email address, phone number, details about their job or personal life, or even just their name, you better give them something in return—something valuable, too.
Asking for too much.
You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you on the first date, would you? Of course not. You’d get to know them, go on a few dates, meet the parents, etc. Well, the same idea rings true in lead generation.
You have to start slow. Start with just their name or email address, and gradually work up to getting more information (or money) out of them. They need to feel comfortable with you before they’ll go all in, so you’ll need to earn their trust and work for it first.
Forgetting to track your failures.
Marketers often get caught up in proving their ROI and KPIs and reporting their successes to higher-ups that they forget the most important thing: finding your faults.
No one likes to know they slipped up, but by discovering the errors in our ways, we’re actually able to hone in on better, stronger, more effective lead generation strategies for the future—and that’s something any boss can truly get behind.
Not using landing pages.
When it comes to PPC lead generation mistakes, this is probably the biggest one you can make. Landing pages are the absolute best way to convert your PPC clicks and views into real, tangible customers.
They allow you to create tailored, custom-fit content that speaks exactly to the needs of the lead, what they’re searching for, and where they’re at in the sales funnel.
Every PPC ad should always point to a customized, corresponding landing page—never a generic, one-size-fits-all homepage or contact page.
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There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to generate leads in today’s digital world, and honing in on the right strategy can take some time.
Just be sure to track and measure your efforts, and double back often to reassess and recalibrate. Do that, avoid these key lead generation mistakes, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
To learn more about lead generation mistakes, email [email protected].
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