10 Lead generation mistakes businesses need to stop making

Are you struggling with generating leads for your business? You could be doing all the rights things – using content marketing and social media marketing, engaging with your audience, but if you’re not getting the results you’re hoping for, you might be making some mistakes with your lead generation techniques. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about the 10 biggest lead generation mistakes that businesses need to stop making. Lead generation is a huge part of any businesses’ success; you need to build a strong list and find quality leads consistently in order to grow a scalable business. If you’re not getting results, it could be because one of the following reasons:

1.    You don’t know or understand your audience

One of the biggest mistakes with lead generation is when you don’t know your target audience – or understand them. The only way you can sell to people is if you know who they are and what they’re looking for from your product or service. Don’t just assume you know, but perform some research into who forms your audience. Ask, yourself, what are their ages, their professions, their interests? Why would your business be of interest to them? How would they benefit from using your products and/or services? By knowing the answers to these questions, you can optimize your approach to lead generation. You will be able to create the type of content needed to attracts your audience’s attention, for example on your landing pages, your outreach and sales emails and so on.

2.    You’re not strategizing your content marketing with lead generation in mind

Are you using content marketing to promote your business? You’ve probably heard, time and time again, how content marketing is one of the best lead generation tools available online. But, if you’re not getting results from your content, it could be because you’re not creating it and strategizing with lead generation in mind. Content truly is an amazing lead generating tool; in fact, an overwhelming majority of my own leads come from my content – guides, cheat sheets, checklists and so on. If you want to see better results from your content, then you need to create the type of content that makes people want to give out their personal information so that they can get it – for example, guides, e-books, webinars, online courses, checklists. Instead of leaving your content to chance, plan it so that every piece of content serves a purpose. Then, make sure to include lead generation content regularly in your schedule, so that you get a constant stream of new leads to add to your list. [clickToTweet tweet=”10 Lead generation mistakes businesses need to stop making via @lilachbullock #leadgen” quote=”10 Lead generation mistakes businesses need to stop making via @lilachbullock #leadgen”]

3.    You’re not testing and optimising your landing pages

Landing pages need work before they can perform to their full potential. A good landing page needs consistent testing and optimizing – there’s no one formula that works across the board. Your visitors might find your landing page confusing to navigate and understand, or it can be that the content doesn’t compel them to take action. In order to solve these issues, you should test your landing page, making one small change at a time (aka a/b testing), so that you can see how each change affects your landing page’s success. Test everything from the design of your page to the wording you use in your copy; you can take a more in-depth look at landing page optimization in my guide here.

4.    You’re not offering anything of real value to your target audience

One of the best ways of attracting leads is by offering them some kind of incentive, something that offers them value, a free gift like an e-book or an ultimate guide. Basically, this makes for a great entry point in your sales funnel. It helps build trust, as you’re giving them something that is useful to them, and it gives you something to build upon so that you can eventually turn them into customers. [clickToTweet tweet=”10 #leadgen mistakes: you’re not offering anything of real value via @lilachbullock ” quote=”10 #leadgen mistakes: you’re not offering anything of real value via @lilachbullock “]

5.    You don’t have a clear call-to-action

If you want people to take action, you need to give them a reason to – a push. Your website visitors need to know what the next step is and they often need a final push to get them to take action; that’s where the call to action comes in. In order to turn visitors into leads, you need a call to action. Whether it’s your landing page, a blog post or an email to your list, all of your communications to your audience should contain a clear, compelling call to action.

6.    You’re asking for too much in your opt-in forms

Another common mistake with lead generation is when you’re asking for too much information on your opt-in form. This will put most people off – after all, time seems to work differently when online. If you have to spend more than a few seconds entering your information in a form, it feels like you’ve lost forever on it; quite similar to slow loading websites, in fact. Not to mention, people don’t want to give out too much personal information online. Businesses, on the other hand, want to avoid all of the freebie-seekers by making their forms longer and more complex, so that only serious inquiries go through. But, if your form takes too long to complete, or it asks for too much personal information, you’ll most likely lose a lot of potential leads, even high-quality ones. [clickToTweet tweet=”10 #leadgen mistakes: you’re asking for too much in optin forms via @lilachbullock ” quote=”10 #leadgen mistakes: you’re asking for too much in optin forms via @lilachbullock “]

7.    You’re not expressing benefits well enough

When promoting your products and services, you should always focus on the benefits, rather than the features they have. This is how you convince people to buy from you: you need to show them exactly how your product or service can help them. How will it change their life, how will it make it better? If you have a social media management software, for example, don’t say how it has a scheduling tool – explain how much time users will save if they use it. Turn your features into benefits, particularly on your landing pages, and it can have a huge influence on your lead generation and sales.

8.    You only have one opt-in on your website

Do you only have one opt-in form on your website? No matter how great that freebie might be, it most likely won’t appeal to all of your audience members. In order to generate more leads, you need to offer more reasons for people to give out their information, than just the one freebie. Create content like downloadable guides, cheat sheets, checklists and the like on a regular basis and spread your offering throughout your website – this way, more people will see your opt-in forms, and more will find a good reason to give out their information.

9.    You’re afraid to sell

This is something that I’ve noticed very often, and something that I’ve talked about before. Many people are simply afraid to sell to their audience. They’re afraid of being too pushy, too sales-y and they’re scared they will alienate their audience if they’re selling too much. The harsh truth, however, is that you need to sell, to fight for your business if you want it to succeed. You can’t wait for people to come to you and never give them a push – it might work a few times, but definitely not enough to scale your business. Believe in your product/service, believe in your business and show that by not being afraid to promote it. [clickToTweet tweet=”10 #leadgen mistakes: you’re afraid to sell via @lilachbullock ” quote=”10 #leadgen mistakes: you’re afraid to sell via @lilachbullock “]

10. You’re not using user segmentation to boost your conversion rate

If you want to convert more of your leads, then you need to give them the right information at the right time. You can’t handle all of your leads in the same way, as they’re not all at the same point in the sales funnel and they are interested in different things. Most email marketing tools now have user segmentation and marketing automation. You can easily organise your followers based on things like their age, occupation, their stage in the buying process and so on. Once you’ve organized your audience this way, you can then send them the best possible messaging at the right time, with the purpose of taking them to the next level in your sales funnel.

Conclusion

There we go, the 10 most common lead generation mistakes – or at least, the 10 I’ve noticed most often with the people I’ve worked over time. Take a look at your own lead generation strategy: what are your goals? Are you getting enough new leads on a regular basis? Which lead generation techniques work best and which don’t? And if you’d like to talk to someone who knows lead generation and how to grow a business in record time, give me a call – I would love to help you achieve your goals and help you generate more leads than you know what to do with.

Related: how to make money on Instagram with 1k followers

Bottom line: Most lead generation problems come down to chasing volume instead of quality, ignoring follow-up speed, and never testing what’s working. Fix the offer, fix the timing, and fix the tracking before you spend another penny on ads.

Frequently asked questions

What is the biggest lead generation mistake businesses make?

Focusing on quantity over quality. Chasing high numbers of leads without qualifying them first wastes sales team time and skews your data, making it harder to see what’s really working.

How fast should a business respond to a new lead?

Within five minutes if possible. Response speed has a direct effect on conversion rates, and leads contacted within the first few minutes are far more likely to turn into customers than those contacted an hour later.

Do businesses need a lot of channels to generate leads?

No. A common mistake is spreading effort too thin across too many channels. It’s better to master two or three that suit your audience than to run a mediocre presence everywhere.

Why do lead generation campaigns fail even with good traffic?

Usually because the offer or landing page doesn’t match what brought people there in the first place. Traffic without a clear, relevant next step just leads to bounces, not conversions.