Common Lead Generation Mistakes and How To Avoid Them
As a business owner, you want more leads, but sadly, they don’t come easily. Door knocking is a thing of the past. Instead, consumers can buy whatever they can think of without getting up from the couch. With so many options at the customer’s fingertips, this makes being a seller difficult. Competition is everywhere and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Because customers know how many options exist, they’ve become more demanding and harder to satisfy. But with leads keeping our business alive, there is no choice but to continue pushing forward to generate more leads. However, for the best chance to generate more sales, you must avoid making common lead-generating mistakes that hinder your success.
Keep reading to discover what mistakes you might be making in lead generation and how to avoid them!
1. Selecting the Wrong Audience
If you are advertising to an audience who is most likely uninterested in your product or service, like trying to sell a product with meat to a vegan or a bicycle to a toddler. Neither scenario are likely to boost your sales.
To set yourself up for success in generating leads, you need to know who your target audience is and focus on advertising to them. You can categorize your customers or contacts profiles for clarity and efficiency. If you offer more than one product or service, figure out your audience for each option. This way, your return on investment can be high as you are marketing to your audience directly. You’ll generate more leads by targeting your communication to your specific audience, and you’ll notice their interest in your product or service immediately.
2. Failing to Measure ROI
To know how wisely you are investing your money, a key measurement you should be familiar with is Return on Investment (ROI). When you analyse your ROI, you want to see that the money you have invested into your business translates into enquiries and sales.
It is quite easy to measure your ROI as there are various ways you can measure it. One of the most common ways is by looking at the revenue generated by a campaign. A high percentage of revenue in comparison to costs indicates a good ROI. Another way is by looking at the number of page visits your website receives. As mentioned, you need to identify your audience and advertise to them. If your ROI is low, this is an indication that you haven’t selected the right target audience.
3. Weak or Missing Call-To-Action
A Call-To-Action (CTA) is a key component in any advertising strategy and marketing message. If your customer is not directed to a CTA, they will not know what to do next, and you will most probably lose their attention. This is why you need to tell the customer what to do and avoid them having to ask you instead. The worst-case scenario in this situation is that your customer moves on and starts looking at competitors.
It would be best if you had a strong CTA to attract customers and generate a stream of leads. Without it, your potential customer will not know what to do, so make sure there’s a button or a link available that invites the reader to “click here for more information”.
4. Not Following Up
How many times have you stood in a store waiting for assistance, and when someone didn’t show up after a few minutes, you abandoned your pursuit and left? The same can happen if you fail to follow up with your customers. Failing to react to an inquiry from a new lead means they will stop waiting for you and move on and never to return.
You need to create a system to track all of your leads and have a system where you can engage with them. You can create an automated process to make it easier for you to keep track of your leads. Responding as soon as possible is key and setting a reminder system is beneficial to ensure you follow up with your leads regularly.
5. Uninspiring Landing Page
When a potential customer responds to a message you have sent or to content on your page, they will be directed to another page. This is called the landing page; if this page is uninspiring and boring, they will be less encouraged to discover more about your business and what you offer. Landing pages must be thought out to highlight your product or service. If you have more than one product or service, then you need separate landing pages for each, especially if they are different. All your campaigns should also have their own landing pages so your potential customers can be inspired to stay and you can secure a sale.
These common lead generations can be easily fixed to maximise your marketing efforts as long as you don’t ignore them. Once you fix these pitfalls, you will notice that the impact on generating more leads will be significant.