Every new client is always disappointed with their previous lead generation campaigns. I understand that lead generation is a process and each step is super important.
Only 10% of marketers feel that their lead generation campaigns are effective. And, 60% of marketers feel that lead generation is a key pain point for them.
The plethora of information online has made it difficult for you to track, reach and engage leads. Yet, things aren’t as discouraging as they seem.
I’ll be conducting a proper examination of common lead generation challenges. I’ll share 9 amazing lead generation tips with you that took me 7+ years of experience to master. I’ll help you survive the natural selection of lead generation.
I was able to identify five surveys dedicated to lead generation challenges.
Top 10 Lead Generation Challenges 2010 survey by RAIN Group in cooperation with ITSMA:
- Finding a strategy, tactic, or offer that gets the attention of potential leads — 42.1%
- Having enough people/the right people to generate leads — 38.2%
- Measuring and documenting lead generation success — 31.2%
MarketingSherpa 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report:
- Generating high-quality leads — 71%
- Getting a high volume of leads — 44%
- Creating public relations “buzz” — 36%
2013–2014 Survey of CPA Firm Best Lead Generation Practices by Vitberg LLC:
- Generating high-quality leads — 43% (Very challenging) and 35% (challenging)
- Generating a high volume of leads — 35% (Very challenging) and 36% (challenging)
- Time or resources — 25% (Very challenging) and 42% (challenging)
2015 Lead Generation Survey of B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn:
- Generating high-quality leads — 59%
- Converting leads to customers — 42%
- Delivering effective lead nurturing programs — 37%.
The State of B2B Lead Generation and What it Takes to Succeed held by Digital Doughnut in September 2017
- Lead quality — 30%
- Getting the right processes in place — 28%
- Tracking ROI from leads — 26%
Why is getting quality leads such a big challenge for marketers?
Lead generation is a crucial component of any business and very difficult at the same time. A wide range of factors makes the acquisition of quality leads difficult (and we’ll list them below). Never underestimate the importance of this task. Your business needs to generate high-quality leads. High-quality leads are going to help you save on these 3 major resources:
1. The time and effort
It takes up to 30 minutes for an experienced SDR to conduct extra research on a lead. Up to 30 minutes to craft a great follow-up email. And up to 8 phone dials to establish contact with the prospect. If the quality of the lead is low, the efforts and time of your sales rep will be wasted with 0 results to show.
2. The emotions
Rejection has always been difficult to handle, even for strong resilient SDRs. Don’t make them experience failure more than they’d like. An experienced sales rep will understand that the lead is not serviceable. They won’t be happy servicing bad leads!
3. The resources
Time = money. Always! Calls cost money! A bad lead reaching your top Account Executives is the worst-case scenario. It will cost your company more time, more effort, more negative emotions, and more money. That is why it’s important to tackle this problem at the very beginning of your sales pipeline.
Over the last 7 years, I’ve developed lead generation systems that deliver results. I’ve listed 9 killer tips that made the difference for my clients!
1. USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO BOOST YOUR SALES PIPELINE.
Use social media to help share your content and get it in front of more of your target audience. Facebook is still dominant in social media and can help generate targeted traffic.
By developing a powerful social media marketing strategy, you will build your following. Getting to know your audience will help you generate goal-focused content.
The last tip is to avoid focusing your posts on your company. Try interacting with your followers and try to be helpful. When a prospect is ready to buy, they will more likely come to you and trust you as a supplier. You should focus on creating a strategy that speaks to your client’s pain points.
2. HAVE THE RIGHT AUDIENCE DATA.
The best way to target the right people at the right time is by developing precise audience data. When you create strong audiences, you’re going to be collecting A LOT of VALUABLE data. You need to use that data and improve the quality of your audience.
Analyze your product and your company and then craft a brand new buyer persona from scratch. It’s always better to build a new one than update an irrelevant buyer persona. Your clients are evolving daily and your buyer persona should reflect that. The right data will help you make the best decisions.
The first step that I take when building Lead Generation systems for new clients is to analyze the data that’s already available. Based on those insights, I build new audiences that reflect key findings. That insight will also help us pivot, adapt and build out a campaign strategy. Refer to the image above, those are the first data points I analyze.
3. HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS IN PLACE TO TRACK YOUR LEAD.
You want to track your ROI and divide budgets to support the top-performing platforms.
One tool you should always use is Google Analytics. Google Analytics data is essential to identify audience behaviour. The process is simple, collect valuable data and plan based on your findings.
Optimize your CRM system to tackle all the challenges you currently face. Always refine your workflows and automation. They’re never perfect. They’re always a work-in-progress.
It’s critical that you keep your leads organized. You should be tracking the effectiveness and value of each lead generation source.
Your workflows and automation should follow up with each individual lead. Great systems are built through testing. The perfect system doesn’t exist.
You NEED to be optimizing and refining all systems based on the data that you ARE gathering.
4. QUALITY OVER QUANTITY.
When it comes to leads, you always want sales to focus on quality over quantity. Don’t waste time on unqualified leads. Your TOFU (Top of the Funnel) should be optimized to qualify. TEST, TEST and I can’t stress this enough TEST MORE!
Low-quality leads should be in an automated nurturing workflow.
5. GRADING STRUCTURE FOR PROSPECTS.
Lead generation is time-sensitive, divide your leads into short-term, mid-term and long-term. Each parameter requires its own automated nurturing workflow.
Your sales team takes action on a nurtured lead already qualified by an automated system.
6. ALWAYS MONITOR YOUR COMPETITION.
Did your competition launch a new product or website? Always keep a close eye on your competition and track what they’re doing.
Use that information to create more effective strategies. Your competitors pay for the same eyeballs as you.
- Monitor their lead generation initiatives.
- Identify their winning ads. (Ads that they’re running all the time)
- Analyze your comps content generation strategy. (soft sell/hard sell)
- Estimate how much their spending based on their website traffic (Use Alexa)
7. STRUCTURE YOUR COMMISSION SCHEME.
Structure your commission scheme to reflect the performance and ambition of each individual SDR. Each top performing SDR is unique, cater to that.
Divide your sales team into two divisions, Hunters and Farmers. Salespeople that focus on selling new customer accounts are “hunters”. Account managers focused on managing existing customers and growing their accounts are “farmers”.
8. CAPTURE INFORMATION ON YOUR WEBSITE.
You need traffic on your website to generate leads. Is your website experience optimized for a positive visitor experience?
Your audience should know exactly what you want them to do on your website. Pages developed to achieve goals deliver results!
Perfect doesn’t exist in digital marketing. Testing and data build compelling landing pages!
Identify your visitor’s key actions by using Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics. Tailor your user experience to drive action from your visitors. You should have clear goals such as selling products or booking meetings. Build the user experience to achieve those goals.
9. USE AN AUTOMATED, OPT-IN EMAIL MARKETING SCHEME
Emails can be a great cost-effective way to generate new business. When you are sending emails, it’s essential to tailor them to your lead so they feel exclusive. Emails with clear call-to-actions deliver outstanding results.
There are two components to Opt-In Email Marketing, creation and placement. If you want to increase your conversion rate, you need to put your opt-ins in the right places.
Do you want to get more email signups from your website? Email signup forms won’t capture qualified leads from your website with incorrect placement.
I’ve listed the most efficient Opt-In Email Marketing placements below:
- Blog webpage and blog posts
- About page
- Sidebar
- Header
- Landing page
I help businesses develop lead generation and digital marketing campaigns that deliver results. Ask me about my success stories florind@businessmarketingexperts.ca
In the last 7 years, Florind has mastered packaging brands, products, and services in today’s digital landscape. He brings brands and customers together in a very natural way.
The first word that clients describe Florind with is results – measurable, tangible/real, and trackable. Transparency is rare in the industry but data never lies. By combining analytics, systems, automation, and metrics – Florind has been able to deliver exponential results for his clients. His attention to detail and his pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness is why clients love him and the results he delivers.
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