7 Common Mistakes in B2B Lead Generation and How to Avoid Them
Looking to bring in more clients and keep your company growing? B2B lead generation can be tough, especially for small-to-midsize businesses. If you’re having trouble bringing in more qualified leads, you may recognize one or more of the following common mistakes in B2B lead generation. Read on to learn more about each one – and how to avoid them!
1. Not Identifying Your Target Audience Properly
If you don’t properly identify your target audience from the beginning of the B2B lead generation, you’ll be wasting your time and money by pursuing customers who may not even be interested in your products or services.
Before you begin your lead generation strategy, the first step should be to establish your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). What companies are interested in your services? What problems do they have? How much do they have to spend? Taking the time to build an ICP ensures that you’ll get more qualified leads who will actually be interested in what you have to offer.
2. Abandoning A Strategy Too Quickly
It takes time to build your B2B lead generation strategy and get into the swing of things. At Incept Grows, we’ve seen some companies abandon their new strategy far too quickly – before it even has the chance to get off of the ground.
Strategies like outbound lead generation take time and commitment to get to the desired outcomes. Don’t just try a new strategy and call it quits if you don’t see a sale within 30 days. If interest from potential leads is there and the underlying metrics look good, it’s just a matter of time until your strategy starts working.
3. Being Unwilling To Pivot If Your Strategy Isn’t Working
In the same way, it’s not a good idea to commit to a strategy and refuse to pivot if it’s not working. If you’ve been trying a new strategy for a few months and you’re just not getting results, you should be willing to learn as you go and pivot to something new.
Not all strategies work for all companies, and that’s okay. So if something isn’t working, don’t succumb to the sunk cost fallacy and keep going – you need to be willing to get a fresh perspective and try something new.
4. Failing To Collect Data And KPIs About Lead Generation Efforts
This relates to the above two points. When you’re starting a B2B lead generation campaign, you need to use modern tools to collect data about your efforts and see how well you’re actually doing. These may include KPIs like:
Open rate/response rate
Conversion rates
Cost per lead
Total number of leads
Acquisition channels
Using this data, you can track the success of your B2B lead generation efforts – in the past, present, and future. This can give you some valuable insights, streamline your campaign, and help you choose the most effective channels for B2B lead generation.
5. Aiming For Quantity Over Quality
You may be tempted to do things like purchase contact lists from third-party brokers, then send out tons of mass emails or make a lot of cold calls. The more people you contact, the better your odds of success, right?
Not quite. Would you rather reach out to 100 potential leads and make no sales, or reach out to 10 leads and make one sale? By using a more focused, “quality-first” approach, you’ll spend less time on lead generation and be more likely to actually make a sale, too.
6. Not Emphasizing Personal And Authentic Connections
This goes along with the previous point. The people you’re trying to contact aren’t just robots or names on a spreadsheet. They're real people! If you don’t recognize this, you’ll have a hard time connecting on a personal level and making a sale.
So don’t use spammy templates or make fully scripted phone calls. Instead, take the time to do some research about each contact, learn more about their company and what they do, and make a personal and authentic connection. Interested in more on this topic? Take a look at our blog post about the importance of personalization in B2B prospecting.
7. Using An Inconsistent Follow-Up Schedule
If you’re using an inconsistent follow-up schedule – or no schedule at all – your B2B lead generation strategy won’t live up to its full potential. Whether you’re operating on your own or leading a sales team, you want to make sure that your team follows up on leads consistently.
Schedules can vary depending on your needs. For example, you could send an email one day, follow up with a phone call the next day, and send an InMail message on the third day if you haven’t yet gotten a response. The most important thing is to set a certain schedule and stick to it – this will help you and your team stay on the same page and get more consistent results.
Need Help With B2B Lead Generation?
If your B2B lead generation needs are outgrowing your sales team, we are here to help. We focus on both inbound and outbound B2B lead generation services. No matter your line of work, our inside sales experts work hand-in-glove with your team to deliver the best possible results. Contact us online or give us a call at 330-994-1349 to schedule a 100% free consultation and learn more.
