In some aspects of your marketing strategy, you can easily see and course-correct if you aren’t headed in the direction you want to go. Lead generation is a little trickier because mistakes may not take you in entirely the wrong direction but only put you a little off-target. You don’t need to settle for sub-optimal lead gen once you know what to look for and how to overcome these hidden mistakes that can hinder your efforts.
Lacking Patience with Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing strategies are incredibly valuable for lead generation, but they take time to develop fully. Quick-fix solutions are necessarily incomplete; they might give you a rapid influx of leads but without much differentiation, or they may provide deeper background on leads but offer only modest numbers. The most effective inbound marketing lead gen strategies use a combination of rapid-fire opportunities for success and enough patience to let long-term plans, such as establishing authority through content creation, come to fruition.
Setting Vague Goals
Without a clear idea of where your lead gen is going, you don’t know when you’ve gotten there. Spend some time defining your goals clearly: Who are your target leads? Which of their problems do you solve? What level of sales readiness do you want them to reach, and by what point in the lead nurturing process? More precision in setting benchmarks will directly result in more effective lead gen.
Underutilizing Existing Resources
You probably have more lead gen resources at your fingertips than you think, especially if you’ve recently upgraded to a marketing automation system. Before making major changes to your current lead gen program, assess the current state of your software and hardware. Scan your customer database to gain insight into the people who have completed their buying journeys and have something to teach about your prospects. Look at content you have and think of how you might repurpose it, such as turning a series of blog posts into a webinar or assembling videos to go along with them.
Using Outdated Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are an ongoing project, not one you complete and set aside. To be effective, your buyer personas must undergo regular updates using data enhancement to keep them current. They have to make sense with your business goals as they are, which might prioritize retention over acquisition as your company matures or include a larger service portfolio. You may serve a larger region or an expanded range of market segments now and have yet to reflect the changes in your buyer personas. While outmoded customer personas will still contribute to lead gen, you aren’t getting the most from them without maintenance.
Missing Key Channels
Do your prospects find you easily, or do they have to hunt? Your lead gen strategy should include an analysis of where your leads come from so you can meet them on familiar territory. If they’re avid Facebook users, allocate more resources to amplify your social media signal. Strong blog content can be a potent SEO tool, and it becomes even more powerful if you double or triple your output.
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