Content Marketing
5 Reasons Your Lead Generation Strategy is Not Working

5 Reasons Your Lead Generation Strategy is Not Working

October 20, 2021
4 min read

In business, failure is always an option.

This is especially true in B2B businesses that require a steady flow of leads to stay healthy. So it serves marketers well to know the ins and outs of lead management both for better and for worse.

While there are endless tips and tricks out there (which can sometimes feel overwhelming), it can be even more helpful to know some of the things to avoid when it comes to generating leads.

Key Takeaways:

  • Knowing your audience is key to building a strong reference. 
  • By understanding every stage of the sales funnel and planning through the process, you can achieve a lot more. 
  • Don’t try to achieve everything all at once. Strategy and analytics are your best friend when it comes to lead generation. 

Here are the top five reasons your lead generation campaigns may be failing.

1. You’re Throwing Darts in the Dark

It’s hard to work in the dark, and trying 25 different strategies at the same time won’t help you see any more clearly.

Trying out one lead generation tactic at a time and figuring out if it works is the wiser tactic. Make sure to give the results time to work themselves out before dumping strategies that don’t seem to help you reach your objectives.

When you have a clear picture of what is and isn’t working, you can implement the strategies that work, and stop wasting time on those that don’t. Not to mention being sure you’re using strategies specifically for your industry. Are you looking for B2B leads or B2C?

Slow and steady wins the race in this case. You can build a repertoire of strong strategies without wasting time and effort.

2. You Have No Promotional Game

If you don’t have a strong online presence and aren’t making use of the wide variety of marketing channels available today, then you’re going to have a hard time.

Be sure to work on establishing the credibility of your business before focusing heavily on lead generation. Build up engaging content, speak wherever you can, guest post, offer white papers, etc.

building business credibility with blog content marketing

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Pro-tip: writing evergreen content that explains the purpose of what your business does can really help build your credibility as well. That’s one of the reasons we have articles like ‘What Is Marketing?’ and ‘What Is Thought Leadership? And When Should You Use It?’ These also just happen to be two of our most popular pieces of content.

Thought leadership articles also go a long way in building credibility. These articles that keep up with, stay ahead of, and explain trends and news in your industry position your brand as one to trust and look to for guidance.

Most importantly, concentrate on building a relationship with your target audience before trying to sell them anything. This goes a long way toward fostering trust and confidence in your brand.

3. You Don’t Know Your Audience

Your product is not for everyone. Make this your mantra and then put in the work.

Create an audience profile. Figure out who is going to buy your product and why and then create campaigns that cater to that audiences’ specific needs.

audience research in content marketing

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As you can see, this is especially true for content marketing and social media marketing. These also happen to be the most fast growing marketing industries.

Check out sources like our complete guide to audience research, segmentation and targeting to figure out how to get started on your audience profile.

4. You Don’t Have a Start-to-Finish Process

The best lead generation programs are “always-on”, consistent, and systematic. A good process is completely mapped – from the top of the funnel to the closing stage – with associated metrics, processes, people, and technology to support it.

lead generation and the sales funnel

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The sales funnel is just the guideline; understanding each step of the process and planning accordingly is what will help generate legitimate leads.

Successful lead generation processes don’t function like “campaigns” as we know them. Instead, they work like supply chains that consistently perform, producing qualified leads, which leads to consistent sales.

5. You Aren’t Using Strong Lead Conversion and Nurturing Tools

Converting a unique visitor into a lead is a complex process. It’s easy to assume that the further along your sales funnel a prospect travels, the more of a “sure thing” he or she becomes.

However, there’s one thing you may not be counting on, one that elevates the risk of that prospect disappearing forever—the value of the content you’re offering.

Capturing contact information is necessary for lead conversion. However, most businesses aren’t successful at it because they fail to provide that one extra piece of value to entice the lead into handing over their information. The smartest strategy is to make sure you’re offering useful content in exchange for their information and/or additional participation within the sales funnel.

Making use of white papers, e-books, case studies and other gated content is one of the most efficient ways to provide valuable information in return for contact details.

By keeping pitfalls like these in mind and using your knowledge to avoid them, you’ll be well on your way to successfully managing leads.

Our biggest tip: measure everything and always be ready to change up your strategy if it isn’t working.

Are you looking for a new strategy to generate leads with proven, measurable results? Check out our Content Builder Service and schedule a quick consultation today to learn more!

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Giana Reno

Giana is the Director of Content for Marketing Insider Group, a top-rated Content Marketing Agency. Connect with her on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on all things MIG.

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