All your paying customers started out as leads.
So, if you want to keep selling predictably and grow your business, you MUST master your lead generation first.
Unfortunately, most businesses end up falling for some (or all) of these mistakes. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen to you!
Here are the most common B2B lead generation mistakes and how to fix them, one by one.
1. Not defining your target audience clearly
You can be excused for thinking it’s safer to try and appeal to everyone. Bigger market = more opportunities, right?
In reality, the opposite is true. When you try to target EVERYONE, your marketing and approach become so generic that they appeal to… NO ONE.
Think about it! Your B2B audience is bombarded with 6,000-10,000 marketing messages every single day. How can you expect to grab their attention with a vague campaign?
(Exactly: you can’t.)
How to fix it
Get crystal clear on your actual target audience, and focus on them:
- Conduct market research to understand your ICP (ideal custom profile) – Who are they? What are they struggling with right now? What have they already done to try and solve their problem? What are they hoping to achieve? What about their preferences and dislikes?
- Segment them – Sure, you should talk to one specific type of customer. They probably still have more individual challenges and needs, though (especially when they’re at different stages of the sales funnel)
- Use this to inform all your marketing – Now that you know who they are, focus on this ICP (not everyone), and send targeted campaigns to each segment
But how can you get started and collect the answers to those questions? Easy: by using a quiz for market research!
With ScoreApp, you can package those questions into a compelling and immersive quiz rather than a boring survey. You’ll get more people to engage with your brand, segment them and collect valuable insights to guide your marketing. A win-win!
2. Underestimating the importance of a website
It’s not the early 00s anymore: websites are a given in the B2B world. Just having a website is no longer enough either, though.
If you’re showing up with an outdated website that’s difficult to navigate, you could actively put off your audience.
And without collecting your visitors’ contact details, you’re leaving huge piles of money on the table.
How to fix it
Turn your website into a B2B lead generation machine:
- Make it modern and user-friendly – Ensure your website has a smooth design and is filled with copy that turns more visitors into subscribers or clients. It must also be mobile-friendly and intuitive, with logical navigation and clear calls to action telling people what to do next
- Collect your leads – Is someone ready to get in touch with you? Make it a breeze for them with clear CTA buttons and easy-to-use contact forms. But what about those who are NOT there just yet? Offer them an unmissable lead magnet (a free resource in exchange for their contact details) so that you can message them directly and nurture them
There are all kinds of different lead magnets, like PDFs and checklists. While traditional ones only convert at 3-10%, though, quizzes give you the BEST chances of success: you can expect a whopping 30-50% conversion rate!
- Create a compelling quiz lead magnet – This should be something your target customers actually want and that positions your B2B business as the logical next step. For example, an SEO company could offer a “Get your FREE SEO scorecard” quiz
- Make your quiz impossible to miss on your website – Consider having it in your hero section, menu, banner, pop-up and so on. That way, your B2B website will turn more visitors into actual leads
Create a FREE B2B lead generation quiz with ScoreApp
3. Neglecting content marketing
Most of your audience doesn’t know about your business just yet. And those who do? Only 5% of them are actually ready to buy.
So, without content marketing to attract and nurture them, you’re cutting off the biggest chunk of your target audience, missing out on B2B lead generation.
How to fix it
Develop a content marketing strategy to reach more people, retain them and nurture them until they’re ready to buy from you:
- Create valuable content for every stage of the sales funnel – For example, you could share SEO-friendly blog posts that answer your audience’s questions, compelling webinars that help them familiarise themselves with your brand, whitepapers that position you as an expert in your field or case studies that show them what results they can expect
- Have a strategy to retain and nurture these potential customers – Use your content to direct more people to your website and collect their email addresses. Then, keep nurturing them with more relevant content, building trust and turning them into paying customers
You can do all that by bringing your content marketing and quiz together!
- Wow your audience with a compelling quiz – Your quiz isn’t just the gateway to your content marketing: it’s an incredibly valuable piece of content in itself! It’ll help your participants understand their situation and receive customised advice (for example, “Discover the best morning routine for your business personality”)
- Integrate it with the rest of your content marketing – Use your quiz as a call to action at the end of your blog posts, webinars and other resources, and create new content around it
- Segment your participants, and nurture them strategically – Your quiz will divide your audience into groups based on their answers. This means you can set up different email sequences to nurture them in a more personalised (and effective) way. Of course, these sequences can easily include more sales-enablement content too, like blog posts that tackle their misconceptions or videos that answer their questions
4. Ignoring SEO strategies
Some potential customers know they need the types of products or services you sell. They just haven’t heard about your brand yet.
So, instead of googling your company name, they’re looking for relevant keywords (like “productivity coach” or “time management coach”).
If your website isn’t SEO-friendly and optimised for these keywords? You’re basically sending them straight to your competitors.
How to fix it
Invest in SEO strategies to improve your website’s performance and help it show up on search engines for relevant keywords:
- Make your website SEO-friendly – Google prioritises websites that load fast and are both mobile-friendly and easy to navigate (and of course, your actual customers prefer those, too!)
- Optimise it for relevant keywords – Use keyword research tools like Keywords Everywhere, Semrush, Ahrefs or Moz (or if you’re a complete beginner, Google Keyword Planner). Find out WHAT your audience is actually typing when they look for your products or services, and add those keywords to your website
And did you know that quizzes and SEO can go hand in hand?
- Use SEO to help more people discover your quiz – Launch an SEO-friendly quiz landing page, and create more content (like blog posts) that feed into it
- Enjoy some extra SEO juice – In your quiz, add relevant internal links to other web pages, and host it on your website to keep your visitors on it for longer. This all makes you look even better in Google’s eyes
5. Overlooking email marketing
With email marketing, you get to contact your leads directly (without an algorithm getting in the way) and in a more personalised way. No wonder you can expect to make $36 for every $1 you spend on it!
So, there are two main B2B lead generation mistakes when it comes to email marketing: not using it, and using it ineffectively… like sending a newsletter with boring company updates or the same emails to everyone.
How to fix it
Develop a strong email marketing strategy to send valuable and personalised content to your leads, no matter at what sales funnel stage they are:
- Collect more email addresses – From lead magnets to compelling pop-ups, turn more followers and website visitors into email subscribers
- Segment them and nurture them with personalisation – Set up different email sequences for each group, and keep sending them content that’s relevant to them
And guess what? Your quiz can complement your email marketing, too!
- Use a quiz as a lead magnet – As a valuable resource, it’ll grab more people’s attention
- Ask strategic questions – What are their pain points? What are they hoping to achieve? What’s their budget? Your quiz will then divide your participants into segments based on their answers and situation, all automatically
- Send it to your existing list – As well as reaching more people, you can use your quiz to re-engage and segment a dormant list
6. Not using social media effectively
Most businesses seem to be on social media. Not many use it properly, though.
Have you mainly been posting company updates and offers? Then that’s probably why you’re struggling with your B2B lead generation on social media. Let’s fix it!
How to fix it
Share valuable content for your target audience, engage with them and connect with potential leads:
- Choose a handful of channels – You don’t need to be everywhere! It’s better to be consistent with two or three platforms than to spread yourself too thin. So, be active where your audience is already hanging out (for example, LinkedIn is responsible for 80.33% of all B2B leads)
- Create strategic content – Share content for your specific audience while positioning yourself as the go-to expert in your field
Or even better: up your social media game with a compelling quiz!
- Use a quiz to stand out – While your competitors show up with plain content and overused lead magnets, you’ll grab your audience’s attention with a scroll-stopping quiz. This will boost your social media engagement, too!
- Reach more people – Quizzes are highly shareable, which is ideal on social media
- Complement your content – Use your quiz as a call to action (for example, at the end of your videos and posts), and create new content around it
- Capture followers – Turn more followers into subscribers so that you can segment them and contact them directly, getting more B2B leads
7. Failing to track and analyse data
If you’re not analysing your data, that only means one thing: you’re relying on guesswork for your B2B lead generation.
Not only will you miss out on new opportunities or the chance to optimise your strategy. You could end up wasting a tonne of time, energy and money on B2B lead generation tactics that don’t work for you.
How to fix it
Start and keep tracking your lead generation strategy regularly, and use these insights to refine your tactics and improve your ROI.
How you do this will really depend on what B2B lead generation channels you’ve been using. Either way, they should never work as standalone tools but in synergy with the rest of your strategy.
For example, with a ScoreApp quiz, you get a GOLDMINE of data:
- Track your quiz anaylitcs – Find out if and how your audience is engaging with your quiz. Are they finding it through your keywords? How many of your participants get to the end? Do they give up after a specific question? And how many become customers?
- Improve your quiz and overall strategy – Use your insights to perfect your quiz and look at your marketing and sales, too. For example, if many people complete your quiz and book a call but don’t become customers? The problem is probably with your sales team (more on that soon!)
8. Lack of alignment between sales and marketing
Generating leads and turning them into paying customers should be a team effort. Specifically? That of your marketing and sales team.
If they’re not aligned, your audience will get inconsistent messages, and you’ll miss out on lead generation opportunities and money.
For example, you could end up getting lots of engagement and leads but not many sales calls. Or on the contrary: booking several sales calls but only converting a handful of them.
How to fix it
Give your marketing and sales teams the tools to communicate and collaborate, helping them get strategic with your lead generation, nurturing and sales calls.
There are different CRMs and tools you could leverage, but here’s how you can do all that with a ScoreApp quiz funnel:
- Get your marketing team to speak to sales – Find out what questions and objections they hear the most when talking to potential clients
- Use that information to create your quiz and some sales-enablement content – Ask strategic questions in your ScoreApp quiz, and segment your audience. Then, set up personalised email sequences that give value and address their most common objections and concerns. That way, you’ll pre-qualify and warm up your prospects before they speak to the sales team
- Share that quiz data with your sales team – It goes both ways! When sales teams start from scratch with each prospect? They book fewer calls and waste time asking the same questions. Instead, a ScoreApp quiz can change this. Your team will get more people onto those sales calls with a more personalised message that references their actual situation (= their quiz results). It’ll also be easier to recommend the right solution for them instead of using a cookie-cutter approach. How? I’ll show you in the next point
9. Not personalising your sales approach
B2B buyers are busy and becoming more and more selective. They want to know how your offer will benefit them and solve their pain point.
So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that personalisation leads to a 20% increase in sales.
But if your one-size-fits-all approach is to ask your prospects “Shall we schedule a call?” and then lead with the same script or offer? Good luck getting those busy B2B buyers on the phone and turning them into customers.
How to fix it
Use the data you gathered during your lead generation process to PERSONALISE your sales approach.
Focus on each prospect’s situation, and lead with how you can solve their pain point or help them achieve their goal, taking their challenges into account.
With a ScoreApp quiz, it couldn’t be easier! After all, it’s already collected a tonne of data, and you’ve nurtured each quiz participant with personalised messages and email sequences.
- Make them a compelling and personalised offer – Get more people on a sales call by referencing their quiz results. For example: “Hey Jenny, I noticed you recently took our Content Marketing quiz and scored 61%. You scored really high in the Social Media category, which is great, but quite low in the Blogging section. Would you be up for a quick call so that I can share some bespoke advice and strategies to help you improve this?”
- Start from their actual situation during the call – Your quiz can help you close more calls, too! Forget about the same scripts and generic approaches. You now get to reference this prospect’s results and recommend the most suitable solution for them
10. Ignoring word of mouth
For more than 8 out of 10 B2B decision makers, the buying process starts with a referral.
After all, people are more likely to trust the opinion of someone they’re already friends or familiar with.
So, if you’re not incentivising shares and referrals, you’re missing out on a low-cost and high-conversion lead generation source.
How to fix it
Implement a referral program that rewards your current customers when they introduce new leads to your business.
For example, you could do that by offering them a monetary incentive, like a discount.
Another simple but game-changing tactic is to make the most of your quiz and its shareability.
- Create a quiz that’s worth sharing – When you impress your participants with compelling questions and valuable results? Many of them will want to share it spontaneously (so, make sure you have some social share buttons!)
- Encourage them to share their results – Maximise your quiz shares with an incentive or message. For example: “Well done for scoring 81% on our Project Management quiz! Do you think any of your peers can beat that? Share your results to find out.”
Use ScoreApp to fix these B2B lead generation mistakes and supercharge your strategy
These B2B lead generation mistakes can cost you thousands of pounds, but they all have one thing in common: they can be fixed (pheeew) and, specifically, with a quiz.
Use a ScoreApp quiz funnel to:
- Get crystal clear on your target audience
- Capture more website visitors
- Complement your content
- Boost your SEO
- Improve your email marketing
- Maximise your social media strategy
- Gather valuable data and make informed decisions
- Bring your marketing and sales teams together
- Increase your sales calls conversions
- Incentivise shares and referrals
So, fix all these B2B lead generation mistakes in one go and take full control of your funnel. Create your ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE.
