First, in order for us to understand what B2B (Business to Business) lead generation means, we have to define what lead generation is. Lead generation refers to a marketing process wherein a certain person becomes interested in your product or service.
Once you start offering and giving awareness with regards to your brand, you will get leads. Also, This refers to average people who are inquiring about your company or brand.
So mainly, we will talk about overlooked B2b Lead Generation Mistakes. But, I want to define that first too.
You can read more of a formal definition of lead generation from Wikipedia.
Furthermore, these leads are people who may just be passing by to inquire because they are in the discovery stage. So, leads are all about the process of converting them and making them into potential customers in the long run.
With that definition, we can move on to B2B leads. What is B2b (Business to Business) lead generation? If simple lead generation means converting people, B2B lead generation means to convert people who manage businesses, owners or CEOs.
So, you will have a business to business conversion. This is a profound way of getting leads because you will acquire a business organization if nurtured properly.
What are we here for?
Although important, there are more than just getting lead generations and conversions. There are still a lot of ways before we even get there. So, I plan to write an article that can help you avoid mistakes for you before getting your B2b leads.
Like I said in some of my articles, we won’t be able to cover all of them.
These lead generation mistakes will target who tend to overlook the entries here.
Overlooked B2B Lead Generation Mistakes:
1 – Trusting only one social media channel.
Before anything else, I have written another article regarding generating B2B leads from social media.
With that said, you will have a good list of social media websites you can get B2B leads. But of course, since we are talking about B2B, LinkedIn is definitely at the top since this is a corporate database.
It will have all the people you want to target. But focusing on it is not recommended. Don’t forget that the people here also use other channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Overlooking the fact that you can get quality leads on other social media channels on the web might prove fatal. Remember you can get to know people more from facebook or twitter.
This can be a good foundation to do business to business with them. Trust is always good when venturing into something unknown.
Although, it may be hard to handle multiple social media channels, you can definitely start out by focusing on one. And get your sure footing from there until you branch out to the others.
Create the best strategy with your team and the members of your business organization. This is always the best way to do this.
2 – Getting all your leads from social media.
The channels in which you can advertise are too many to count. But some of the most popular are social media, renting billboards, cold calling etc. This means that you must not rely solely on social media to get leads especially if they are B2B leads.
I can give some good-to-know stuff for this. I noticed some very good ways to get leads other from social media.
Meeting with people personally is a nice way, although it’s not what you call an official channel. Getting to know them personally is a good foundation and can sometimes become a 70% lead conversion.
That’s very high compared to getting leads online. Like I said, trust is always good when venturing into the unknown. And meeting someone and getting to know that someone in person is the best way.
You can also advertise in channels like billboard rentals. But most of these channels are becoming more expensive by the day while advertising online is becoming more cost efficient.
By the way, social media is not the only channel available online too. Ultimately, it will be up to you to strategically advertise for B2B leads and select the channel that will be the best fit.
3 – Ignoring the small but important parts of your business.
How do you make people aware that they need you? Do you still do the dreaded cold calling?
Since we are now in the modern age and rapidly advancing fast, we can safely assume that your website will become a critical part of your office in the future. In fact, you are going to treat your website as an extension of your office.
This means that you must not forget to manage everything from your office to your website. Have a professional manage your website. It can be you, or it can be someone who has experience in this complex system.
There are a lot of things to consider, but you can start with email marketing, blog writing, and website SEO. You can see my article about website design. Go beyond those and make sure you constantly manage these important areas of your business.
Because this is your front line in getting your B2B leads. Most of the time, now in our age, this is how it starts. Potential leads discover and browse the internet, and if they find you and see that you are a good fit, then they will become leads.
All will start from you managing your business right from the small things. And will ultimately result in B2b Lead generation.
4 – Talking with the wrong person.
Let’s talk more about the process of B2b lead generation. During the middle of this process, there is a critical part where in you will either get to waste a lot of effort or everything you have done so far will pay off. You might know this, you might not.
But talking to the right person in a certain organization is absolutely important. Because a good business works like an ant farm, it has a chain of command. And most of the time, someone at the top ranks will be the one to make a critical decision for the business.
This means you have to look that person who you need to talk to. Someone who you think can take the next step. This will save you a lot of time.
There are a lot of ways you can do this. You can get this info even way before you start guiding that person. Of course, proper online marketing will come handy. Also, just simply ask for that information nicely and the person you’re talking to will understand it.
Of course, you have to say this in a very professional way. Just asking it blatantly will sometimes be offensive. So, consider the situation and the mood or tone of your voice. I’m saying this because this is certainly one of the overlooked B2B lead generation mistakes.
5 – Getting into irrelevant B2B leads.
This may be one of the most overlooked B2B lead generation mistakes. Quality leads are hard to find in the first place. So business owners tend to settle for all the leads they can get a hold of. Although this can work too, imagine if you have quality leads.
All your metrics will go up, even your income. Simply because your conversion rate will dramatically increase.
You can achieve this goal by doing content marketing. Sharing and creating something that is always relevant to you will always be good. There are a lot of ways for content marketing.
I created an article that talks about improving your content marketing if you want to read it. You can use tools like a Customer Relations Management tool to create profiles of your leads.
You can build profiles even before you start the first contact with a person with tools like a landing page that gets customer info. This way, you can get quality leads that are surely relevant to your business. In B2B, that’s definitely a resource everyone must have.
6 – Rushing the process of conversion.
That right, marketers tend to rush things. It maybe because of quotas or deadlines. But keep in mind, the process of conversions take time. Especially if you want quality B2B conversions.
Business organizations always follow a certain protocol, no matter how big or small the company is. They even document everything from meetings down to detailed conversations.
So, take your time, meet with them, eat with them, talk to them over the phone or online. Do whatever you need to do because in the end. A B2B lead conversion will have great rewards if successful until the end.
A good-to-know also is that businesses always work within a protocol and a budget. Rushing the process means forcing those members to make a decision right away. You might not like the result if this happens.
With all of that said, this is certainly one of the most overlooked B2B lead generation mistakes. But all of it is worth it.
Read my article regarding on how to increase conversions and build trust.
7 – Multiple people can make decisions before even becoming a lead.
You might not notice the inner workings but everything must be decided properly. They might even have consultants and marketers that have debates even before the first conversation with a business begins to become a lead.
This means that you must be in sync with how they want to go through with the process.
Also, this means that you might talk with multiple people first and convince all of them. Don’t be afraid with this. Think of it as an opportunity to prove and build trust for your own business.
If everything goes well, it will ensure you will have quality leads. This is definitely one of the overlooked B2B lead generation mistakes.
8 – Thinking that you are the only one to benefit from this process.
This maybe one of the most overlooked B2B lead generation mistakes. Because marketers tend to think of it as a one-sided thing. No, in fact, this will benefit your lead a lot.
If, of course, everything goes well until the end and you finally engage as B2B. Because the reason why they want to do business with you in the first place is because they have thought it through and they know the benefits.
There is such a thing as Return of Income (ROI), and this means that even though they are the ones to pay you, they will eventually earn that back in the future. So don’t think like you will be the only one to get benefits. Both sides will have great benefits, a lot.
I want you to see that there are a lot of overlooked B2B lead generation mistakes. Some might come simple but you overlook them anyways. With this article, I hope I have helped you notice them.
No one is perfect, always remember that. But at least you can try and avoid them. Being in the B2B world mean that you must always try and be better, grow every day as a company or a business.