Finding Leads

Small businesses often find that a high proportion of their start-up costs have been swallowed up by initial marketing efforts. Bringing in sales immediately is a challenge that many new businesses and entrepreneurs find too taxing, and sees them failing early. Many businesses today embark on a program of lead generation, whether by doing this in-house or by outsourcing to an external company.

While there are many positives to lead generation if done correctly, unfortunately it is a marketing method that is littered with common mistakes and errors that can gravely undermine a set of objectives.

We looked at the most common lead generation errors, and how your business can avoid them.

Not Doing It

Yes, there are some companies who don’t bother with lead generation, or even with any sort of real marketing plan at all.

At the end of the day, any marketing program your business pursues is in effect “lead generation,” and starting to see it as such will help develop the way you think and act around it. In the modern day, if you aren’t using lead generation techniques, whether offline or online using things such as SEO, then you have some catching up to do!

Looking in the Wrong Place

It’s easy to set up a lead generation campaign, harder to ensure that you are targeting the right groups who will actually use your business. Carefully consider the people to whom your business will be most relevant and target them. Trying to be all things to all people rarely works, and if you aren’t targeting the right people with your marketing you could ruin your entire business plan.

Only Doing One Thing

Although you might find that the internet is where you pick up 90% of your business, you would be foolish to only concentrate your marketing and lead generation efforts on one channel. For the best return on your investment, you should look to multiple channels to generate as many leads as possible.

Again, the key to being a success through multiple channels is knowing who to target, especially if you move into telemarketing and email marketing avenues.

Not Selling Yourself

There is a common ‘block’ with business owners, in that they fail to sell the benefits of their business, product, or service, because to them it is obvious and needs no explanation.

By far the best way to combat this is to dream up the best way to explain your business in two or three sentences to sell the benefits of what you do. Why are you a “must use” service provider, what does the customer have to gain through dealing with you?

Not Looking After Leads

The cardinal sin of lead generation, yet a mistake that many make, is to neglect and not nurture leads once they are on board. What happens next is simple, you lose a customer forever, and they won’t come back. Worse, they’ll probably tell other target customers of yours that you were only interested until they signed up, and then seemed to forget they even exist.

Avoid these lead generation mistakes, and your campaign will be on track to be a success, delivering great revenues for your business.

This article was written by Fare Exchange, a lead generation business focusing on the taxi industry, putting customers in touch with Canary Wharf taxis in order to travel across London.