For many businesses, the key to success is to generate and secure targeted leads.

Sadly, leads don’t grow on trees; finding and attracting the right audience for your business can have its challenges. Avoid these common mistakes businesses make when tackling lead generation for your business.

Not knowing your audience

If you’re unaware or unfamiliar with your target audience, then the chances are that you will struggle to get the right message across, and your marketing efforts will be wasted.

Research your target audience and familiarise yourself with its demographics, wants and needs. Ascertain what social media platforms they use and research its trends, so you can target your efforts to individual channels in the future.

Pursuing everybody

With lead generation, it’s very much about quality over quantity. Don’t try and be everything that everyone wants – you will exhaust your efforts and it will be a waste of your time. Follow the lead of successful brands and know who your target audience is, how you can be of interest to them and how they can benefit from you. By knowing this you will be able to create content that will attract your audience’s attention, in turn optimising leads.

Take a breather and do your research. Look at which platforms your prospective customers are on and target your attention there.

Relying on a single tactic

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ with lead generation. Being able to cater to prospective customers needs and being flexible is what lead generation is all about. Every person who visits your website is looking for something different and has specific requests and requirements to satisfy, so customisation is essential.

Be present on multiple platforms to allow you to gather leads from a variety of sources. Try multiple approaches and gather the results from each to study what works best and adapt future plans accordingly.

Expecting something for nothing

If you want a prospective customer to hand over their highly guarded data, you need to give them something in return. The best way to attract leads is by offering a form of incentive or something of value, like a discount code, free gift, or video content.

Not having a clear call-to-action

If you want people to perform a specific action you need to make this clear to them and give them a reason for doing so. Whether it be to visit your latest blog page or newly created landing page, make this clear and tell them why you need them to do this, and don’t forget to include the incentive!

Does your marketing strategy need a revamp? Get in touch with our specialists today to discuss your requirements.

Square Media is Northamptonshire’s premiere Web Design & Marketing Agency experienced in developing effective content and marketing strategies for forward-thinking companies in the local area. Our team of specialists consistently deliver outstanding results working in a variety of areas such as Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Marketing Consultancy, Pay Per Click (PPC) and AdWords Management amongst a wide range of other services.