How to Lose Leads in 10 Lessons
Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2025 9:25 am
Lead generation is essential to winning customers in the modern buyer age.
The B2B decision-maker no longer agrees to speak to a salesperson before having fully understood their problem and identified the relevant solutions available to them.
He is connected and wants to carry out his purchasing decisions alone, at his own pace, using the Internet.
Want to generate a maximum of leads? Here are 10 bad practices not to follow!
1. Not working on your Personas
Personas are the foundation of an effective lead generation strategy.
A Persona is a typical profile of your ideal customer. It is a sheet containing the demographic and behavioral criteria that characterize this ideal customer.
In short, working on your Personas allows you to understand the expectations of your target and how to satisfy them.
To generate leads, you need to provide added value to your target. To provide added value to jordan email list your target, you need to understand their issues and behaviors.
2. Not having a strategy
First of all, having a strategy in your head means not having a strategy and that's the best way to lose leads .
To generate qualified leads, it is essential to work on a documented strategy listing your objectives and the levers to activate – and to what extent – to achieve them.
Without a strategy, you take action sporadically and are unable to measure performance properly.
Generate a Max of Leads by Downloading our Free Guide
3. Have a showcase website
I have a strong opinion on the subject: having a B2B showcase website is useless .
To generate quality leads, you must provide added value to your target audience through the content of your website.
Your website should not only talk about you, it should address the issues of your target audience and the questions they ask themselves throughout their purchasing process.
If you have a showcase website, you are losing a lot of leads!
4. Not understanding the purchasing process
Buyer journey: the length of the sales cycle - Inbound Marketing
This is a continuation of the previous bad practice.
To generate qualified leads, you must offer content on your website and other communication channels that respond to the issues and questions that decision-makers ask themselves throughout the purchasing process.
You naturally understand that his needs evolve depending on whether he is in the Awareness, Consideration or Decision phase.
You must therefore understand the 3 phases of the purchasing journey if you do not want to miss out on quality leads.
5. Not optimizing your website’s SEO
B2B lead generation stats
While 90% of B2B decision-makers admit to never responding to a sales prospecting call, 61% start their purchasing process on Google.
The referencing of your website is therefore a major issue for generating leads.
If your website is not optimized for SEO, you will not appear on the first page of Google and will inevitably lose leads.
6. Have only one contact form on your website
This is such a common mistake!
To generate leads on your website, you need to offer as many lead generation forms as possible .
Having only a contact form cannot work.
A contact form is a “Decision” form – see the purchasing process seen previously – but the vast majority of visitors to your website are in the Awareness or Consideration phase.
It's essential here to offer other forms that your visitors will fill out in order to redeem a premium content offer like a white paper or webinar registration.
This is the foundation of a successful Inbound Marketing strategy .
7. Not using the right tools
I regularly talk to B2B companies who don’t know how many leads they’re generating. Worse, they’re often aware that they’re missing out on some leads.
The reason?
They don't use the right tools and use too many.
As a result, they do not have the time or the necessary rigor to regularly connect to all the platforms and follow up on the leads they generate here and there.
Marketing Automation software like Hubspot can be of great help to you here.
8. Don't use social media
If you don't use social media in your lead generation strategy, you're inevitably missing out on opportunities.
First, social networks are an excellent opportunity for prospecting. We are talking about Social Selling .
Next, social media should allow you to promote the content of your website to attract more visitors and convert them into leads.
The challenge here, to communicate well on social networks in B2B , is to select the right platforms and publish the right content at the right time.
9. Selling instead of helping
Selling is the best way to lose leads.
In other words: to generate leads on the Internet, it is essential to help your target, provide them with value and support them in their purchasing decision.
We've been talking about it a lot lately, but it's vital for generating leads: the modern buyer no longer expects you to sell your offers, he demands that you answer his problems and the questions he asks himself before trusting you.
Only doing your promotion inevitably makes you lose leads.
10. Not analyzing your stock performance
This is also a very common mistake.
Usually, it is the lack of time that is invoked here. But on the ground, what I notice is that B2B companies do not know how to measure the performance of their Digital Marketing actions .
Yet it is essential to know what works and what does not. We only improve what we measure.
To optimize your lead generation strategy, it is essential to measure the performance of your actions and adjust them in real time.
The B2B decision-maker no longer agrees to speak to a salesperson before having fully understood their problem and identified the relevant solutions available to them.
He is connected and wants to carry out his purchasing decisions alone, at his own pace, using the Internet.
Want to generate a maximum of leads? Here are 10 bad practices not to follow!
1. Not working on your Personas
Personas are the foundation of an effective lead generation strategy.
A Persona is a typical profile of your ideal customer. It is a sheet containing the demographic and behavioral criteria that characterize this ideal customer.
In short, working on your Personas allows you to understand the expectations of your target and how to satisfy them.
To generate leads, you need to provide added value to your target. To provide added value to jordan email list your target, you need to understand their issues and behaviors.
2. Not having a strategy
First of all, having a strategy in your head means not having a strategy and that's the best way to lose leads .
To generate qualified leads, it is essential to work on a documented strategy listing your objectives and the levers to activate – and to what extent – to achieve them.
Without a strategy, you take action sporadically and are unable to measure performance properly.
Generate a Max of Leads by Downloading our Free Guide
3. Have a showcase website
I have a strong opinion on the subject: having a B2B showcase website is useless .
To generate quality leads, you must provide added value to your target audience through the content of your website.
Your website should not only talk about you, it should address the issues of your target audience and the questions they ask themselves throughout their purchasing process.
If you have a showcase website, you are losing a lot of leads!
4. Not understanding the purchasing process
Buyer journey: the length of the sales cycle - Inbound Marketing
This is a continuation of the previous bad practice.
To generate qualified leads, you must offer content on your website and other communication channels that respond to the issues and questions that decision-makers ask themselves throughout the purchasing process.
You naturally understand that his needs evolve depending on whether he is in the Awareness, Consideration or Decision phase.
You must therefore understand the 3 phases of the purchasing journey if you do not want to miss out on quality leads.
5. Not optimizing your website’s SEO
B2B lead generation stats
While 90% of B2B decision-makers admit to never responding to a sales prospecting call, 61% start their purchasing process on Google.
The referencing of your website is therefore a major issue for generating leads.
If your website is not optimized for SEO, you will not appear on the first page of Google and will inevitably lose leads.
6. Have only one contact form on your website
This is such a common mistake!
To generate leads on your website, you need to offer as many lead generation forms as possible .
Having only a contact form cannot work.
A contact form is a “Decision” form – see the purchasing process seen previously – but the vast majority of visitors to your website are in the Awareness or Consideration phase.
It's essential here to offer other forms that your visitors will fill out in order to redeem a premium content offer like a white paper or webinar registration.
This is the foundation of a successful Inbound Marketing strategy .
7. Not using the right tools
I regularly talk to B2B companies who don’t know how many leads they’re generating. Worse, they’re often aware that they’re missing out on some leads.
The reason?
They don't use the right tools and use too many.
As a result, they do not have the time or the necessary rigor to regularly connect to all the platforms and follow up on the leads they generate here and there.
Marketing Automation software like Hubspot can be of great help to you here.
8. Don't use social media
If you don't use social media in your lead generation strategy, you're inevitably missing out on opportunities.
First, social networks are an excellent opportunity for prospecting. We are talking about Social Selling .
Next, social media should allow you to promote the content of your website to attract more visitors and convert them into leads.
The challenge here, to communicate well on social networks in B2B , is to select the right platforms and publish the right content at the right time.
9. Selling instead of helping
Selling is the best way to lose leads.
In other words: to generate leads on the Internet, it is essential to help your target, provide them with value and support them in their purchasing decision.
We've been talking about it a lot lately, but it's vital for generating leads: the modern buyer no longer expects you to sell your offers, he demands that you answer his problems and the questions he asks himself before trusting you.
Only doing your promotion inevitably makes you lose leads.
10. Not analyzing your stock performance
This is also a very common mistake.
Usually, it is the lack of time that is invoked here. But on the ground, what I notice is that B2B companies do not know how to measure the performance of their Digital Marketing actions .
Yet it is essential to know what works and what does not. We only improve what we measure.
To optimize your lead generation strategy, it is essential to measure the performance of your actions and adjust them in real time.