October 25, 2022

B2B Lead Generation Challenges You Should Know (+ How To Solve Them)

Check out this list of 7 B2B lead generation challenges and how you can solve them so you can generate more high quality leads!

Jordan Bishop

Reading time: 7 minutes

We all know the competition is tough in today’s market, no matter what industry. This is why it’s no longer enough to have any lead generation strategy for the sake of having one; it is now critically important to have an optimized and effective lead generation process that your business can implement to flourish.

The question you might be asking yourself right now is, how do you know if your lead generation strategy is already optimized and effective?

Well, one way is to read through the following list of common challenges encountered in lead generation. If you realize that you’re experiencing any of them, then it’s a sign that there is some room for improvement in your process.

So get ready because you will not just learn the common challenges in lead generation but also how to overcome them.

#1 The bulk of your leads come from referrals

While referrals and word-of-mouth marketing work wonders and are one of the most robust and effective methods in lead generation, they have their limits.

If you constantly rely on referrals and word of mouth, you’re imposing a limit on yourself and your company.

A previous client, for example, can only refer you to a handful of people they know within your industry, and that’s it. However, if you’re smart at marketing your product, you can reach hundreds, if not thousands, of potential leads compared to the word-of-mouth approach.

The solution: Supplement your referrals with other lead generation strategies

Explore lead generation campaign strategies, like content marketing, telemarketing, email marketing, etc., to expand your reach and attract more prospects.

Attending industry conferences as an attendee or even as a keynote speaker and perhaps handing out free samples of your products is also a particularly effective way to generate warm leads for B2B companies. You’ll be surprised how many professional heads of procurement departments are always trying to figure out how to get free samples of products they might need.

No, we’re not saying to abandon the referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. But what we’re saying is to supplement them with other lead generation strategies. These two powerful marketing tools will then enhance each other, thus resulting in more effective results.

In a competitive setting, you must do everything you can (within reason) to stand out and get an edge over your competition. Who knows? Maybe all it takes to gain that edge is supplementing your referrals with another source of valuable leads.

#2 Your prospects are ignoring you

Imagine this — you took our advice and started supplementing your referrals with lead generation campaigns. However, you noticed that your emails, blogs, podcasts, etc., are not getting any traction, and your prospects are ignoring you.

As a result, you’ve wasted a lot of time and resources in launching the campaign with nothing to show.

Does it have something to do with you? Or is the market just saturated? Or maybe you’ve wasted all your time and resources following bad advice?

The answer to those questions is a nuanced no. Keep reading to learn why and how to assess your situation correctly.

The solution: Know and study your prospects thoroughly

It’s not necessarily true that your prospects are ignoring you because of you or because the market is saturated. They could be “ignoring” you simply because they are not on the platform that you’re using in the first place, and you’re not actually reaching them.

Another possible scenario is that the content you’re offering doesn’t work for them. Or maybe even worse, you may be giving the impression that you are spamming them.

For these reasons, marketers must research the market before launching a lead generation campaign. By analyzing their user persona and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), they would know which platforms work best and what content would be most helpful for their target audience.

If done right, the risk of your prospects ignoring your campaign will reduce drastically, and your engagement rate will improve dramatically.

#3 You have difficulty retaining new leads

Now that your lead generation campaign has traction, you’re faced with a new challenge: you’re getting a ton of traffic and are producing many new leads, but you notice that most are just fading away.

You’ve noticed that some prospects drop out during the campaign, and you never see them again. So, you’ve been asking yourself, is there a fool-proof way of avoiding losing those prospects that got away?

The solution: Interact with your new leads regularly

To answer the question, yes, there are ways to optimize your lead generation funnel so you can avoid losing some prospects.

The first thing you can do to retain prospects is to engage with them regularly. This type of engagement could be regular blog posts, weekly updates, or even daily accountability calls (if applicable). The idea is to engage them regularly enough so they don’t forget about you but not so frequently that you’ll feel intrusive.

The second thing you can do is provide your prospects with highly personalized content. This approach will surely help you retain those prospects but will likely take a lot of hard work.

Lastly, you can also provide your prospects with interactive content. An example of interactive content is a tax calculator or an interactive quiz that gives out coupons when answered correctly.

#4 You're generating poor-quality leads

Regarding lead generation, it is ideal to have both quantity and quality. However, only the best strategies manage to hit that goal. Many are frequently forced to choose between one or the other.

Consequently, many choose cheaper and easier-to-implement strategies that bring in many new leads, but most of them are bad quality.

But you might be asking, how do you identify poor-quality leads in the first place?

Here are some examples of poor-quality leads that you need to watch out for:

Leads that take too long to make a decision
Leads that have too many budget restrictions
Those who are not interested or don’t have an immediate need for your product in the first place.

You may be asking yourself why you would want to reduce the number of poor-quality leads in the first place. Aren’t bad leads also potential clients in a way?

In a way, yes.

However, put your businessman hat on and think about efficiency and optimization. Bad leads are less likely to convert into paying customers. Would you rather use your resources on a lot of undistilled prospects, or would you rather concentrate all your resources and effort on prospects that you know are most likely going to become your clients?

The solution: Qualify your prospects and redefine your user persona

Just like how companies do quality control on their products, you should also have quality control over your prospects. You should have standards for your future clients to ensure the success of your business.

So, what should you do if you’d like to ensure the quality of your prospects?

The first step is to redefine your initial ICP to include your standards. This way, the content you will produce and the strategies you develop will naturally qualify your prospects for you.

In lead generation, your topmost priority should be the quality of your leads. Once you have quality, you can work on increasing quantity.

#5 You don't know if your campaign is successful

The management guru Peter Drucker once said, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

The same is also true in lead generation.

If you can’t measure the success and the costs of your lead generation campaigns, then you can’t manage them properly.

It makes sense, especially since how will you know if the campaign is successful or not? If it is, how can you be sure that there’s nothing left to optimize? How can you ensure you get the best value from your effort and campaign resources?

You have a big problem if you don’t know the answers to those questions. You’re basically running blind.

The solution: Collect data accurately and analyze them properly

To ensure your campaign’s success and that you can adequately react if something goes wrong, you should prioritize collecting accurate information about it.

What should you measure then?

Anything you can measure, like how many people visited the site, how many people signed up for your email list, or how many leads you generated for every dollar you spent on advertising: the more data, the better.

However, in this data collection, be sure that you’re not just collecting data for the sake of data collection; you must also analyze it and take action when necessary. If your data shows that email marketing isn’t generating any leads, then you should reexamine your copy and see if it has something wrong.

#6 The cost of running ads is rising

Since the pandemic started, more and more people have been going online and browsing the web. A lot of companies took notice and started aggressively paying for ads.

This increase in demand has made running ads more expensive. If you build a website and expect to receive a good portion of your traffic through PPC ads or something similar, then rising advertising costs can be a big problem.

This situation will negatively affect your business if you’re a small business with a limited ad budget allocation. However, don’t despair if you’re in this tricky spot since there are some things you can do to take advantage of the situation.

The solution: Focus on highly specific keywords with less competition

Remember your user persona and your ICP? Those two can help you in addressing the rising ad prices.

But how?

First, you need to know how ad pricing works. For example, if you want to place an ad on Google, you need to outbid your competition for specific keywords since Google’s ad space is limited. So, if the keyword you’re competing for is vague and general, chances are, you’ll have a lot of competition and thus have to bid higher.

If that’s what’s happening to you, do you have no choice but to bid higher and accept the higher price?

Absolutely not! You can look for a particular keyword or a highly specific long-tail keyword based on your user persona and ICP to lower the demand and, thus, reduce the price drastically.

You will not only reduce the price for your service or product ads but also make your ad very specific so that it will surely get you high-quality prospects, as mentioned earlier.

#7 You don't know where to start

If it’s your first time launching a lead generation campaign, you’ll find that launching one isn’t as simple as some people make it out to be.

There are so many choices, platforms, and small decisions to make that it can all become overwhelming. This abundance of options can paralyze you and prevent you from planning your campaign, let alone launching it.

So, if you’re in this situation and it’s your first time launching a lead generation campaign, you probably feel there’s no other choice than to plow your way through it.

In a sense, that is true, but it is more nuanced than that.

The solution: Take one step at a time

As mentioned earlier, if you want to launch your campaign and you’re overwhelmed with all your options, you have no choice but to plow through it.

However, don’t despair. There’s one tip to keep in mind: take things one step at a time. Try not to worry about what service you’ll use, or about your posting schedule, and don’t worry about anything else except the one step you’re working on now. You’ll cross those bridges when you get there. Focus on the first step.

So, what is the first step?

Identify and know your prospects. Define and describe them: make a customer persona and an ICP. Study them to the tiniest detail, and be sure to know them inside out.

Once you know your prospect, everything else will fall into place: you will know where to find them, you will know what they need, you will know what their problems are, etc.

Conclusion

Lead generation can be challenging, but for every hurdle you face, there’s also a solution.

The keys are knowing your target inside out, always focusing on what you’re currently doing, and taking one step at a time. D

o this repeatedly, and before you know it, you’re already launching your first successful lead generation campaign.

Jordan Bishop

Jordan Bishop is the founder of Yore Oyster and How I Travel, two sites to help you optimize your finances while living an international life. He recently published his first book, Unperfect, an exploration of problem solving.

Ultimate guides