Top 10 B2B Lead Generation Challenges with Solutions

Lead generation is critical for any business for revenue growth. According to Ruler Analytics, 91% of marketers say lead generation is their top priority. They want to generate high-quality leads that will help them find new business avenues. Though lead generation is a critical business function, it’s surprising that many companies struggle with lead generation and lose opportunities.

This blog will discuss the top 10 challenges in the lead generation process and the practical solutions to overcome them.

What does the B2B lead generation process involve?

The B2B lead generation process involves several activities, from researching the target audience to building accurate prospect lists, database validation, lead scoring and nurturing, lead generation, and follow-ups. However, many businesses find these tasks challenging. 61% of marketers believe that quality lead generation is their top challenge!

Top Challenges in B2B Lead Generation 

• Absence of a lead generation strategy: It is important to plan carefully if you look wish to run a successful B2B lead generation campaign with good outcomes. It’s critical to have a lead generation strategy that defines the target audience and taps potential opportunities. A proven strategy will help businesses use the correct channels to generate market-qualified leads. A systematic approach by experts helps in acquiring potential customers and increases conversion rates.

• Adopt new lead generation strategies: Companies should eliminate old strategies and adopt a holistic approach towards lead generation with new techniques. ABM-Account-based marketing focuses on high-value accounts and drives quality leads into the sales funnel by targeting decision-makers with customized content. Conversational marketing uses real-time messaging by integrating live chatbots and engaging with prospects. It allows for capturing high-quality leads and boosts conversion rates. To grab more insights into new lead generation strategies, contact experts who will thoroughly understand your business and suggest the most appropriate and innovative techniques.

• Finding ideal customers: One of the biggest problems in lead generation is finding the target audience. Most business owners find it challenging to identify their ideal buyer profile, and they instead target everyone on their contact list. The best approach is to find your target audience by understanding the characteristics of your ideal customer profile. The demographics, products and services, company size, revenue, and more factors must be analyzed before curating a prospect list. Targeting the correct target audience will improve the lead generation process and increase conversion rates.  Many businesses need help generating a prospect list that has a high potential of converting into paying customers. Such companies must hire experts for prospect list development to make their lead generation process successful.

• Redundant Databases: It’s essential to update databases because there may be changes in the company’s decision-makers and their priorities regarding the products and services required to propel business growth. Business locations with expansion plans are subject to change, and the product portfolio may be updated. The prospect might have changed jobs or moved to another company. If the lead generation campaign is based on outdated databases, it will fetch no results. It is best to regularly update the databases and verify the information to enable the sales team to nurture correct leads and close more deals. Businesses can consider database validation services to get access to verified and updated databases.

• Lead Nurturing: Many businesses generate leads using different methods. The problem lies in their nurturing process, where they cannot establish and nurture the customer relationship. The lead is lost, and so is the opportunity of conversion. If the leads are not nurtured with the required information at the right time, they will serve no purpose. Statistics reported that companies that nurtured leads could generate 50% more sales with 33% lower cost expenses. Effective communication, understanding the prospect’s needs, and offering tailored solutions can help your business convert high-quality leads into paying customers. It’s essential to nurture the relationship by providing curated content to help them make a buying decision faster by email, messages, outbound calls, etc.

• Ineffective Content syndication strategy: Content syndication opportunities allow businesses to reach their target audience with third-party websites. B2B marketers often struggle with where to publish their content and make their prospects aware of their brand. According to the LXA Hub’s State of B2B Digital Marketing Experience 2023 report, 81% of CMOs believe their customers suffer from digital fatigue and need a more focused strategy to drive engagement. It’s necessary to provide clients with personalized content that offers value to them. It would be best to hire a content syndication expert to help you strategically distribute relevant and personalized content on different authoritative websites to attract prospects.

• Struggling with SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a continuous process that succeeds by keeping pace with the current market trends. Most B2B buyers collect information about potential purchases via Google, which keeps introducing changes in SEO guidelines. Many businesses don’t follow the guidelines correctly, which affects their organic reach. SEO involves optimizing the content with keyword research to increase its visibility, improve the website’s ranking, and strategically place the relevant keywords in different pieces of content to boost its reach and visibility. On-page optimization is equally important to optimize the website’s elements, such as meta description, titles, and headers. Building high-quality links via guest blogging and content syndication will help improve the website’s visibility and create brand awareness. More visibility helps attract prospects to the business, enabling the marketing and sales team to boost the conversion rate.

• Poor Social Media Presence: Hubspot says that 56% of sales professionals use social media for finding new leads. Other statistics reveal that 74% of B2B marketers say social media marketing is an important marketing channel in their current B2B lead generation strategy. Poor social media presence can be a massive hurdle in generating high-quality leads as it offers limited reach, and the business misses out on potential opportunities to engage with prospects. It’s essential to invest in a solid social media marketing strategy to help build credibility with regular social media posts and interactions. A business needs to capitalize on the interest generated by social media content to attract prospects and drive more conversions.

• Sole dependence on the in-house team:Many businesses consider lead generation a runoff the mill task and depend solely on the in-house team to generate leads. The in-house team might lack the tools, technology, and expertise to create high-quality leads. It leads to a poor conversion ratio and lower ROI. The best approach is to hire a B2B marketing expert who will understand your business, identify the right target audience, and assist you in the lead generation process. The experts will help you generate market-qualified leads.

• ROI Measurement: The entire B2B lead generation process is incomplete without the ROI measurement. It is crucial to have a measurable mechanism that will let you track performance and gauge the effectiveness of your lead generation program. Ruler Analyticshas revealed that 31% of marketers stated that proving ROI was one of their biggest challenges. A business needs to measure its effectiveness with the help of data analytics on qualitative and quantitative parameters. Tracking data across different touch points will let companies know the effectiveness of the chosen lead generation channel and improve it continuously.

B2B Lead Generation Challenges with Solutions

Conclusion

The B2B buying process is highly unpredictable. The digital era is rapidly evolving; customers now have access to plenty of information and many options. So, engaging with the leads and gradually bringing them from the top of the funnel to the buying stage is challenging. The B2B marketing process involves several challenges that affect the quality and quantity of leads generated. Lack of a refined B2B lead generation strategy, incorrect prospect lists, unverified databases, poor lead nurturing, and inconsistent follow-ups are some of the significant problems businesses face in lead generation.

It would be best to outsource the lead generation process to a B2B marketing expert. A B2B sales expert will understand your business, find the target audience, and create strategies to engage with them via different channels. Hiring a B2B marketing company is cost-effective and result-oriented. The experts will help you generate hot and warm leads to maximize conversions and boost sales.

About Markable Solutions

If you look forward to improving your lead generation strategy, you can always rely on the experts. Markable Solutions is a leading B2B company headquartered in Silicon Valley, serving clients worldwide. We are aware of the problems faced by companies in generating market-qualified leads. We provide customized lead-generation strategies to help you find your ideal customer profile. We understand your pain points and curate a lead-generation strategy to address your challenges with a proven approach. For more information, feel free to visit now!