“It’s nice to get so many leads yesterday, but they aren’t good leads, and we didn’t close any deals”. It’s hard to find a marketing manager who hasn’t heard this claim from the sales manager in their company at least twice a week. It’s hard enough to get a hold of hot leads – but also make sure they are good ones? Who actually bears this responsibility?

Let’s start at the end: bout 80% of your leads will never convert. There are plenty of reasons: confused users or users who simply change their mind, users who got here by mistake, a poorly designed client journey or a competitor gathering information. Only a small percentage of the leads will go through the final step to completing the deal – and those are the important leads, worth your time.

However, despite the above data, quite a few marketing managers insist on “killing” live leads with a series of bad decisions, first off – not using an effective and fast lead nurturing mechanism. After all, this is exactly why an automatic marketing system exists: to accompany users who expressed interest in the brand, until the moment they become clients.

The mistakes that kill your leads

Mistake #1: You don’t know your clients well enough

This is a too early stage for mistakes, and they are made during planning of the advertising campaign and selecting the message. It doesn’t matter how good the product, how strong the brand or how good the price is – knowing your potential clients in depth is critical to the success of any campaign. To understand exactly what motivates clients, we recommend every marketing manager to ask themselves what is their clients’ biggest sore spot? What kind of a solution are they looking for? And how do they want to communicate with the brand? Building an accurate client profile will hugely assist in finding answers to these questions.

Hot leads must be handled quickly (Pexel)

Mistake #2: Marketing and sales don’t speak the same language

It’s one of the common problems in medium-large organizations. The marketing department promises, glorifies, magnifies and praises – but in the end there’s a sales representative across the line, who sale themselves and can’t really tell which ad the client saw and what it said. The lack of full synergy between the marketing and sales departments could damage the quality of the leads, and damage revenues. Therefore, it’s recommended that the two departments build the client’s journey together, in order to make sure the purchase experience is maintained throughout.

Mistake #3: You get to the sale too quickly

Lead nurturing is an important step, and you shouldn’t skip it even if the client is ready to convert. The reason is that in order to make them an ambassador that will recommend the product, it is recommended to give them valuable content over time, to keep them in the know. Creating a positive relationship with clients takes time, and in most cases a direct approach to new clients – containing an offer – will be perceived as aggressive.  They are not ready for it. Therefore, send them videos, articles, and catalogs to build their trust. Studies talk about 6-8 interface points before you start sales. It seems quite a lot, but when it happens, the conversion rate increases by more than 20%.

Mistake #4: You are not multi-channeled

The users will not make life easy for you. They will contact via a comment on Facebook, a personal message on Messenger, a WhatsApp message, a lead form or pick up the phone – and that just a partial list. Now go, and make sure each channel is connected to CRM and can transfer up-to-date data on each client in real time. When the sales representative offers a cell phone package to a client who was interested in a TV package because the system didn’t record the last call – it is a wakeup call.

Mistake #5: Stop stalling

Don’t keep them waiting. If possible, answer immediately. If not, then make sure that the lead receives an automatic response, informing them that you will get back to them as soon as you are available. Leads that go unanswered don’t just get cold and disappear, but it also send a clear message to users: the client isn’t that important to us at the moment.