The 4 Most Common Outbound Lead Generation Challenges {+ 4 Simple Solutions}

Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting potential customers (which we call leads) into someone who has expressed interest in your company’s product or service. 50% of marketers consider lead generation priority #1 in their campaigns.

Organizations generate 1,877 leads on average per month. Those leads are not at all easy to generate. There are quite a few common challenges that all organizations face especially concerning lead generation in outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing is a marketing strategy that involves proactively reaching out to potential customers to generate interest in a company’s products or services. The very nature of this approach invites challenges. Let’s assess the most common lead generation challenges and come up with their solutions.

Key Challenges in Outbound Lead Generation and Effective Solutions

1. Lower Lead Generation Through a Broad Audience

Reaching out to a broader audience doesn’t have quite the allure you’re hoping for, especially if you’re doing it without a plan in mind. Unfortunately, that is the case with most leading-generation executives.

They believe a wider audience will result in more people showing interest in what they’re offering. In reality, if your message about the best puff pastries is reaching an audience of diabetic patients, then you cannot expect it to generate leads.

Solution

The solution to this problem is uncomplicated. The first step would involve creating an ideal customer profile. In the context of lead generation, an ideal customer profile (ICP) is a detailed description of the characteristics of the customers that are most likely to buy from you.

You can start by making a list of people who share these characteristics among them and start targeting them directly in the broader audience. That way, precious time and costs can be saved by reaching those that will lead to higher lead generation.

Your outbound marketing campaigns will have messages tailor-made for those matching your ICP descriptions. Speaking of messages tailor-made for conversions…

2. Unproductive Messaging

Building on the issue we discussed above, when there is a broader audience involved, oftentimes lead-generation specialists forget to personalize their messages. The thinking behind it is that if a message is effective enough, then it should resonate with all audiences.

Call it lethargy or lack of knowledge, but this approach ends up backfiring on all fronts. You will only manage to generate leads if you speak to those portions of your customer profiles directly. Show them you care, show them the pain points your product or service will alleviate.

This is simply not possible with the same kind of message for everyone everywhere on every medium. The key part of your outbound marketing campaign will be the message you’re communicating. It has to be effective and precise.

Solution

The solution is staring you dead in your face. Put in the hard work and show the people you’re targeting or want to target that you care about by personalizing your messages. To generate leads, pitch to people why your product/service is the only thing they need.

This is easier said than done. In practice, it will require a ton of creativity and time on your end. The specific sections of the audience you want to target will all require tailor-made messages to pique their interests.

This is a doable task, but if you’re finding your hands to be full, then you can give a shot to any online rewriter tool. This is just to save time. These tools are equally capable of personalizing your messages in a clear and concise way by removing any confusion.

The above rewriter tool rewrote the whole email campaign in question using advanced algorithms without altering the sense of the original. The original email, as you can see on the left, had a generic subject line, a body that doesn’t provide any specific information, and a weak call-to-action.

The generated outcome got rid of all those issues. Remember that it’s all about those click-through rates, so make sure you’re using these tools with CTR in mind. Otherwise, there’s no use to them.

3. Outdated Contact Lists

This is an issue that’s easy to miss, and miss you will, especially if you aren’t keeping track of the campaigns you’re running. Email marketing, direct mailing, and cold calling are pivotal parts of running lead-generation campaigns for outbound marketing.

The correct email addresses, company names, and phone numbers make all the difference in the world where lead generation is concerned. This is an issue that isn’t entirely the fault of the lead generation department running these campaigns, as people sometimes don’t update their contact information.

Whoever’s at fault here, the responsibility is on the people entrusted to run these campaigns to get ahead of this issue.

Solution

Routine maintenance checks will get you out of this mess for future use. Keep track of your contact list, regularly update new information, and discard outdated, incorrect ones. This ensures your list stays up-to-date and your messages don’t bounce. You will use data validation tools for this.

Comprehensive email verification tools like the one illustrated above check email addresses for validity and provide detailed feedback on deliverability and risk factors. It also offers real-time verification and API integration for seamless integration with your marketing automation systems.

4. Multi-Platform Incorporation

When designing your outbound marketing campaign, it’s a good idea to incorporate the various platforms in harmony in order to generate leads and eventually convert those leads. Departments running these campaigns often fumble one thing or the other.

If they’re generating leads, then they fail to convert them, and if they’re good at converting them, then they often struggle to generate them. It’s very rare to see lead generation specialists nail both aspects at the same time, yet the most successful ones do.

Solution

The key thing to do here is schedule routine follow-ups. Follow-ups with the people who interacted with your brand on any channel. This creates a connection and trust between the company and the leads generated.

An example of this is following up with emails to people who interacted with your campaign on social media platforms. Social media campaigns themselves can be used to direct traffic to your websites.

Conclusion

The average business converts only 2% of its website visitors into leads. This means that for every 50 people who visit your website, only one is likely to become leads or more. That’s a scary stat and why it’s so important to have a strong lead generation strategy in place.