Diagnosing Why Your Social Media Lead Generation Results Are So Poor

By Tony Restell

A question for you - did you get so many leads through social media this last week that you're struggling to find enough hours in the day to follow up with them all? If so, you're excused from reading further. Your time would be better spent talking to those leads rather than trying to drum up even more interest!

 

For everyone else, it would appear you have a problem generating leads through social media. Certainly if you're serving any kind of mainstream market, the scope to generate leads through social media should have you feeling overwhelmed with the volume of interest you're generating. 

So if that doesn't sound like you, well then the diagnosis is that you've yet to crack how to make social media lead generation work in your sector. Let's see if we can help you to tackle that...

Diagnosing problems with your social media lead generation approach (1 of 2)

There are only two key challenges when it comes to social media lead generation - and if you're not generating a solid and consistent flow of business leads then you're falling short in terms of one or both of these challenges. 

The first challenge is reaching enough of the right people. It doesn't matter how appealing your offer is, if few of your target prospects are actually reached by your social media activities then the chances of this becoming a consistent source of new client leads is extremely low. There are several ways of increasing your reach. You need to be investing in one or more of the following:

1. Growing your organic network of contacts by connecting with people, following them, commenting on their posts or liking their activity. You have to be proactive with this, if you wait for others to find you instead of going out hunting yourself, the rate of growth you achieve will be corresponding reduced. 
   
   
2. Building relationships with influencers in your market. One of the quickest ways to boost the reach of your messages and brand is to have influencers in your sector share some of your posts or your website content from their accounts. But this doesn't happen overnight - it takes a concerted effort on your part and a commitment to winning over influencers rather than constantly pitching them to ask for help.
   
   
3. Paying to have your accounts (or your updates) seen by your target audience. Yes, for all the misinformed talk of social media being free, you do actually have to invest some money if you want to get results - and paying for greater visibility or to attract connections are examples of doing just this.
   
   

Diagnosing problems with your social media lead generation approach (2 of 2)

Having considerable reach amongst your target audience is only part of the battle though. There are plenty of businesses and people out there with considerable visibility on social media, but who have yet to succeed in converting this into tangible new leads or business wins. 

This discrepancy comes down to the glaring omission of failing to test different conversion funnels. As an individual or as a business, you need to devise different ways you could have people choose to become a lead for your business. Maybe they'll register to attend your next business breakfast; maybe they'll sign up to download your market report; maybe they’ll join a Q&A webinar you’re hosting tackling a problem that your service helps address.

You need to be testing lots of different variants of offers like these, to see which convert best in your market. You also need to be testing different copy and different ways of getting that message in front of relevant people. For some businesses it’ll be running targeted remarketing campaigns that succeeds best in having people register as a lead for your business; for others, it’ll be interacting with people on social media that creates the opportunity for your offer to be dropped into the conversation.

The key point here is that you’re unlikely to guess at the first time of asking what the most popular conversion offers are going to be in your sector. You’re also unlikely to hit on the best wording or advertising format to persuade people to take action at the first time of asking. Instead, you’ll be testing different approaches and over time learning the optimal ways of turning your audience reach into tangible business leads.

Creating a flood of business leads with your social media presence

For most people reading this who are disappointed with the results of their lead generation efforts, one or other of these shortcomings is likely to ring true. If that’s the case, you now know what you need to focus on to turn around your results. Take the right corrective actions and you should get to the point where you know the volume of new leads you’re going to be consistently bringing in each week or each month via social media. 

If you still feel confused or overwhelmed and need more help, by all means book in for a call with one of our team.

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