“Why are my leads down?” How to generate leads for your startup.
Updated 10/07/2024
How to generate more leads for your startup or refocus your existing demand generation efforts.
Let’s set the scene:
Your sales team is frustrated that the inbound leads have dried up; there’s more pressure to get cold leads because they really need to hit their target.
Your marketing person is frustrated, because, when things get tough, it’s their budget that gets pulled. In quiet times, the business looks at them to turn on the ‘magical lead tap’.
Now, before you consider buying that cheap database or working with that Growth Hacker that’s promising you they’ll stimulate short term growth with their magic beans, I want to share with you a few reasons why your inbound lead efforts may have gone a little quiet.
I share these because I’ve been in businesses where, to get sales in quickly, we’d reduce prices by 50% or we’d cut elements of the existing service to shave costs. In almost every example where we’ve invested in a short-term tactic, it’s gone on to create long-term headaches.
BTW, I’ve never done this in a business. As someone who hates discounting and gets the the impact it can have on a brand, this makes me happy.
I’m trying a TLDR in this edition, ‘cos I’m trying to be down with the kids. (But I don’t think I’ll ever be that cool).
>>> TLDR
Reasons why your startup’s lead generation efforts may have gone quiet.
Changing market conditions means the way your customer uses you has changed.
Lead sources dry up! Channels become ineffective once they are saturated.
Is it your sign up process?
Are your call to actions (CTAs) geared towards just sales-ready leads?
Maybe your marketer is experiencing burnout.
1. Changing market conditions means the way your customer uses you has changed.
The way your customers derive value from your product/service may have changed.
They may have had their budget cut.
They may be under a new pressure to deal with stuff that’s been thrown at them.
They may be facing redundancy.
You - just - don’t - know.
There are so many different factors that can impact how they use your service. So, it’s all about understanding the value you offer in the new set of context they’re using you.
How’d you go about this?
Customer interviews, silly.
How regularly are you talking to your prospects and customers? If you’re not speaking to at least 10 people a month, checking in with them, …why not?
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a ton of customers, check in with prospects, leads that have gone cold, prospects that don’t like the service… get a temperature check.
Is your proposition still relevant?
Real-life example a-coming.
One way we approached this at Careercake was to look at a few of the marketing Ps to reassess our approach.
The disruption caused in 2020 meant we changed a lot of things for our customers.
Here’s what we learned:
You don’t have to slash your prices.
After speaking with our customers, it turns out that they didn’t need a reduction in price, rather, the inhibiting factor impacting whether they were using us was time. All of a sudden they’ve got a million things thrown at them. They still value us, they just needed more time to be able to use us.
This meant we changed our trial from 7-days to 14 days. Initially, we were happy to take the hit in terms of subscriptions, but what actually happened was our churn overall reduced and sign-ups increased.
Does the way your product is delivered need to change?
Another way we changed was how we deliver the service to our B2B customers. Previously they’d subscribe to the platform, and use us as part of a blended learning programme.
Now, their roles are very different. They need to be more agile in their approach as - unsurprisingly - the People/HR function within businesses is getting a lot thrown at them.
How could we help, not hinder?
We now offer the ability to embed our product on their internal systems, and in bundles. This meant they didn’t need to put time aside to learn our platforms and processes, and with the ability to license in bundles reduces the risk of a large commitment. Something that’s super important in light of the changing workforce.
Of course there are other elements to look at, for example, promotion.
If we are spending more hours in front of a screen, endlessly scrolling through our native social media channels - advertising starts to, well, fade into the background.
Re-think the context your customers are using you. This ultimately will mean asking yourself - has your value proposition changed?
2. Lead sources dry up, they become ineffective.
Channels become ineffective once they are saturated. Something that was a great source in the early days, gave you awesome conversion rates and a low CPL will inevitably lead to stagnation as other people join the party and compete for the audience’s attention.
An example I’ve seen personally is conversion rates from Facebook advertising - particularly if you are targeting Gen Z / Millennials.
I’m generalising, I know, but this cohort is hugely political.
“You buy from Amazon?!” Gah!
“You don’t support the little independents? You traitor!”
“You drink Oatly milk?! You know there’s connections with Trump, right?”
The market is seeing droves of this generation deleting their Facebook profiles because it’s where their parents hang out. It’s become a space that was once ‘personal’ which is now over saturated because the old’uns now understand how to use social media.
This - I hope - shows you the importance of keeping your eye on emerging channels and the changes in the way people buy.
You’ve got to invest to see returns later on. And that may mean increasing marketing spend to find new ways to attract customers. It means doing something different.
Need some inspiration? Check out the 19 traction channels available to marketers.
3. Is it your sign-up process?
I’m going to drop a truth bomb here.
As marketers we pay lip service to customer research.
There, I said it.
We say marketing is the voice of the customer, but when it comes to actually speaking to customers - we don’t always deliver. Or worse still, we collect the info and DO NOTHING WITH IT.
(I wrote an article on this, Marketers: stop making excuses, get out and talk to customers.)
There are heaps of sources to collect information if your dwindling leads are jumping ship at the sign up process.
Ways you can implement this, if you really don’t want to talk to them face-to-face.
Exit surveys - You know, the pop ups that spring to life as you’re about to exit the site.
Cancellation reasons - When someone cancels a free trial, ask them why
Funnel metrics - Pop your process into something HotJar to see where people are dropping out.
4. Are your CTAs geared around just sales-ready leads?
Let’s say you’re getting some traffic in, but it’s not converting into any type of value exchange.
Time to point out the obvious again, but if all your call to actions (CTAs) are ‘salesy’ ie. geared around a sales action, you're losing the chance to get the info of the just browsing customer.
Examples of these CTAs are: Buy now! Talk to Sales! Get your Demo!
You know that saying, 98% of people who visit your website never convert? It’s true.
What little things could you do to improve this - even by 3-4%?
Map out your customer journey, from visitor > prospect > lead > mql/sql > opportunity.
Think about the information they need at each stage of the buying process and see if you’ve got content to suit and answer their questions.
If you’re not getting hardly any conversions - remove the sign up form.
Think about the way this lead is coming into your website….
On point 4:
I worked for a business and we found that leads generated from PPC (as it was known back then) were more likely to ask for discounts. Leads that came in via a whitepaper and a particular website were more likely to go on and stay with us for a few years. Source matters too!
Learn more about why your request for a demo button is harming your startup’s sales process.
5. Maybe your marketer is experiencing burnout.
I want to add this last point because I think it’s incredibly important.
We’re working from home, we’re tied to a screen more than ever. We’re under more pressure to deliver results.
There’s a chance with all this, that your team has burnout to some level.
Did you know that a symptom of burnout is a loss of creativity, of enthusiasm, of wanting to fight and challenge?
Sometimes the best thing is taking a step back and reviewing the good work you’re doing. I’m not suggesting this is the cause of your loss of leads, but I think it’s important to note.
Be kind.
Intrigued to learn more? Check out my other articles, including ‘Why won’t leads activate their trial?’, or get in touch.
