It’s no secret that the company website is now a fundamental tool for B2B marketers in order to generate leads for their sales team, and bearing the brunt of this task is the humble landing page. In the past you could be forgiven for thinking that an online version of your brochure would be sufficient for converting site visitors into leads and hopefully paying customers, however as we see the rapid shift towards online buying continue, it is becoming increasingly evident that many landing pages are not at all geared to successfully generate qualified leads, and many B2B marketers are getting it wrong. A recent g2m solutions blog post Stop! The Top 8 Lead Conversion Errors made by B2B Marketers discusses these challenges, and identifies 8 errors B2B marketers should look to avoid when aiming to use the company website as a lead conversion tool. These are:

1. Top of funnel content that is NOT product centric. Identify what is of value to your visitors, not you, and don’t try to force people to be interested in your product or service.
2. Failure to capture lead data.
3. Forms that aren’t designed to capture the right lead data so you know what kind of follow up site visitors are ready for.
4. Lack of appropriate testing. Use conversion rates and A/B testing to gauge the effect your copy, layout or offer is having on capturing leads.
5. Overlooking the use of marketing automation technology to opt people into targeted campaigns, based on how they have interacted with your site.
6. Failure to segment your database into different campaigns.
7. Not evaluating leads on their quality and likelihood to close
8. Failure to effectively convey your findings to the sales team.