Stop Wasting Leads: 5 Lead Generation Mistakes (and How To Fix Them)
Fifty2M
May 30, 2025
Businesses often stumble in lead generation due to five key mistakes: ineffective lead magnets, poor lead stage differentiation (marketing versus sales), limited channel reliance and lack of scalability, overly narrow audience targeting, and a lack of lead nurturing. Addressing these errors in value proposition, lead qualification, outreach diversity, market scope, and consistent follow-up can significantly boost lead quality and conversions.
What does lead generation typically involve?
Lead generation is the process of obtaining people's contact details, and some insight into their likely wants and needs, so that you can develop a meaningful conversation, build trust, and gradually move them towards making a purchase or taking a service from your business.
We've tried it every way imaginable over the past 23 years, both for our own business and our clients, and as the lead generation landscape has evolved, we've adapted with it.
In the early days, it was all about looking up companies and their key people in business directories and then cold calling them by phone and maybe writing them introductory letters. Then email marketing became popular, and so obtaining email addresses and list building were the order of the day. Fast-forward to today and collecting email addresses to facilitate direct communication is still key.
How and where can you generate leads for your business?
The most common lead generation methods used today include:
Automated LinkedIn messaging
Expos
Events
Social media (paid and organic)
Search engine ads
But there's a thread that runs through them all: exhanging value in return for those email addresses.
Now you know more about lead generation as a concept, let's delve into the common mistakes we see and how you can avoid them.
Mistake #1: not providing sufficient value
Why it's a problem
People fiercely guard their privacy and see their personal data as a form of currency.
This means they're generally only willing to hand over their contact email address in exchange for something they perceive to offer them sufficient value.
A rookie mistake we come across a lot sees businesses offering low-value content and still hoping people in their target audience will feel compelled to give out their contact details in order to access or obtain it.
They won't.
How to fix it
To fix this common lead generation error, create content in 'value buckets'.
Make your lowest value content available in the form of 'zero click' posts on social media, where the value is all provided in the caption and allows your audience to consume your advice without leaving the platform they're on when they come across it.
Put higher value content on your website in the form of resources pages or blogs like this one, but make them freely accessible.
For higher value content still, like very detailed downloads packed with genuinely exclusive information and actionable advice, host it on your website and promote with search engine and social media ads, but make it 'gated' - generally speaking, this is the only content that should require the submission of a lead form in order for people to access it. Exceptions include things like equipment specifications and price lists that you may not want competitors to see.
Reserve your very highest value content for delivery at in-person events such as seminars and workshops, where your audience needs to not only supply you with contact details, they also have to put in some effort of their own.
Example
Imagine you run a commercial contract cleaning business. Content that talks about hygiene standards and cleanliness in general is probably in your lowest value bucket and the kind of thing that you might share in zero click posts on LinkedIn because it's unlikely people will hand over their email addresses to access it. Higher value content that's worth gating could include a series of sector-specific guides that not only provide helpful insights but that also showcase your know-how (for instance, you could produce a guide on cleaning standards designed to meet current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) in the pharmaceutical industry), or a cost savings calculator that allows businesses to see how much they could save by outsourcing their cleaning services. Your higest value content could come in the form of events, co-hosted with relevant experts, that address things like the impacts of TUPE when moving from in-house to outsourced cleaning services or changing cleaning contractor - the kind of thing that could easily be overlooked by potential clients.
Mistake #2: not distinguishing between marketing leads and sales leads
Why it's a problem
People will only ever be 'in market' for your products or services during a brief window. Most of the time, you're just not on their radar at all because they have no established want or need that you can potentially satisfy.
Not only is the window fleeting, the number of people in it at any given time will be small.
If you don't make a distinction between marketing leads and sales leads, the chances are that your lead generation efforts are all going to be focused on capturing leads among this small buyer-ready audience in the hope of quickly moving them into your sales pipeline.
When you make this mistake, you not only limit your opportunities by targeting a small and transient audience, you also miss out on opportunities to build brand awareness and affinity with people earlier in their buying journeys, so that you're better known to them when it counts.
How to fix it
Make a distinction between marketing leads (anyone that comes into your orbit, engages with your marketing communications, and could therefore one day become a customer) and sales leads (someone that enters into a meaningful dialogue about doing business with you, usually by asking for a quote or proposal).
Then create lead generation opportunities higher up the marketing funnel / earlier in the buyer journey that you can use to attract and engage marketing leads who can be nurtured towards becoming sales leads.
This way, you end up with a much larger audience pool who you can build a relationship with over time, so that when they are ready to buy, they're more likely to consider you.
Example
Only around 0.3-1.0% of privately owned houses are on the market in the UK at any given time, so the numbers of people seeking estate agents is also low relative to total housing stock. An estate agent that focuses solely on generating leads among this tiny audience is always going to be fighting out with local rivals. A more forward thinking estate agent might instead share lots of informative content with local people over time, offering high value resources like guides to selling by postcode area, or online Stamp Duty calculators that allow it to build an email list of people signalling intent that they can then keep in touch with, getting and staying front-of-mind. This way, they've had an opportunity to curate and nurture a bigger audience, and earn trust, so that they're better known and more likely to be invited to provide a valuation to vendors when the time is right.
Mistake #3: over-reliance on a small range of channels, especially those that are hard to scale
Why it's a problem
ALL promotional marketing, lead generation included, works better when you take a multi-channel approach.
Too many businesses get stuck in a rut, either relying too much on a single channel or trying to generate leads in a way that's hard to drive volume.
For instance, posting regularly on LinkedIn can be a rich source of B2B leads, even from among the so-called 'LinkedIn lurkers' who never engage with your content but are apparently enjoying it anyway. But social media platforms are constantly evolving their algorithms and so what works today isn't guaranteed to work forever.
When it comes to a lack of scalability, there's nothing worse than depending on attending networking meetings for leads. Unless that's literally all you do, five days a week, but even then you're still fishing a small pond.
How to fix it
Cast your net wider, and create more opportunity, by using all available (relevant) channels and platforms.
Don't be afraid to invest in search and social ads, they don't have to be costly but will vastly expand your reach.
And consider adding events into the mix for the highest quality, most qualified leads.
Mistake #4: trying to laser-target with a very tightly defined audience
Why it's a problem
Conventional wisdom suggests targeting a highly defined audience based on a very detailed Ideal Customer Persona. There is obvious merit in this approach, but over the years we've come to realise that it's better to start with broad targeting to attract volume, and then use your nurturing process to weed-out those less qualified leads as you guide those with more prospect of becoming customers towards and over the finishing line.
Otherwise, you run the risk of inadvertently screening people out too early, when they may actually have been the right audience for you.
How to fix it
Define your lead generation more broadly as those people who might plausibly have a want or need for your products / services at some future point, whilst ruling out only those where it's patently obvious they are never likely to become your customers.
For instance, let's say you run a steak and ribs restaurant where that's literally the only thing on the menu, there's probably no point trying to attract vegans 🤷
Other than that, try not to second guess it. There are too many unknown variables that will determine whether or not someone is a good quality lead for you, and whether you'll prove to be the right fit for them, so rather than try and allow for that upfront, just get people into your funnel and then filter out those who are not the right audience for you.
Mistake #5: ignoring lead nurturing, and relying on generic email newsletters instead of curated content
Why it's a problem
If you're going to invest in lead generation, the magic happens in the follow-up.
Fail to follow-up quickly, or at all, and the people you've sucked into your email list will unsubscribe at the first opportunity, rendering all your investment (time and money) null and void.
But you have to also stay on point, and follow-up with content that's relevant and salient to the reason someone entered your lead funnel in the first place - just sending a generic, one-size-fits-all newsletter doesn't cut it.
For instance, let's say you're all about data analytics and data visualisation for finance teams and someone signs up to your list by downloading a detailed guide to using data analytics for fraud detection, there's an implicit expectation that you'll follow-up with more of the same value-added content - not a switch to "Enjoy my free course: how to use Microsoft Excel for finance beginners, starting with 'what is a spreadsheet?'"
How to fix it
Map out a continuation of the journey that brought them to you in the first place, sharing content they'll find relevant and useful, but where you have pre-determined goals and actions for them to take along the way. This is how you 'clean' and refine your list of marketing leads - those who undertake the actions you want them to essentially self-identify as having more potential than those who don't and self-identify as lower-value, lesser qualified leads.
There's a more detailed blog on this here.
Key takeaways
Many businesses inadvertently sabotage their growth by making common lead generation mistakes. This blog highlights the Top 5 pitfalls: offering lead magnets with low perceived value, failing to distinguish between marketing and sales leads, over-relying on limited or unscalable channels, targeting audiences too narrowly, and neglecting crucial lead nurturing, Understanding and fixing these errors in your attraction, qualification, outreach, and follow-up strategies is key to building a strong lead funnel that can supply your sales pipeline.