Why you should never choose between brand awareness and lead generation

Much has been said about brand awareness and lead generation as they relate to marketing, but we find the two are often framed as competing imperatives. In truth, they’re both necessary for healthy sales and growth. In this article, we’ll look at these concepts and explain how—and why—a sound strategy includes both brand awareness and lead generation.

Brand awareness vs. lead generation

In its simplest term, brand awareness is recognition of your brand or products and services. Lead generation is the initiation of a potential buyer’s interest in your product or service. Often we hear people suggest that a focus on one necessitates the expense of the other. The reality is they are both essential to maintaining a healthy stream of business. Without brand awareness there are far fewer leads. Without a proper lead gen process, fewer potential buyers move from the awareness stage to making a purchase. They are both steps in the marketing-sales funnel. 

At Hop Skip Marketing, we break down the marketing and sales process into a series of steps. Brand awareness and lead generation are two of several steps, and they have to happen simultaneously to keep sales flowing. Here’s an example:

An example of increasing brand awareness

A few years ago we were approached by an interior design and decorating business looking to set up shop in northern Ontario. They were entering an already competitive marketplace. Luckily, we found that none of their competitors had invested time or money in marketing, so it was easy to show how they were different—and better—than all the other well-established businesses in town. This was our starting point.

We created imagery that looks distinctively theirs and messaging that explains how they’re different from the other businesses in town. Then we spread word about them far and wide through social media, digital advertising, signage, event sponsorship, Chamber of Commerce emails, and more.

The beauty of operating in a small community is advertising is inexpensive and very effective. For this client, it wasn’t long before the website’s traffic grew substantially and they had people entering their lead generation process.

An example of increasing lead generation

When potential customers are starting to do their research, your lead generation process should kick in to answer their questions, help educate them, and get them ready to speak with your salespeople.

For our design client, we wanted to pinpoint that moment when people in our database began preparing to renovate or build their home. We looked for signs like someone visiting the services page of the website to see the pricing and service offering, downloading an ebook or read other material on the site. At that point we start to follow up with relevant educational material and encourage them to book a consultation. This is when the sales conversation begins. For this client, the lead gen process is pretty simple, but for others it is far more complex. This is where marketing automation software can be a huge help.

So now you know that instead of worrying about whether to put your marketing resources into brand awareness or lead generation, you need to ensure your strategy fosters both. Neither need to be overly complex, but the work hand-in-hand to drive sales.