Ever wonder how lead generation and brand awareness are different from each other? Let’s find out!
Marketing can be a complicated topic to talk about.
It’s not just about promoting with ads or telling other people about your company since there’s actually more to it.
Some people often get confused between lead generation and brand awareness, and to be honest, I’ve been there too.
But don’t worry because, in this blog post, we’ll be talking about what these two topics are all about and find out how they are different from each other.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is a method of attracting potential customers to the company and building interest until they are ready to be converted into buying customers.
Prospects are turned into leads once they start gaining interest in a company’s product or services.
Usually, the first step in lead generation starts at the time where a prospect fills out a form, gives their contact information to the company, and turns into leads.
The contact information is what the company uses to communicate and provide a personalized approach to nurture their relationship with them.
What is the purpose of lead generation?
This process is very important since it allows businesses to create campaigns that establish trust, credibility, and builds interest.
Think about it, if you have a good amount of leads, then this makes it easier to reach prospects than spending lots of time trying out different strategies.
Different types of leads
According to Hubspot, there are four different types of leads in marketing:
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
This type of qualified lead is the one who fills forms in a company’s landing page to obtain a valuable offer (that’s often free) but aren’t ready to be proceed to the next step.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
This is a qualified lead that has taken actions that indicate interest such as filling a specific form on a company website and asking questions about the product or service offered.
Product Qualified Lead (PQL)
This type of lead is someone who has used a free or limited product and has taken necessary actions indicating interest to buy something or making an upgrade.
Service Qualified Lead
Another type of qualified lead where any sales representative conducts a direct follow-up to tell them about other offers that they might be interested in.
What is B2B Lead Generation?
B2B (business-to-business) lead generation is a process wherein potential customers are carefully selected before they make a purchase.
This process may take two people to do it: Appointment setters and Closers
The appointment setter pre-qualifies leads before they’re referred to the closers, who are mainly responsible for closing the deal.
This method is very effective in making a high-ticket product irresistible since the appointment setter “warms up” potential customers.
What is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness indicates customer recognition of a product or service by its name, usually through a common catchphrase or image that distinguishes it from its competitor.
It is when people instantly know your brand from an ad, a friend, website, influencer, blogger, or other platforms.
For example, Flo has been quite known as a salesperson character for Progressive Insurance.
Each time someone mentions the character, they instantly get an idea that it’s from that particular company.
Another is the famous “Subway guy”, Jared Fogle, who became popular for his weight loss journey (eating Subway products) and has become the spokesperson for the company.
Each time a person talks about him, Subway instantly becomes the main topic.
It’s that simple yet it’s a very effective marketing strategy.
Why is it important?
Marketing strategies don’t always stay the same for a few years, but a consistent message that’s well-recognized could last for centuries.
Brand awareness is very important since it’s the first step in the marketing funnel and it’s also a factor that affects a customer’s buying decision.
It helps increase your market share especially when you’re the first one to introduce an element (a character, a punch line, a logo) to the market.
Another reason why brand awareness is important is that it helps encourage consumers to keep buying more from the brand.
What are the types of brand awareness?
Brand awareness comes in 3 different types that every marketer must know:
- Brand Recall – this is where a brand name instantly pops up in the customers’ minds whenever they need something.
- Top-of-the-mind brand – this type is what the customer recalls any brand without help.
- Brand Recognition – this type is initiated and paired with recall to turn a brand into a particular household product that’s easier to remember.
How do you increase brand awareness?
Brand awareness can be done in paid or organic traffic as long as there’s traffic to promote your name. Most of the time it will cost a good amount of money, but since the goal is to get consumers to become familiar or aware, then it’s definitely worth it.
Advertising
This is the most common and most powerful method to increase brand awareness through TV commercials, social media ads, flyers, and other forms of media advertising.
However, this can be a costly method, and sometimes it might not be as effective as expected.
Social Media Engagement
This particular method of increasing brand awareness focuses on social media platforms where content marketing is applied.
It’s also another effective strategy since most people are using social media nowadays.
Endorsements
Endorsements can be done through celebrities who are often paid to promote brand awareness.
This is also done in social media posts, TV ads, or other platforms that the celebrity uses.
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are quite similar to endorsements except that it’s done by sponsoring an event and putting up the brand at the event center.
One example is when there’s a major event, like a festival, where big companies are called “major sponsors” during the event.
Websites and Blogs
Another way to increase brand awareness is through websites or blogs that have a good amount of traffic.
Oftentimes companies would contact the website owner if they’d like to have a partnership through writing guest posts, paid reviews, or ad placement.
Affiliates
Affiliate marketing is a popular strategy to increase brand awareness since you only pay affiliate marketers a certain commission for every acquired customer.
What makes this method great is that the affiliate will be the one who does the promotion and gets your brand out there.
By the way, if you’re interested to learn how to be an affiliate marketer, check out our online course here.
What is the difference between lead generation and brand awareness?
The difference between these two marketing terms is that lead generation is mainly focused on attracting consumers, whereas brand awareness is getting consumers to become familiar with the brand.
These are two marketing terms that have their different purposes but can work in harmony and generate promising results that grow businesses.
When done the right way, businesses become more successful, so how do you think these two strategies work together?
How Lead Generation and Brand Awareness work together
In inbound marketing, lead generation and brand awareness work together very well.
Sometimes it’s good to increase brand awareness through leads, and alternatively, lead generation can be done once the prospect becomes interested after it passes the awareness stage.
If used together, creative planning and careful budget allocation will make it work effectively.
Think about it, if you don’t have a good amount of leads, then all you have to do is increase brand awareness to get more leads.
But if you already have people on your email list, then this will make it easier to promote your brand.
Nonetheless, lead generation can be a longer process than brand awareness since interaction is involved.
Which strategy is best for businesses?
Marketing doesn’t have to be a complicated process unless you have all the tools (and money) to make it successful.
Probably the only thing that makes it confusing for some is that they don’t know how and where to start.
If you’re planning to introduce a product and eventually gain an audience, then you should try building brand awareness.
In a product launch, the goal is to get people to become familiar with the brand and then turning them into leads.
Although lead generation is also important for businesses, this can be on a case-to-case basis depending on your business goals.
