While implementing a brand awareness campaign strives to increase your audience size, a lead generation campaign reduces your audience to a group of specific people who are willing to exchange their personal contact information for your relevant content. 

However, this doesn’t mean that one strategy excludes the other. If they are implemented effectively, they will surely complement each other. Usually, having brand awareness is essential for lead generation; at the same time, attracting users with interesting content can strengthen brand awareness amongst customers. 

Nonetheless, there will be times when you will need to focus more on one or the other. Here is some info on how to prioritize between these two strategies. 

Think about your short- and long-term goals to make a choice, but one strategy doesn’t necessarily exclude the other. 

As we mentioned earlier, establishing a solid brand is going to help you to generate leads. Of course, you want to grow your business and need customers. So, expanding your audience with a brand awareness campaign can also approach a new segment of people who might be the perfect match for your business (you can even target them with your content later in the future). 

First things first, remember to focus on your buyers’ persona. Building trust through content marketing can actually help to create awareness amongst those who fit your buyers’ persona but haven’t made a purchase yet or still don’t know about your brand. This will help establish your brand as an expert in the field. Let’s say brand awareness is the first step in implementing both strategies. 

Now, did you know that 70% of people are more likely to make a purchase when they have previously seen content about it, especially if it’s been shared by a friend?1 Here’s where the lead generation approach comes to play. 

So, according to HubSpot, “lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into leads (…) It’s a way of warming up potential customers to your business and getting them on the path to eventually buying.”2 

Keep in mind that when someone gives you their personal contact information, they’re already interested in what your business has to offer. They might even have found you through your brand awareness strategy!  

Once a user is on your website or social media profile, use your content strategy to migrate them to your landing page, where they can be turned into leads. It doesn’t matter whether it’s through a blog post or a social media post, remember to use a captivating call-to-action to ensure they move to your landing page. 

Actually, lead generation can be a successful strategy if you give your audience great content, while simultaneously cultivating customers that will trade their information in exchange for useful information and resources, they can’t find somewhere else. 

Once they’ve reached your landing page, remember they will have to fill the form. Keep it simple and ask for the right amount of information. Not too much, not too little. The first one can make the visitor leave the website, while the second one can become a wasted attempt to get to know the lead. 

 

Balance both the pros and cons of these strategies, here are some of them: 

Generally, when a brand is starting out most marketers focus on brand awareness before lead generation, which means drawing attention. Think about it like this, if no one knows about your brand, you won’t get many sign-ups or prospects at all. 

Before choosing a marketing strategy and planning out the steps to follow, make sure you have enough visibility in order to move to an effective lead generation campaign. If your website or blog aren’t getting as many visitors as you’d like, you should focus on trying to generate awareness through content marketing, such as social media content or generating relevant blog posts and then follow with a lead generation method.  

 

It’s all about balance 

In the end, the best marketing campaign will use as many practical strategies as possible, in this case combining the power of brand awareness and lead generation. With creative planning and careful budgeting, you can target both ends of the sales funnel. Remember to establish a proper buyers’ persona by researching user behavior, audience trends, and of course, competition. 

If you’re looking for potential leads, it’s only logical to generate as many impressions as possible for different audience segments, which also helps increase and reinforce branding! Then, you can send them to a landing page that uses different elements of your brand, like logos, images, and messages to convey them to swap their data for relevant information. 

However, if you need immediate sales, you should probably focus on potential customers that are closer to the bottom of the funnel because they are more likely to purchase your product or service. If your business is still growing, you could use help from both strategies. 

Remember that your brand is more than just a logo or a color palette. Interacting with customers, having a social media content campaign, publicizing your brand’s values through different communication channels. An audience is more likely to make a purchase when they trust your organization, which is why brand awareness should be the first step if you’re planning on pursuing a lead generation strategy. 

 

Sometimes it’s not a matter of Lead Generation vs. Brand Awareness. It’s all about which strategy can serve your business objectives and goals better. It’s about determining whether to unite forces or prioritize one before the other, depending on the needs of the company at that exact moment.