Lead Awareness vs. Lead Generation — There Is a Difference

Often confused as the same, there is a giant difference between the awareness of leads and the generation of leads.

For many brands, lead generation comes from the website. That’s where the majority of people go to inquire about business opportunities or services (including learning your address and hours).

Generation of awareness happens beyond that website. It pushes prospects into the site, then the site’s job is to convert them (ideally) or, longer term, get them into a funnel (smart retargeting).

So, if you are going to win the awareness game and build a consistent funnel where ghost prospects (those who haven’t yet given you their information) convert on a regular basis, here’s what you should do/think about:

1. Understand the average time to close. Have you asked your last round of buyers about their process? Did they take one day, or one month or one year?
2. If the time is greater than one day, adjust your thinking and spending. Understand that the money you spend today might not convert for a period of time. Getting comfortable with the idea that every part of your marketing plan is effective in the long run will be beneficial to your sales process.
3. Set up retargeting —  and make sure the message you give those clicks is the next step in the content/storytelling process (as in, don’t just feed them your logo and a headline of what they already know — create scarcity).
4. Get PR going on a consistent basis.
5. Really evaluate your four-wall marketing. Are you creating motivating stories and education of your business goals within current touchpoints with brand fans?
6. Remember, it’s all about deals, not leads. It only takes one lead to get a deal.
7. Look at your deal value. This will help you get comfortable in budgeting.
8. Create a rolling budget. Spend more when you close a deal so that you can effectively throw more gasoline on your lead fire.

Building strong lead awareness online (social, web, digital ads), in the media (PR), and inside your footprint is a great starting point. Then, leveraging your brand fans and validators will be super impactful to the end goal of lead generation and lead closing.

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