Which Marketing Strategy should a B2B company invest in when looking to Grow - Brand Awareness or Lead Generation?

Here is a question that comes up for The Ultimate.Network: Which Marketing Strategy should a B2B company invest in when looking to Grow - Brand Awareness or Lead Generation? 

You want business and you want profits, right? Well, here’s the thing. If you lack b2b brand awareness, and your lead generation is weak, the demand for your services may not be reaching its potential, and if your lead generation is weak, customers might have a tough time committing to your products and services. So what is the solution? Surprisingly, In today’s b2b landscape exercising both is key to a solid digital marketing strategy. To be clear, brand awareness and lead generation are technically different, but they complement each other when you exercise both.

Let's explore. Brand marketing works on a very different time horizon. It takes longer to ramp up, but it delivers better returns in the long run. After a year passes, when the fruits of lead generation have long since fallen by the wayside, the results of successful branding are still going strong. That is, as long as a company has the patience to stick around and see their branding efforts’ success blossom! But where some companies are great about promoting their brand, others have websites that do not convert leads. They may have an intuitive website, offering valuable information, but they neglect to build brand awareness, and it is hard to sell to people if your audience doesn’t know you exist in the first place. Loosely defined, brand awareness is your company’s visibility to the public. Everything you do drives your brand: the quality of your product or service, the experience of using it, the way your company responds to problems, and the way customers feel when they have an issue. Lead generation, on the other hand is used to collect specific information about potential clients, turning them into sales leads. Examples of lead generation include: building a leads list and/or buying sales leads, via  print, digital and/or radio,and the intention is that the b2b buyer buys with the aim of receiving an ROI (return on their investment).

To be honest, lead generation is rarely a straight path. Very few customers head straight to your website, see your content and want to spend money in a quick fashion. That is why having one market strategy without the other is like putting a fishing pole in the water without a bait on a hook. Last but not least, exercising  b2b brand awareness is crucial. Not all companies have household names as big as say, Microsoft or Apple. So, it is especially important to define who you want to be aware of your brand. If not you could be wasting a lot of your time and money, because modern buyers research their products and services online first, before they buy. Knowing this is the key to knowing where your business has the potential to build brand awareness, which, if done well, converts to lead generation.

So if you want to start exercising a smart b2b marketing strategy, start putting  lead source programs to work and practice effective b2b content marketing, e.g. create blogs, videos and guides, etc. When putting marketing content together, create content that answer specific questions from unique niche markets. And remember, this process may take some time, but when you have a balanced marketing strategy that exercises both lead generation and brand awareness, over time you can create the right type of strategy that can lead to higher sales, new customers, and long-term growth.