In today’s marketing world, lead generation is a crucial process that could decide the growth and success of a brand. In this competitive era, when any product or service you provide could have tight competition, it may be difficult to generate leads. But is it that hard? Let’s see how a blend of branding and marketing can generate quality leads.

What is Lead generation?

A lead is a prospect who shows interest in your brand, product, or service. A lead would have given you their contact details in exchange for some information from you. Lead generation involves using such data about the prospect to convert them into a customer.

The most common method for lead generation is marketing to this narrow segment of prospects that have shown interest in the brand. But to be fruitful, the process must begin with branding.

What is Branding?

Branding is creating a solid perception of the value and purpose of a brand, product, or service using brand awareness campaigns. This could include Google ads, YouTube ads, billboards, logos, brand themes, hoardings, etc. The idea is that when a prospect thinks of purchasing a product or service, only your brand’s name comes to their mind. An emotional connection with a brand has often seen success in capturing a mind share of the customer.

A Blend of Branding and Marketing

For a brand, creating awareness alone could garner a wide range of audience. However, not everyone in that audience is interested in the brand. Similarly, blindly marketing through cold calls or cold emails is like a shot in the sky. It is much less likely to hit your target. The best method, therefore, for lead generation is to blend branding with marketing.

The chances of someone who needs a specific product or service to purchase it from a brand that is on the top of their mind is very high. Therefore, continuously creating a positive perception of your brand is very important before you market it.

For example, a person often sees ads about a Hyundai car on his TV, Google ads, and a billboard near his office. Subconsciously, the logo, the tone of the ads, the brand ambassador, and such branding symbols find a place in his mind. When one day he decides to buy a new car, the first car he will think of is the Hyundai. This is the effect that branding strategy has on its audience.

After that, this person goes to the Hyundai website or showroom, registers his details, and tries to find out more about the car. This is where marketing comes into play. Now Hyundai has the required contact details of a lead that is highly likely to be converted into a customer. Getting this person to buy a car would be much easier than someone Hyundai sent a cold email.

Conclusion

To conclude, quality lead generation can be effectively achieved by creating a strategy that has a blend of branding and marketing. The two are not mutually exclusive. If done with a proper plan, it can lead to more sales in less time for the brand.