The fallacy of optimizing ads to generate more leads

I've worked with a lot of companies over the past 10 years and 1 thing is for certain. Most young CEOs don't understand the concept of marketing. Since digital marketing became the primary method to conduct your marketing campaigns - it's been plagued with people talking about platform specific metrics like CTR, Impressions, Clicks, and conversion rate.

But these aren't what the CEO or CMO should be worried about. You see, in order to drive sustainable results through marketing - you must adhere to the prospect awareness journey. I covered this at length in my previous article - so check that out if you haven't already.

In short, the timeline is there to address where any given market is at in terms of awareness to the problem that your industry solution solves. The quick answer to this is that 97% of the market isn't ready to buy. So only 3% of the market is.

So the whole idea around optimizing your ads to increase leads - in a market that only has 3% of it in buying mode logically doesn't make sense. So for the rest of this article, I am going to break down how instead of optimizing ads to generate more leads, we will develop higher up in the awareness funnel campaigns and tap into that 97% of the market that isn't ready to buy - to eventually drive more leads.

What pieces are there in the awareness funnel?

There are only 5 major phases of customer awareness.

1. Not aware

2. Problem aware

3. Solution aware

4. Vendor aware

5. Most aware

If you imagine an upside down triangle split into 5 horizontal cross sections - starting with 1 at the top, and 5 at the bottom - then this would also encompass the rough size of the market that is in each phase.

I.e. Most people fall in the in the not aware phase, and the least people fall in the most aware phase.

By speaking to each of these people in different phases differently will help increase the number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) for your business - and eventually through a thorough approach to nurture your MQLs, then these leads will successfully become sales qualified leads (SQLs).

So practically speaking, what does each phase look like for your digital marketing?

Now that we understand that tapping into higher in the awareness funnel is the only way to generate more leads, then what does our overall marketing campaign look like?

Not aware prospects

These guys are not aware they have a problem. In a lot of circumstances, these folks will discover they have a problem on their own simply by being in the industry long enough. However, it always makes sense to try to stay top of mind with these folks. The best kinds of ads for this phase are very high level ads on targeted social channels where your ideal customer profile (ICP) spends time. (Bonus points if you already have a list of your ICP that's been scraped from an up to date lead repository). The ultimate goal is to just have your brand in front of the prospect very subtly, but this effectively establishes some mental real estate in your prospect's subconscious bias.

Problem aware prospects

This is the more likely situation to start advertising too simply because these people have already started learning about the problem they are facing. The kind of content here should discuss the problem at a deeper level - without pushing your brand too much in the prospect's face. The key to doing well in this phase is all about providing rich, thorough content that helps your prospect understand their problem. Sounds simple - but you'd be shocked at how hard this can be. Targeted social media channels like LinkedIn, X, Reddit, and YouTube are my favorite places to do this along with blogs discussing the problem deeply from an industry expert perform best.

Solution aware prospects

This is one phase removed from where most digital marketers begin their digital marketing campaigns - but this phase is so important. If you only had extra budget to spend to try and get more marketing qualified leads for your existing digital marketing campaigns - then this would be the phase to allocate spend too. All of your prospects in this phase are trying to understand the solutions they can use to solve the problem they know understand deeply. In the example of a small business trying to address a dip in sales, the small business owner could begin searching for what social channels would make the most sense to advertise on. The prospect will then start to digest content talking about picking an ICP and how to position content in front of that ICP + much more. Again, targeted social media channels and great product/service pages help do the trick at this phase.

Vendor aware prospects

Most digital marketers start their digital campaigns here. As you can see, we are already very deep into the awareness timeline. The brands who have already positioned content before this phase of the timeline will have a significant advantage with the prospect. This is why your conversion rates and your other high level metrics will significantly struggle in most circumstances. The way to overcome this is to position more content earlier in the funnel.

But besides the point, at this point you can not only use targeted social media advertisements, but you can also use pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns. The social media ads usually will cover case studies, testimonials, and other trust building content while the PPC campaigns will address features, benefits, and how your solution stacks up to the competition. This is usually the last touchpoint before a traditional MQL would become an SQL - hence why so many digital marketers try to skip the MQL phase and try to convert traditional web traffic right to SQLs. It sometimes works - but usually those leads don't fair well on the customer lifetime value (CLTV) metric that is also very important to consider.

I won't dive into that more right here, but once a campaign is humming with consistent leads, optimizations should then occur at not just the campaign level but also the account level.

Most aware prospects

Finally, we have arrived at most aware prospects. These guys deeply understand the ins and the outs of the vendors that provide solutions to their problems. If you are trying to swoop in here without advertising at prior phases, you are quite literally 4 steps behind and a significant disadvantage. Nevertheless, the content that does best here is personalized ads, emails, gifts, and more.

Usually the prospect has already downloaded a lead magnet and perhaps has received marketing email nurture sequences discussing what next steps look like. It's crucial that the offer you position here is enticing and is clearly differentiated from competitors. If it's not - you risk commoditization and you will lose if you don't come in at the lowest price point.

No business thrives in a commoditized market - and that's another reason why establishing yourself as a thought leader and objectively and subjectively demonstrating to your prospects that you are the best vendor to solve their problems is how you can raise prices and overall CLTV.

Wrapping up… you need a full funnel campaign

Regardless of the industry, you need a full funnel campaign. In most B2B services, this funnel structure is the most effective way to generate sustainable leads because simply put - it's the only method that addresses prospects coming and going from throughout the awareness funnel.

I hope you found this insightful and if you have any questions, please shoot me an email at ianbinek@gmail.com or leave me a contact form.

Until next time,

Ian Binek