A big challenge for companies today is making people want their products and services.
The goal of demand generation is to find potential customers based on their initial behavior and then help them through a process so that the sales team gets high-quality, qualified leads.
Demand generation marketing and lead generation have a lot in common, but demand generation marketing takes more time. It includes multiple touchpoints, campaigns, and pieces of content, and anything your brand does to generate buzz, awareness, and recognition.
The goal is to improve communication between buyers and sellers, resulting in more sales and closed deals.
WHAT IS DEMAND GENERATION?
The goal of demand generation is to create awareness and interest in a product or service in order to increase sales. This is done by creating a predictable pipeline that will grow the business.
It’s a catch-all term for your marketing and sales efforts from start to finish.
In today’s demand generation marketing, the goal is no longer simply to create demand for sales. Rather than trying to force demand or trick people into buying things they don’t need, the focus is on providing the right information to the right people at the right time. This way, the information you share will be a perfect match for your ideal customers’ needs.
Demand generation vs. lead generation vs. inbound marketing
Demand generation attracts potential customers’ attention to a brand and its solutions when they may not be actively considering different options. The goal of a demand generation campaign is not only to get potential customers’ information, but also to create interest and demand for a product or service.
If you generate leads through inbound marketing, it means that your target audience is coming to you for answers to their problems. Inbound marketing is less likely to annoy potential customers than outbound marketing techniques, and can result in better-quality leads.
Since inbound marketing and lead generation go hand-in-hand, your brand will attract leads when you create content that solves a common problem. Your audience is already aware of the problem and is actively seeking out solutions. This is in contrast to demand generation, where you’re trying to reach audiences that don’t yet know your product or service has benefits to offer them.
To generate demand, you need to educate your prospects about a challenge they face and why it is significant enough to invest in a solution.
OUR TOP 3 DEMAND GENERATION STRATEGIES
DEMAND GENERATION STRATEGY #1: GENERATING AWARENESS WITH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Creating and promoting content is a key part of any demand generation marketing strategy; however, it’s essential to understand that the approach is slightly different from your inbound marketing strategy.
The goal here is not to get users to come to your website and then click on the right call-to-action. The goal is to build trust, increase brand recognition, and make your brand the “go-to” in your industry.
Your marketing efforts should not be limited to guest-posting and increasing your social media footprint. Your goal should be to generate demand for your product or service.
The challenge is that people will only buy a product if they see it as a solution to a problem they are currently struggling with, or a problem they haven’t realized they have yet.
DEMAND GENERATION STRATEGIES HINGE ON WELL-DEFINED PERSONAS
The most important part of any marketing strategy is the ability to offer solutions that are specific to each prospect’s individual needs, including their readiness to buy, content preferences, and where they are in the sales cycle.
Start by defining the following:
- Who are your ideal prospects?
- How do they make buying decisions?
- What are their pain points?
- What questions do buyers typically have at each stage in the sales cycle?
DEVELOP TOP-OF-THE-FUNNEL CONTENT
Your goal at this stage should be to answer questions and educate prospects, rather than to sell. Creating content that helps people and generates interest can help your brand become known as a thought leader or go-to resource in your niche.
The timeline for demand generation campaigns is typically longer than for other campaigns, as you need to do a thorough job of convincing your audience that a problem exists before showing them why your solution is best. Demand generation takes a more proactive approach to get in front of your audience.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
After you’ve developed an understanding of your buyers and their journey, you should also research which websites, industry publications, and other resources they use as they make their buying decisions. An effective public relations strategy helps brands generate interest, build trust, and reach more people than your content strategy could alone. Strong public relations can help increase demand.
CREATE A FREE TOOL
You can create demand for your product or service by creating a free tool that relates to the problem that your brand solves. For example, you could create a free calculator, hashtag generator, or evaluation tool.
Some free demand generation tools for businesses are Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer, WordStream’s Google Ads Performance Grader, and SproutSocial’s social media image resizing tool. Another option you could consider is offering a free report.
The team at Drift built a tool to help people test their webcam and test their microphone as a way to generate leads for Drift Video.
DEMAND GENERATION STRATEGY #2: CONVERTING & MONETIZING EXISTING IN-MARKET DEMAND
If you want to increase your awareness, you should first focus on putting awareness-boosting strategies in place. After that, you can focus on capturing existing demand.
The goal is to reach people who are actively searching for products and services with content that is specific to their persona, and to use PPC and social ads to get in front of the right people.
Content in the demand capture stage should be focused on attracting users who are already interested in your solutions, rather than on awareness.
This means that you can use content that is behind a paywall, as well as sales materials that are more specific about your offers, like price lists or white papers. Keep in mind that your demand generation strategy should reach as many channels and mediums as possible.
This graphic helps illustrate the different types of content that are often used throughout the buyer’s journey. The content often overlaps in different stages of the journey.
LEAD SCORING
The development of a lead scoring system is another key element of demand generation marketing. To be effective, the marketing and sales teams must work together to create a shared set of definitions for what qualifies a lead, makes them a hot prospect, or on the other hand, a bad fit.
START DEVELOPING (AND PROMOTING) DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES
In the awareness stage, you can try to show customers how useful you are by offering free tools and reports.
If you want to capture existing demand, you could offer a free resource in exchange for an email address and some other information. This is different from offering a web-based tool with no strings attached.
SEO AND INBOUND MARKETING
Creating a strategy that combines SEO best practices, a strong keyword focus, and content that captures your audience’s intent will result in higher quality leads and more customers.
The current approach to inbound marketing involves more than just personas and keywords. Instead, content should be focused on answering questions that real users have, using long-tail keywords that are conversation starters.
Brands need to understand why customers behave the way they do at every stage of the sales funnel.
PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING (PPC)
If you want to amplify your content, you can use paid search ads. This will help you to reach people who are actively searching for related terms. Aligning your advertising with the user’s intent will ensure that you are able to convert clicks into conversions.
NURTURE PROSPECTS WITH EMAIL AND REMARKETING CAMPAIGNS
Email drip campaigns and remarketing display advertisements help maintain your brand’s visibility among those prospects who aren’t quite ready to purchase.
Brands can use display ads to passively engage with buyers who are still in the evaluation stage. This type of ad is effective in connecting with prospects in the inbox and on the sites they frequent. Personalized offers can be used as an incentive to bring prospects back to the website.
SOCIAL MEDIA & COMMUNITY BUILDING
Finding potential customers on social media is not surprising given the large number of people who use social networks each month. According to Sprout Social, 87% of customers visit a brand’s website after following the brand on social media. This suggests that social media is an effective way to reach potential customers.
One of the key demand generation marketing fundamentals is social media, however organic growth is not enough now that social platform algorithms have made it much harder.
If you want to drive your target audience to long-form blog posts, lead magnets, and event sign-ups, you need to invest in paid promotion. Facebook’s advertising tools offer powerful targeting features, such as lookalike and custom intent audiences, which can help you reach your desired audience more effectively.
CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING
Conversational marketing is a key part of Drift’s sales strategy, as it allows for targeted messaging and intelligent chatbots to engage with customers and move them through the sales cycle quickly.
Chatbot software can be used instead of traditional landing pages with static forms. Chatbots can be used to answer questions, gather information, and qualify leads. Chatbot software offers more context than forms and can be designed to uncover pain points, intent, and product features that are most important to a buyer.
DEMAND GENERATION STRATEGY #3: ALIGN SALES & MARKETING TEAMS FOR BETTER RESULTS
Even though sales and marketing have not historically worked well together, they both need each other today to provide customers with the best possible experience. They also need to develop a process that can be used over and over to close deals, increase deal size, and speed up the sales cycle.
If an organization has a strong sales enablement strategy, it will be easier for them to turn solutions-focused interactions into revenue. This means that marketers need to provide the sales team with support in the form of price sheets, sales decks, case studies, etc.
The purpose of demand generation marketing is to provide salespeople with the information they need to be knowledgeable about any product, service, or segment, and to increase sales.
In this section, we’ll discuss a few ways to lead the conversation toward a conclusion.
PRODUCT-SPECIFIC CONTENT, PLAYBOOKS, & SALES DECKS
The buyer’s journey includes many steps, and marketers who focus only on blog posts, social media, and advertising are missing out on a lot of potential customers.
I help the sales team by providing them with internal content, such as sales decks and playbooks. This way, they have the information they need to keep the brand consistent and show their expertise during any customer interaction.
CASE STUDIES
Customer case studies are a useful tool for convincing prospects to buy your product, as they show how your product has helped solve similar problems for other people. The challenge is to make sure you match the case study to the customer segment you’re targeting; if you give them a case study that doesn’t seem relevant to their needs, you’re likely to just get more objections.
companies often believe that their problem is unique and that no one else could understand. However, most of the time, there is a client with a similar problem or concern.
How to measure the success of demand gen campaign
You can measure the success of your demand generation strategy by looking at the impact of your campaigns. Measuring demand can be tricky, but there are a few ways to set expectations accurately and analyze the results of your campaigns. By doing this, you can make sure that your strategy is working and making the impact that you want.
Define KPIs
In order to measure your progress accurately, you need to identify what your goals are. To track how successful your efforts have been, you need to establish key performance indicators that are relevant to your overall objectives.
A few KPIs that may apply to your campaigns are:
- Website traffic
- Lead magnet downloads
- Cost per lead
- Free trial/tool signups
- Customer acquisition cost
After you’ve decided which KPIs are connected to your business goals, you can track them along your customer’s journey. This will help you figure out which areas are giving you the best return on your investment.
Track data over time
The best way to get higher quality leads is to figure out what they respond to the most and then change your demand strategy to match that. To do this, look at your conversion rates and compare them to the strategies you’re using. If you see a correlation between the rates and who you’re targeting, you can use testing best practices to try out different changes to your strategy and see how they work.
Sprout’s analytics can show you how your social media data changes over time. This can help you identify patterns and learn more about what your users want to see.
Conclusion
Conducting a successful demand generation campaign requires an understanding of how to create and distribute content that resonates with your target audience. Additionally, it is important to consider which marketing strategies are appropriate for each stage of the funnel. By following these best practices, you will be better equipped to engage your audience and generate leads.
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