What is Demand Generation?
Understanding Demand Generation helps you to appreciate the importance it plays in driving buyer behaviour down the sales funnel and in knowing the right content and tactics needed to engage potential buyers.
What is Demand Generation?
Demand Generation is about driving awareness and interest in a company’s products and services through open distribution of information or content.
The Role of Demand Generation
Demand Generation helps your organization expand into new markets, launch new products, build your brand reputation and ultimately warms-up prospects and clients into buying more products and services.
Buyers Journey for B2B Marketing Agencies
To increase sales, Demand Generation content focuses on the buyers journey and moving the buyer to a sales-ready lead. How innovative your product is in the market will impact your content strategy from generating demand to moving to a purchase decision.
New Concept marketing content focuses on convincing buyers and influencers there’s a problem AND your product or service can solve it. Content should focus on thought leadership to loosen the status quo. Webinars, whitepapers, articles, social media and newsletters are effective in generating demand.
New Paradigm marketing content is used to change their perception of HOW to solve the problem. The content s used to help them explore solutions and commit to solving the solution.
- At the “Exploring Solution” stage requires providing solution knowledge packaged in content like online and live events, use scenarios and case studies
- At the “Committing to the Solution” stage it’s about providing a value story, how it can impact their business. Presentations, demos and competitive tools can be leveraged.
Established Market content is to convince the buyer you are the right choice.
- At the “Justifying the Decision” stage you need to validate and justify the value through a business case, proof points, ROI/TCO tools, references and a proposal
- At the “Making the Selection” stage you need to validate and reinforce with an impact Assessment, like value reviews and ROI worksheets.
Lead Generation vs Demand Generation
Demand and lead generation go hand-in-hand. Demand generation content can be used to attract new prospects, build brand ambassadors, generate referrals and reinvigorate interest among potential buyers that may have lost interest. There are however key differences that impact how to define and measure the success of Demand Generation vs Lead Generation.
The Differences
- Lead generation: The goal is to create sales-ready opportunities by collecting information on prospects for sales follow-up; building a marketing database to gather lead information to track and warm leads and to then pass to Sales to close. KPIs can include, appointment setting, requesting a quote or a proposal, referrals and providing contacts with BANT – budget, authority, need and timing.
- Demand generation: Creates demand for an organization’s products or services through marketing, to encourage purchase. Demand generation content can be used for lead generation when the content is gated – the exchange of prospects information through completing a form in return for valuable content. KPIs can include, whitepaper or case study downloads, webinar attendees, events registrations, social media engagement metrics and webpage visits to, name a few.
