Demand generation is the process of getting people interested in the service or product that you are selling. This is different from lead generation which is the process of converting that interest into leads such as name and contact information for your sales department to follow up.
What is Demand Generation?
Demand generation is the process that includes taking prospects from becoming aware of a problem they have which you can solve, to increasing their confidence in your brand, and making them interested in the solutions you are selling to resolve their problem. Part of this process for B2B companies includes building awareness of your product features and why they are important.
Sharing your high-quality content demonstrating your expertise in your industry, distributing free tools and other resources that show your product’s effectiveness, and sharing influencer posts displaying the value of your brand are all demand generation activities. If you create various types of content for people to interact with and you pay for the distribution of your content, you are running a demand generation campaign. The goal of a demand generation campaign is to make people aware of your business and consider buying from your brand.
Targeting Audiences for Demand Generation
To begin this process, you need to distinguish which people already know enough about your brand and/or product and which people don’t. A successful demand generation campaign focuses on stirring interest in a group of people and discovering which people in that group are likely to become a lead in the future. However, once you have determined those likely to become leads, the demand generation campaign tightly focuses on just those people. An effective demand generation campaign utilizes the data from a multitude of sources to identify prospects that don’t have enough awareness of your brand. Then you leverage your knowledge of this group to raise brand awareness in a positive manner to invite engagement.
B2B Marketing Strategies
1. Website Retargeting
One method of demand generation is using metrics to retarget specific campaigns to segmented groups. This can be based on where someone lands on your site and which pages they view. This method allows you to target visitors based on their level of interest in your company. You can tailor your campaigns to people who have already interacted with your website content.
2. Influencers and Decision-Makers
Account-based marketing (ABM) strategies focus demand generation campaigns on the influencers and decision-makers who are more likely to buy your product. One trick is to use a list of businesses you identify using the LinkedIn Matched Audiences or other similar tools.
3. Email Matching
Using an email matching service, you can eliminate anyone who is already on your list of leads to prevent sending them demand generation content. This elimination process will lower the cost of your demand generation campaign, and reduce any annoyance on the customer side for getting content they don’t need.
