What is Demand Generation?
Demand generation refers to a variety of marketing efforts that create long-term engagement, such as lead generation, in an industry where improving brand-to-customer relationships is critical.
It consists of a sequence of touchpoints that are aimed at raising customer awareness of issues, positioning your brand as a trusted advisor, creating leads, then selling your solution, and fostering genuine brand loyalty, if it’s done effectively.
The “long-term” part is crucial. Demand generation isn’t something that can be accomplished overnight. It’s a method of engaging customers including inbound marketing methods, social media interactions, ebook campaigns, weekly newsletters, pop-up events, webinars, and more.
Demand generation, when done correctly, may raise awareness about the issues that matter most to your company, bring qualified leads that convert into sales, and uses position marketing as a revenue generator rather than a cost center.
So, what exactly does Pushleads mean when it comes to demand generation?
The Three Pillars
Let’s look at the three pillars of demand generation.
- Lead Generation
You must have leads to whom you can present your strategy before moving on to the next level of demand generation. Getting the attention of potential clients and adding them to your marketable database is what lead generation is all about. These prospects can then be sent on to sales development to be guided through the sales funnel once they’ve been captured via a nurturing campaign.
- Demand Capture
You may capture market demand and direct potential clients to your products and services if there is already a demand. PPC commercials, SEO improvements, and 3rd party intent data are all examples of lower funnel material that will develop your brand proposition.
- Pipeline Acceleration
You can impliment pipeline acceleration tactics to speed up the sales process once you’ve successfully generated or captured demand as actual opportunities. This can be as simple as conversing with potential customers or developing highly targeted material that addresses your leads’ pain points and corresponds to their stage in the sales funnel. Pipeline acceleration is also commonly achieved through field marketing activities.
Demand Generation Has Five Stages
- Goals
Where should a demand creation campaign begin? Obviously, at the end.
You may organize the remainder of your approach around the end game goals of your campaign if you establish them early on.
For example, if you set revenue objectives for bookings, you may work backward to determine how many opportunities you’ll need to meet those goals.
And how many marketing campaigns you run to generate these leads will be determined by that.
- Audience
Of course, you must first choose who you want to target before deciding on the programs.
Understanding your target population and creating customer profiles will allow you to more accurately target your marketing. Personas can be created depending on your target audience’s roles, needs, and goals. The more information you have, the better.
Because today’s consumers are being bombarded with information, content marketing that is strategic is more important than it ever has been. In recent years consumers have had more choice over which companies they engage with or see advertisements from, thanks to ad blockers, email opt-outs, and even new legislation like GDPR, which offer them the ability to quickly reject brands.
- Content
Once you’ve decided on your goals and target audience, you’ll need to plan and create content for every step of the marketing funnel.
Pre-purchase, top-of-funnel material that creates brand awareness identifies a need and drives desire.
During mid-funnel, you’re in the research-and-consideration stage. Here you want to educate potential buyers about the problems they’re having and then offer to help them with a solution.
Then towards the bottom of the funnel, you’ll provide niche’ specific material such as demo offers, case studies, and third-party evaluations to reaffirm why your product is the best option.
- Distribution
It is critical that you produce high-quality material. You must, however, know how to convey it to your target audience in the most effective way possible.
Delivering content to your prospects and sending them to the appropriate spot will necessitate a diverse set of programs spanning email, social media, direct mail, and even live events.
Then your distribution technique will shift. You will most likely want to throw your net at the top using networks, remarketing, and social media.
To urge direct response and convert prospects into qualified leads at the bottom of the funnel, you’ll want to do some paid search and email.
- Evaluation and Measurement
You won’t be able to figure out how well your programs work until you track everything they do.
Key Points
Here are three key points to remember to help you succeed with demand generation.
It can be difficult to generate demand. However, we’ve learned a few lessons that can help you succeed. Here are three key points to keep in mind when ensuring that your campaigns are successful:
1. Offer something amazing to your prospects.
Make sure that whatever you send out into the world is worthwhile, whether it’s a weekly email newsletter, an ebook, or a product demo.
You make a prospect more inclined to part with the prized contact information that helps you qualify them as a lead by giving them something actually beneficial. Plus, they’ll remember your brand and return to it in the future.
2. Inventiveness
Demand generation requires a strong focus on content marketing. And doing it well necessitates two things: money and creativity.
It’s pointless to rehash what has already been said. It’s actually a proven method to get lost in a crowd. Instead, make your material stand out by including fresh thoughts, research, and expert perspectives on emerging trends.
3. Always test new ideas.
Let’s face it: marketing is an art. But here at Pushleads, our team has a good understanding of what messages resonate with our target audiences and what specific types of content have been successful. Digital data has provided us with a great deal of reassurance in this regard. However, because we can’t go inside our audience’s heads, there will always be an element of the unknown.
Knowing what your audience responds to is critical to any successful marketing campaign, and A/B testing may help you find out.
If done effectively, you may raise the standard for your campaigns by increasing engagement, improving efficacy, and raising the bar.
In Closing
Thank you for stopping by today!
If you’d like some help with creating a demand generation campaign, we’d love to connect with you!
Please reach out to us through the link below and we’ll set up a time to talk.
We offer free consultations!
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