Demand generation (or demand gen) is the process of creating and driving interest in a product or service from potential buyers. B2B demand generation involves a deep understanding your target audience. Crafting compelling messages and campaigns, engaging them with content, and ultimately converting them into customers. But how can you make sure that your B2B demand generation efforts are as successful as possible?
A quick guide to B2B demand generation marketing
Reviewing (and implementing) the below guide to demand generation strategies. They can help maximize your effectiveness and make the most out of your efforts. Here are three steps to get you started:
- Know your audience – Before launching B2B demand generation activities, it’s important to know who your audience is and what their needs are. Knowing this information will help you create campaigns that speak directly to them and capture their attention.
- Craft compelling messages – Crafting content that resonates with B2B buyers requires understanding what makes them tick and how they think about the product or service being marketed. Developing effective B2B messages involves creating compelling stories, using visuals effectively, and focusing on customer benefits rather than features.
- Create engaging content – B2B marketers must create content that is engaging and useful to their audience. This could include blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, infographics, and digital marketing campaigns. Utilizing a mix of tactics will help B2B marketers capture attention and drive interest in their product or service.
By following these three steps, B2B marketers can ensure that their demand generation strategies and efforts are successful. With the right demand generation marketing strategy in place, your B2B marketing team can reach more buyers. In addition, they can help generate more high quality leads for their business. B2B demand generation is an important part of any B2B marketing strategy – so make sure to maximize your efforts today!
Let’s dive in deeper.
Demand generation vs lead generation: what’s the difference?
The terms “demand generation” and “lead generation” are often used interchangeably. However, there is a key distinction between the two:
while lead generation is about getting people interested in your product or service, demand generation is about creating a continuous stream of qualified leads that your sales team can close. In other words, demand generation is about driving more sales-ready leads into your funnel. Lead generation is just the first step in that process. Starting today, let’s create demand! 🙂
Why B2B demand generation is important
B2B demand generation is essential for any company that wants to grow its revenue. After all, without a continuous flow of qualified leads, your sales team will quickly run out of opportunities to pursue.
However, B2B demand generation isn’t just about generating leads; it’s also about helping to build relationships with your target customers. B2B demand generation can help you identify the needs and pain points of your prospects, as well as their buying behavior. This information is invaluable for crafting targeted marketing messages and campaigns that will resonate with them.
Who is responsible for demand generation? marketing or sales?
When it comes to B2B demand generation, both sales and marketing teams have an important role to play. The sales team will be responsible for closing the deals, while the marketing team is responsible for generating qualified leads and creating campaigns that will resonate with your prospects.
The sales team can help by providing feedback on what kinds of messaging works best in the sales process. And also, which leads are most likely to convert. Meanwhile, the marketing team is tasked with crafting compelling messages and campaigns that will capture attention, engage buyers, and ultimately generate more sales-ready leads. By working together, sales and marketing teams can ensure a steady flow of high-quality leads into their sales funnel.
The Demand Generation Process
Believe it or not, there is a process for demand gen. Effective demand gen requires both sales and marketing teams to work together. Both teams bring different perspectives to the demand gen strategy, tactics and overall programs. This is a healthy balance that can assist delivering the right content at the right time in the sales cycle. This ensures your customers and potential customers gain the right content at the right time.
Demand generation strategies hinge on well-defined personas
One of the most important aspects of B2B demand generation campaigns are creating well-defined buyer personas. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional character that represents your ideal customer. By understanding your target audience’s needs, and pain points, you can create targeted content and campaigns that speaks directly to them.
Creating a buyer persona requires conducting market research and talking to your target customers. Once you have a good understanding of who your ideal customer is, you can start to craft targeted messages and campaigns that will resonate with them. But first start with your overall demand generation strategy. What are your goals? What do you wish to accomplish?
Get your sales and marketing teams together to develop these. Your sales team is in the trenches with customers while the process of demand generation is to keep the sales funnel full. Your efforts also need to support the sales process. Lead nurturing can also be implemented as part of your demand generation strategy and marketing tactics.
Use targeted marketing to reach more B2B buyers
Another key element of B2B demand generation is targeted marketing. Targeted marketing is all about reaching the right people with the right message at the right time. For marketing teams, this means reaching B2B buyers with tailored content and messages to their needs and pain points.
By taking a targeted approach to demand generation, B2B marketers can deliver more relevant content to buyers. This will help capture the attention of their target audience and drive greater engagement with their content.
Deliver your brands personality and unique characteristics to stand out
When marketers are creating content and campaigns, it’s important to keep the brand personality in mind. B2B buyers appreciate brands that have a strong identity and are differentiated from the competition. By delivering your brand’s unique characteristics, you can help buyers easily identify your product or service.
Spend time developing your brand assets and use them as a guide for all communications efforts moving forward. Branding will be another post for another day. 🙂
How does thought leadership impact demand generation?
Thought leadership has a direct impact on demand generation. By sharing your company’s unique perspective on a given topic, you can help educate buyers and build trust with them.
When crafting thought leadership content, it’s important to focus on topics that are relevant to your target audience. This will ensure that your content is valuable to them and helps you build credibility with them.
In addition, thought leadership content should be differentiated from the competition. It should offer a unique perspective that is not commonly found elsewhere. This will help you capture the attention of B2B buyers and stand out from the competition.
By delivering thought-provoking content, you can position your company as a trusted resource for information. This will also help drive demand for your product or service. Also leverage the experience of your team members. Drive innovative thinking. These things will help to create unique and valuable content that will resonate with your buyers.
Identify key content pillars and create unique content
Once you have a good understanding of your target audience and have identified content pillars, it’s time to start creating content. B2B content marketing is all about delivering compelling content that captures the attention of B2B buyers.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to content creation. Focus on creating content around topics that your target customers are interested in. Whether it’s educational blog posts, infographics, videos or webinars, make sure to deliver content that provides value to B2B buyers. Bottom line: create interest and support the sales cycle. If you need clarification, talk with your sales team. They’ll be able to outline the customer journey or sales cycle. Sales and marketing really are friends. 🙂
Develop top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content
One of the most important aspects of B2B demand generation is developing top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content. TOFU content is designed to attract and engage B2B buyers who are in the awareness stage of the buying cycle.
TOFU content should be educational and informative, providing value to buyers without selling them on your product or service. By delivering helpful content that educates buyers, you can establish your company as a trusted resource. This also helps move them further down the sales funnel.
Some examples of TOFU content include blog posts, infographics, eBooks, and webinars.
Start developing (and promoting) downloadable content
Finally, it’s important to start developing downloadable content to help support your demand gen strategies. Downloadable content includes (as mentioned above) whitepapers, case studies, eBooks, and guides that provide value to B2B buyers.
This type of content can help you generate high-quality leads that are further down the sales funnel. By providing downloadable content, you can demonstrate your company’s expertise in a given topic and capture the attention of more qualified leads.
Make sure to promote your downloadable content as much as possible. Leverage email campaigns, social media platforms, and other marketing channels to drive awareness for this type of content. This will ensure that your downloadable content reaches the right audience and drives engagement with your brand.
Create compelling offers and calls-to-action (CTAs)
Once you have developed TOFU content, it’s important to include compelling offers and calls-to-action (CTAs) to encourage B2B buyers to take the next step.
Your offers should be tailored to the needs of your audience and aligned with your content pillars. For example, if you’re targeting buyers who are in the research stage of the buying cycle, you may want to offer an eBook or webinar that provides more detailed information about your product or service.
Your CTAs should be clear and concise. They should direct buyers to a landing page where they can learn more about your offer. Be sure to include a strong CTA that stands out and is easy to spot and guide buyers know what to do next.
By including offers and CTAs in your content, you can help generate leads and move buyers further down the funnel.
SEO and inbound marketing
As part of demand generation, both SEO and inbound marketing efforts are important. First, when it comes to SEO, you should focus on optimizing your website and content for key search terms that buyers are likely to use.
This includes conducting keyword research, creating optimized blog posts and webpages, building backlinks, and making sure your site is mobile-friendly. Doing this will help you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), increasing the visibility of your content and driving more traffic to your website.
Second, inbound marketing can be a great way to generate leads. Inbound methods such as email marketing, social media, and content curation can help engage potential buyers and capture their interest. Make sure to create targeted campaigns that are tailored to the needs of your audience and include compelling CTAs that encourage buyers to take the next step.
By leveraging SEO and inbound marketing strategies, you can increase your visibility and reach more qualified leads. This will help you make the most of your demand generation efforts and improve lead conversion rates.
Promote your content across multiple channels
Once you have created TOFU content and included offers and CTAs, it’s time to start promoting your content. Do this across multiple channels. B2B content marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to promote your content where your audience is spending their time.
Some of the most common channels for marketing tactics include social media, email marketing, and paid advertising. When promoting your content, make sure to customize your messages for each channel so that they are relevant to the users on that platform.
By promoting your content across multiple channels, this drives more traffic to your content, increases the visibility of your brand, and keeps that sales pipeline full. If the funnel’s full, leadership and sales are happy. Maybe time to ask for additional budget or resources?
Publish content that address your customers’ questions and problems
Content marketing is all about addressing your customers’ questions and challenges. Take the time to identify common pain points among your audience and create content that provides helpful solutions.
Content marketing is an essential part of any successful B2B demand generation strategy. By leveraging content to capture the attention of buyers, you establish yourself as a trusted resource for information and helps drive demand for your products or services. Focused content provides value and promoting it across multiple channels can help you generate more leads and increase brand visibility.
Update content on a regular basis so that your content stays fresh and relevant. Making small tweaks to your content marketing approach over time can also help keep buyers engaged. This will help move them further down the funnel. Keep in mind that content marketing is an ongoing process, and it takes time to see results. With patience and dedication, you can create content that will drive demand for your product or service.
Offer Value-Add Content Across Multiple Channels
Generating leads is essential for any thriving program, and content plays a huge role in that. Crafting engaging materials across multiple mediums can help you generate interest among potential customers in your sector. So make sure to keep ’em enticed! To do that, explore different avenues like new marketing channels or eBooks; create an onsite blog or start hosting events near you. Whatever it takes to get the word out there about your business. Above all else though, think of who’ll be taking it in. Tailor-make great content tailored specifically with them (your target audience) at front and center!
Send emails that your prospects will actually open, read, and act on
When using digital marketing (email marketing specifically) tactics to generate B2B demand, email campaigns should be segmented and tailored to the needs of your target audience.
Keep email content clear and concise, and make sure to include CTAs that are relevant to the email topic. Also, use customer data gathered from email opt-ins or website tracking tools to create more targeted campaigns. By understanding the preferences and habits of your contacts, you can create emails that are more likely to be opened and read.
Drive demand generation with email marketing by sending personalized messages. Offer discounts on products or services, and promoting content that resonates with buyers. Make sure to track email performance metrics. Thins like open rates and click-through rates to see which email campaigns are most successful.
Nurture prospects with email and remarketing campaigns
Drip marketing and remarketing tactics can help you keep in touch with potential clients. The ultimate goal for any e-commerce site. Rather than just buying ads, you’re able to create a more personal connection by getting customers involved at their own pace. Do this through email or on sites they check out regularly. A great way of passively engaging buyers during evaluation stages. This is the sort of thing that makes sure your business has staying power!
This is also where marketing automation tools can come into play. Tools like Send In Blue or Constant Contact have basic automations. However, to do things right I suggest looking into Pardot or HubSpot.
Public relations and demand generation
Public relations acts as a Swiss army knife in demand generation marketing because it offers additional ways to reach your audience. You can create press releases and use public relations tools to reach out to journalists and bloggers. This will help you get your story out in front of the public, increase brand exposure, and generate more leads.
In addition to creating public relations campaigns, it’s also important to maintain relationships with influencers in your industry. Working with influential members of your industry can help spread the word on your brand and boost lead generation significantly.
Public relations and demand generation go hand-in-hand. By leveraging public relations tools to reach your audience, you can increase brand exposure, drive leads, and ultimately generate more sales. With a strategic approach to public relations campaigns and building relationships with industry influencers, you can create a winning demand generation strategy.
By using public relations strategies for demand generation, businesses can effectively increase their visibility and connect with potential customers. By creating content that provides insight on customer needs and promoting it across multiple channels, businesses can drive more traffic to their website and convert leads into sales. Additionally, public relations can help businesses reach a wider audience. It will also help establish themselves as an authority in the industry and build relationships with influencers. Through public relations strategies for demand generation, businesses can create effective campaigns that increase brand visibility, generate more leads and drive sales.
Social Media & Community Building
Nowadays, social media is one of the most important channels for businesses to reach potential customers. It’s also a great platform for community building and creating relationships with your audience.
One of the main goals when using social media for demand generation is to create meaningful engagement. Engagement that leads to conversions. This means creating content that resonates with your audience and posting it in a way that encourages people to engage.
In addition to creating good content, social media also offers tools for targeted advertising and retargeting. Through these tools, businesses can target their ideal customers and increase the chances of conversions.
Ultimately, social media is an effective demand generation tool that can help businesses reach their target audience and drive leads. Through social media, businesses can create relationships with their customers, increase brand visibility and ultimately generate more sales.
By creating compelling content and using social media tools strategically, businesses can boost lead generation significantly and generate more revenue.
Use the right set of demand generation tools
To successfully generate demand for your product or service, it’s important to have the right tools at your disposal.
Tools like marketing automation platforms can help you create targeted campaigns that reach the right customers with personalized messages. Additionally, tools like content management systems (CMS) can help you store, organize and manage your content in one centralized location.
With the right tools and strategies in place, you can create content that resonates with buyers and helps drive demand for your product or service. By being strategic with your approach to demand gen, you can maximize efficiency and get the best results.
Analytics tools are also essential for tracking performance metrics such as website visits and conversions. By understanding how buyers interact with your content, you can optimize your strategy and make data-driven decisions. It can also help you determine the customer lifetime value. More on metrics in the section below. 🙂
Demand generation metrics: how to measure your efforts
Once you have your content and promotion strategy in place, it’s important to review this marketing data. Analyze your key performance metrics to gauge how effective your efforts are.
Metrics such as website visits, leads generated, conversion rates, cost per lead (CPL), return on investment (ROI) and more can be used. They will also give you data to help determine which strategies need to be adjusted or improved.
Here are some examples of B2B demand generation
Content marketing
Content marketing is a great way to create awareness and interest in your products or services. This can include blog posts, whitepapers, videos, webinars and more that provide valuable information to your audience. By providing useful content, you can engage your audience and get them interested in what you have to offer. The foundation of demand generation.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO is an effective way to reach potential buyers by making sure that your website is optimized for relevant keywords that people are searching for. Through SEO, you can ensure that when someone searches for something related to your product or service, they will see your website at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).
Social media marketing & advertising
Leveraging social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and others can be a great way to engage with potential buyers and build relationships. You can create content specifically tailored for each channel that is highly shareable – creating brand visibility among new audiences who may not have heard about you before.
Email campaigns
Email campaigns are a great way to keep in touch with existing leads who might be interested in learning more about what you’re offering. With segmented email lists and personalized messages, you can target specific user groups with highly relevant content – increasing engagement rates and conversion rates over time.
Pay per click (PPC)
PPC allows you to place ads on various websites and platforms where potential customers are likely to be found. You only pay when someone clicks on one of those ads – so it offers a high ROI since there’s no wasted spendings on impressions with no actions taken after them. Additionally, PPC allows for targeting users based on geography, interests, demographics and more – so you’ll be able to reach the right people with the right message at the right time.
Referral programs
Referral programs allow existing customers who love your product or service spread the word via friends and family members who may also be interested in what you have to offer – creating more organic hype around your business. Setting up referral programs can result in an influx of traffic from those referrals without having to invest large sums into advertising or other marketing tactics. Plus, those referred customers tend to convert at higher rates than average because they trust their friends’ opinions more than what they see online or hear from strangers.
Events & trade shows
Events & trade shows such as conventions are physical places where potential buyers come together – giving brands an opportunity to directly connect and engage with them. Through events such as these we can show off our product/service offerings and further establish lasting relationships with current/potential customers.
What constitutes effective demand generation marketing?
Effective demand gen marketing is what we’re all after. So what is considered a success? That first depends on your goals and the metrics you’re using to track your progress. Only you can answer the question about success. No magic bullet, unfortunately. Just good, hard work. But by developing a sound strategy that resonates with your audience and leads them through the sales cycle, you’ll be on your way.
Review of key points
Did you notice a pattern with the above information? So many things are intertwined but to review the initial foundations I wrote:
- Know your audience – Before launching B2B demand generation activities, it’s important to know who your audience is and what their needs are. Knowing this information will help you create campaigns that speak directly to them and capture their attention.
- Craft compelling messages – Crafting content that resonates with B2B buyers requires understanding what makes them tick and how they think about the product or service being marketed. Developing effective B2B messages involves creating compelling stories, using visuals effectively, and focusing on customer benefits rather than features.
- Create engaging content – B2B marketers must create content that is engaging and useful to their audience. This could include blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, infographics, and digital marketing campaigns. Utilizing a mix of tactics will help B2B marketers capture attention and drive interest in their product or service.
Summary
Demand generation is an essential part of any B2B marketing strategy. And within that, your digital marketing strategy. So many strategies, programs, campaigns, plans, channels and tactics. That puzzle definitely needs to be a future blog post. Back to the topic at hand, demand gen. By understanding your target customers, developing compelling messages and engaging content, and implementing the right set of tools, B2B marketers can ensure that their demand gen marketing efforts are successful. Additionally, B2B marketers should invest in systems to track conversion rates, and data to better understand trends and buying habits. Following these steps will help B2B marketers generate more quality leads and drive revenue and business growth. So make sure you maximize your efforts today!