Guide to Demand Generation: A Key to Sustainable Business Growth
63% of Marketer say that Generating Leads and Pipeline is their Company's Top Problem
This is where Demand Generation come to play. If you do it well, demand generation can create awareness with your desired audiences, deliver more qualified leads to your sales team, and help link your marketing efforts to revenue.
Demand generation is an umbrella term for a range of marketing activities that drive long-term engagement—including demand creation, demand capture, and sales enablement. It can create interest in your products or services to build a healthy pipeline of qualified leads for your sales team
This comprises of a series touchpoints designed to raise awareness of customer challenges, position your brand as a trusted advisor, generate qualified leads, sell your solution, and foster brand loyalty.
Demand generation focus on the “long-term” element. Demand generation isn’t a quick fix. It’s a gradual, comprehensive, holistic approach to engagement that comprises dedicated inbound marketing, outbound tactics, social media, content marketing, email campaign, event and partnership and many more.
WHY DEMAND GENERATION IS IMPORTANT
Demand generation is critical because it helps to position yourself differently against your competitor. Rather than focusing on selling your solution, demand generation creates awareness of problems and building continuous need.
You'll need a robust pipeline of new customers if want to grow the business. Demand generation places the focus on being attentive to their needs and creating awareness and interest before selling. If you can do it properly at every touchpoint there's a high probability to increase the quality of the leads you’re bringing in through the funnel.
Demand generation can create awareness around the issues most relevant to your business, provide sales with the qualified leads it needs to close deals, and position marketing as a revenue generator instead of a cost center.
BUILDING BLOCK OF DEMAND GENERATION
Demand Generation from my perspective builds upon 4 main items: Testing and Optimization as the foundation and supported by 3 pillars named: Demand Creation - Demand Capture - Sales Enablement.
Testing and Optimization
There's no demand strategy fits all situation and condition. What might works in the past, may not work for now. What works with other companies, might now work for your companies. It's very important in the demand generation process to consistently perform testing and optimization. Only by doing it, you can expect an optimum result.
To perform testing and optimization, you need data to be analysed. Data is the new Oil some quotes says. It's become valuable resources for every business especially in today digital era. Therefore having a data-driven marketing is very essential.
There's no demand strategy fits all situation and condition. What might works in the past, may not work for now. What works with other companies, might now work for your companies. It's very important in the demand generation process to consistently perform testing and optimization. Only by doing it, you can expect an optimum result.
To perform testing and optimization, you need data to be analysed. Data is the new Oil some quotes says. It's become valuable resources for every business especially in today digital era. Therefore having a data-driven marketing is very essential.
Demand Creation
Business exists because there's a demand in the market. However, quite often the demand is not there yet. It happens mostly because the market may not aware with the problem they have. The market needs to be educated about the problem and the potential solution available. By only then demand exists.
Therefore, I make the first pillar of demand generation is Demand Creation. It's a process to raise awareness of the problem and creating interest in the alternative solution for your potential clients.
Business exists because there's a demand in the market. However, quite often the demand is not there yet. It happens mostly because the market may not aware with the problem they have. The market needs to be educated about the problem and the potential solution available. By only then demand exists.
Therefore, I make the first pillar of demand generation is Demand Creation. It's a process to raise awareness of the problem and creating interest in the alternative solution for your potential clients.
Demand Capture
However, creating demand in the market is not enough if we can't capture the demand. It's really a nightmare if you are able to create problem awareness and create demand in the market but in the end the demand to be stolen by your competitors.
The next demand generation pillar is Demand Capture. It's a process of building the needs of your solution and the ability to identify if the prospect having buying intent or ready to buy when the times come.
However, creating demand in the market is not enough if we can't capture the demand. It's really a nightmare if you are able to create problem awareness and create demand in the market but in the end the demand to be stolen by your competitors.
The next demand generation pillar is Demand Capture. It's a process of building the needs of your solution and the ability to identify if the prospect having buying intent or ready to buy when the times come.
Deal Acceleration
The third and last pillar is Deal Acceleration. It's the process of speed up the sales cycle. A sales cycle is very important for the business. Having a long sales cycle means requires extra time and cost to close the deals. It really impacts the overall company bottom line.
However, it's not Sales sole job to improve the deal cycle. Marketing also can provide support using Sales Enablement strategy. A sales enablement strategy is the approach your business takes to provide sales with the resources they need to effectively sell.
The third and last pillar is Deal Acceleration. It's the process of speed up the sales cycle. A sales cycle is very important for the business. Having a long sales cycle means requires extra time and cost to close the deals. It really impacts the overall company bottom line.
However, it's not Sales sole job to improve the deal cycle. Marketing also can provide support using Sales Enablement strategy. A sales enablement strategy is the approach your business takes to provide sales with the resources they need to effectively sell.
DEMAND GENERATION VS LEAD GENERATION
A lot of people are confused about how demand generation differs from lead generation
The core difference between demand generation, and lead generation, is the intentions as marketers.
Is the intention of our marketing campaigns only to collect contact information, so we can pass them to salespeople?
Or is the intention to educate our prospects, on the problem space, and why our product is a perfect fit for them?
Below is my summary of the significant differences between Lead Generation and Demand Generation. I hope it can give clear insight how lead generation are differ from demand generation.'
DEMAND GENERATION PROCESS
Demand generation is a hard and long way process. To make it easier to understand, I've tried to simplify the demand generation process as follow.
Demand generation is a hard and long way process. To make it easier to understand, I've tried to simplify the demand generation process as follow.
Building Brand & Problem Awareness
This is the first process in demand generation. The objective of this process is to educate your potential clients with the problem they might not aware of, the consequences of letting the problem happen in the long run also building your company brand as a trusted advisor.
There are many activities you can do in this stage such as Blogging, SEO, Social Media Activation, Influencer Campaign, PR Campaign and many others. I won't explain in detail how to perform all of these, there are many other great resource out there explaining more details about it. But the most important things to consider is each content you provide in this stage should bring value to your potential audience. If they can see the value from the content you created, there's a high chance they will engage with you and your company.
This is the first process in demand generation. The objective of this process is to educate your potential clients with the problem they might not aware of, the consequences of letting the problem happen in the long run also building your company brand as a trusted advisor.
There are many activities you can do in this stage such as Blogging, SEO, Social Media Activation, Influencer Campaign, PR Campaign and many others. I won't explain in detail how to perform all of these, there are many other great resource out there explaining more details about it. But the most important things to consider is each content you provide in this stage should bring value to your potential audience. If they can see the value from the content you created, there's a high chance they will engage with you and your company.
Generating Qualified Leads
At this stage, the unknown visitors of your website identify themselves by providing their contact details. It will happen if they can see the value from your offer.
Usually, at this stage, they have understood their initial problem and would like to get more information about the problem as well as the potential solution they might use. There are many ways to turn your website visitors into leads such as offering your highly valuable content as gated content, or run a webinar and ask them to register, create a practical tools and get them subscribe prior to using it or some other creative lead generation strategy you might use.
To ensure the lead generation process is effective, you need to pay attention to your landing page conversion rate. According to Leadpages research, the benchmark of a good landing page conversion rate is around 5% - 15% while the top of creme achieves > 30% conversion rate or more. While on my experiences, my landing page conversion rate is between 28% - 37% for each campaign. How I can achieve that result? Simple, by keep testing and optimizing.
At this stage, the unknown visitors of your website identify themselves by providing their contact details. It will happen if they can see the value from your offer.
Usually, at this stage, they have understood their initial problem and would like to get more information about the problem as well as the potential solution they might use. There are many ways to turn your website visitors into leads such as offering your highly valuable content as gated content, or run a webinar and ask them to register, create a practical tools and get them subscribe prior to using it or some other creative lead generation strategy you might use.
To ensure the lead generation process is effective, you need to pay attention to your landing page conversion rate. According to Leadpages research, the benchmark of a good landing page conversion rate is around 5% - 15% while the top of creme achieves > 30% conversion rate or more. While on my experiences, my landing page conversion rate is between 28% - 37% for each campaign. How I can achieve that result? Simple, by keep testing and optimizing.
Develop Needs
According to Salesforce research, on average, only 13% of leads are converted into opportunities. This mean 87% of the leads generated from the previous process are not Sales Ready. Generating leads consume a lot of cost and time, neglecting 87% of leads definitely is not a good idea. For this reason, we need to push the leads down the funnel by building needs.
According to Salesforce research, on average, only 13% of leads are converted into opportunities. This mean 87% of the leads generated from the previous process are not Sales Ready. Generating leads consume a lot of cost and time, neglecting 87% of leads definitely is not a good idea. For this reason, we need to push the leads down the funnel by building needs.
87% of the leads generated from the previous process are not Sales Ready.
There are many ways to do it. Name of few are lead nurturing, inbound lead outreach or one of most popular tactics that is outbound reach or cold call and email. For many salespeople, Outbound reach by sharing their company product or solution still become their favourite prospecting tools. However, according to recent research by Forbes, only 2% of "old way" outbound reach can turn into a meeting.
This number is not surprising, because the old outbound outreach is designed to capture leads buying intent on a similar solution they offer while maybe many prospects aren't at that stage yet. Lead nurture, Inbound and Outbound reach should focus on building needs by educating further on the problem as well as the alternative solution they may use instead of selling or promote a product.
Never position yourself as a Marketer or Sales who try to sell or promote your product. You should position yourself as a trusted advisor who guides them with the option that works best for them even though you may realize it isn't your solution.
There are many ways to do it. Name of few are lead nurturing, inbound lead outreach or one of most popular tactics that is outbound reach or cold call and email. For many salespeople, Outbound reach by sharing their company product or solution still become their favourite prospecting tools. However, according to recent research by Forbes, only 2% of "old way" outbound reach can turn into a meeting.
This number is not surprising, because the old outbound outreach is designed to capture leads buying intent on a similar solution they offer while maybe many prospects aren't at that stage yet. Lead nurture, Inbound and Outbound reach should focus on building needs by educating further on the problem as well as the alternative solution they may use instead of selling or promote a product.
Never position yourself as a Marketer or Sales who try to sell or promote your product. You should position yourself as a trusted advisor who guides them with the option that works best for them even though you may realize it isn't your solution.
Sales and Marketer should position themselves as trusted advisor that guides the prospect with the option to solve their problem eventhough it's may not the solution you're offer
Identify Buying Intent
There are many ways to identify if the leads have buying intent. One of the most popular methods is using lead scoring. Lead scoring is giving a certain score for each activity that Lead made with your marketing effort such as download e-book, open email, click email, visit pricing page etc. If the leads has reach your threshold score, it means they have strong buying intent. For more detail about lead scoring, you can check great content from Marketo named Definitive Guide to Lead Scoring through this link.
The other ways (This is my favourite by the way) is to identify the hand raiser. For you who don't know about hand raiser, it is someone who explicitly asks to talk to sales. With this approach you reach out directly to the leads and build a meaningful and valuable conversation with them. If they have express interest to have a meeting with your sales team we can categorize the leads as hand raiser. There are some tools available in the market that can be used to helps build up the conversation in automated way, which I will explain later in the next chapter.
There are many ways to identify if the leads have buying intent. One of the most popular methods is using lead scoring. Lead scoring is giving a certain score for each activity that Lead made with your marketing effort such as download e-book, open email, click email, visit pricing page etc. If the leads has reach your threshold score, it means they have strong buying intent. For more detail about lead scoring, you can check great content from Marketo named Definitive Guide to Lead Scoring through this link.
The other ways (This is my favourite by the way) is to identify the hand raiser. For you who don't know about hand raiser, it is someone who explicitly asks to talk to sales. With this approach you reach out directly to the leads and build a meaningful and valuable conversation with them. If they have express interest to have a meeting with your sales team we can categorize the leads as hand raiser. There are some tools available in the market that can be used to helps build up the conversation in automated way, which I will explain later in the next chapter.
Gain Trust
Once you’ve succeeded at generating or capturing demand as opportunities, you can speed up the sales process by gaining their trust using sales enablement techniques. These can be as simple as engaging in conversation with potential customers or creating highly targeted content that meets your leads’ pain points and is appropriate to their position in the sales funnel. Field marketing events are also a very common tactic for deal acceleration.
Once you’ve succeeded at generating or capturing demand as opportunities, you can speed up the sales process by gaining their trust using sales enablement techniques. These can be as simple as engaging in conversation with potential customers or creating highly targeted content that meets your leads’ pain points and is appropriate to their position in the sales funnel. Field marketing events are also a very common tactic for deal acceleration.
DEMAND GENERATION TOOLS
There are a few tools that can be beneficial as you grow your demand generation efforts. Using these tools can help ensure you’re working effectively to reach your goals.
What are they? Here are feature marketing, automation, chatbots, or email bots, that can scale up your demand generation effort.
- Marketing Automation
People hate to wait. When there's a potential client ask for a question in your chat, but no one responding will get them away. Using a chatbot, this condition will never happen. The chatbot will respond to the chat of potential client right away in a more personal way, and increase the chance of chat visitor into qualified leads for sales team.
- CRM
- Linkedin Automation
Linkedin is definitely a great channel for B2B Sales and Marketing to acquire customers. But connecting with your ICP to building needs in Linkedin is time-consuming. Fortunately, there are plenty Linkedin Automation tools available in the market such as ZOPTO, Dux-Soup, Expandi.io, etc to help you connect and reach the potential clients that engage with your own or company post, your company followers, or engage to your company Ads. You also can use the tools to make an automated cold outreach drip campaign on Linkedin (I highly suggest never use drip campaign to sell your product but instead building the needs of your solution/products). If you use it properly, it can be another growth hack strategy for your company.
- Automate Lead Engagement and Conversion
This is one of my favourite tools. According to Inside Sales.com only 27% of the leads are get contacted by Sales. The most common problem is, the sales team don't have much time to follow up the new leads so they are cherry-picking the leads and miss the other opportunities in the rest of the leads. Imagine if you have unlimited SDR - Sales Development Representative that can help build the needs through personal reach with EACH leads you generated. The result will be outstanding. In my experience, utilizing this tool helps increase the number of the meeting by 2x - 3x without adding an extra headcount of SDR or BDR. Name of few providers that build this type of tool are Saleswhale, Conservica, and Exceed.ai
There are many other platforms and tools that able to help you scale up the demand generation effort. Choose the tools wisely based on your budget and need. Need to ensure all the tools are optimally used to helps scale up your demand generation effort.
CONCLUSION
As businesses shift online, especially by this pandemic, more and more opportunities arise to connect with prospects in new ways. One of those new strategies is demand generation.
I hope this article can give you a clearer idea of what demand generation is and some steps you can apply directly in your company.
As you get familiar use these methods, you can quickly learn to automate your efforts to expand your reach and make your marketing investments pay off.
Are you ready to play the demand generation game?
Author
Handito Aji Saroso
Growth Marketing and Commercial expert who has strong exposure in growth hacking, client acquisition, demand generation, lead conversion, negotiation, deal closing, and account management through digital and conventional approach for a wide range of company sizes from SMEs to Large Enterprises. He has a deep understanding in Inbound, Digital, Content & Account-Based Marketing, Inbound & Social Selling, Solution and Consultative Selling and Strategic Negotiation. He also has experience in the overseas working environment when works in Singapore and Belgium.
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