Demand generation strategies focus on building reliable brand awareness and interest. The main goal of a demand generation strategy is to establish your brand as an authority in the industry and the result is higher-quality leads.
This blog will dive into what goes into building a successful demand generation strategy and why you should add one to your marketing plan.
Why Do I Need a Demand Generation Strategy?
If you’re looking to establish yourself as a leader or authority in your market, you need a strong demand generation strategy to create a foothold. As the authority, you’ll carry more weight with potential customers, which will ultimately boost your bottom line.
What’s the Difference Between Demand Generation and Lead Generation?
The terms “demand gen” and “lead gen” are sometimes used interchangeably, but they have different goals. As mentioned above, demand generation focuses on building brand awareness and lead generation works on turning engaged audiences into leads using direct outreach.
A demand generation strategy may include high-level blog posts, and free ebooks, reports or guides. A lead generation strategy uses more in-depth gated content (ebooks, guides or reports) to gather leads.
How to Build a Demand Gen Strategy
According to Gartner, there are five steps to build a successful demand generation strategy:
- Build brand awareness
- Create a content strategy
- Foster high-quality leads
- Add ABM strategies
- Find a marketing partner
Here’s how they all fit into the strategy.
1. Build Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness starts with creating content that introduces your brand and focuses on your ideal customer’s pain points and problems. This can be achieved with blog posts that focus on a prospective customer’s problem and how your company can solve them. Your blogs should not be used to make sales pitches — that may turn potential customers away.
Another way to build awareness is to offer free guides or reports. Providing free educational materials will engage your audience, increase shareability and boost sales enablement.
2. Create a Content Strategy
Your content strategy is a roadmap for the planning, creation and delivery of your assets. Content includes more than just words — it also includes video, images and other forms of multimedia.
As you plan and create content, keep in mind that your goal is to build trust with the customer — after all, your goal is to establish yourself as an expert. Create pieces that provide timely and helpful advice at every stage of the buyer’s journey. (Side note: It’s a good idea to have established buyer personas so you know exactly what content will be helpful at each stage.)
3. Foster High-Quality Leads
After leads start coming in, work with your sales team to nurture them and build a lasting relationship. Any content created should be in tune with your prospective buyer’s questions, concerns and behaviors, and interaction with these leads should continue through to a purchase.
It’s all about providing the right content at the right time for the right stage of the buyer’s journey.
4. Add ABM Strategies
Account-based marketing (ABM) targets a select group of accounts that have a higher chance of converting. These accounts are then nurtured through customized engagement and support. Consider creating buyer personas for these target companies and evaluate what business objectives and values the accounts share, as well as what major steps in their buyer’s journey precede purchase.
An email nurture campaign for an ABM strategy may include the following:
- Email 1: Re-introduction to your company
- Email 2: Case study highlighting a problem your audience has and how it was solved
- Email 3: Free demo
By fostering these relationships, you’ll create brand evangelists and even increase word-of-mouth marketing.
5. Find a Marketing Partner
Even as more and more people are heading back to the office, it’s safe to say digital marketing interactions are here to stay. Sharing your marketing messages online is easy, but stepping up your campaigns to a pay-per-click level can be difficult to manage alone. Consider finding a third-party marketing partner who can help amplify your message. According to Gartner, “ Partnering with a third-party provider can allow your business to reach a curated, prescreened audience,” which saves you the time of finding those people online.
Start Your Demand Generation Campaign
It’s time to get your company out there. Now that you have all the steps for creating a successful demand generation campaign, you can spread brand awareness and start collecting more high-quality leads.
Need help getting started with your campaign? Lynton has a team ready to evaluate your marketing needs and help boost your bottom line.
