Demand generation marketing is the marketing function that creates demand for your products and services. It's different from lead generation, which is at the top of your funnel and is meant to create awareness for what you offer.
Demand generation includes lead nurturing, scoring and helps determine if your ROI has been met through multiple marketing strategies and programs. You use demand generation to find new customers, get old customers re-engaged in your offerings and promote new products and services.
Demand generation is all about the long haul. If you sell project management software for example, the sales cycle is usually several months long. It's segmented for different points in the buying journey, and demand generation, properly established and executed, guides that prospect throughout the entire buying cycle.
Demand Generation Marketing Tasks
Some of the programs and tasks you do under the demand generation umbrella include:
- Engaging with clients and prospects on Twitter
- Publishing blog posts that respond in-depth to frequently asked questions
- Promoting content you publish on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- Planning and executing email marketing campaigns
- Creating and hosting webinars
Again, it's all about being committed to prospects for the long haul.
One of the most critical success factors for your demand generation to succeed is really knowing who your target audience is by investing energy into developing her persona. Who is she, what position does she hold, how does she best digest information, is she the decision maker for purchasing your products and services - and a whole lot more.
Collecting and measuring data helps you understand if your demand generation efforts are on track, and if so, how effective they are performing for meeting marketing and sales goals. To that end, marketing automation tools help you track leads and shows how successful your last email marketing campaign performed.
Measured Results Marketing can help you figure out the best way to create and establish a demand generation program as part of your inbound marketing strategy, or we can analyze your current demand generation efforts and show you how to improve it.
