Ideas For Getting Started With Demand Generation Marketing

It’s easy to get intimidated by all the new things happening in B2B demand and lead generation marketing. Whether this is your first time gathering leads or you’re a seasoned pro, we’ve outlined some key considerations to make it easier.

What are demand generation and lead generation?

Demand generation marketing is the process of creating awareness and interest for your company’s products and services through strategic campaigns. Examples include blog posts, videos, and chatbots. Demand generation is important along the entire buyer’s journey — and is most successful when you meet the right person, in the right moment, in the right place, and on the right channel. The buyer’s journey is made up of three key stages: awareness, consideration, and decision.

Lead generation marketing is enticing an interested person to provide their first-party data in exchange for some type of value, often content or offers. The sales team can use this data to further nurture the lead from a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) to Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).

Which is more important — demand generation or lead generation?

The answer is they are both important and necessary parts of a B2B marketing strategy. Demand generation helps ensure that you are filling your sales pipeline with interested prospective customers. Lead generation focuses on having the relevant content and lead-generation triggers to convert those prospective customers into leads and new customers.

How do you get started?

Understanding your target customers is an important place to start when learning who you want to attract. You can achieve this by creating a buyer or audience persona that helps you understand your prospect or customer’s behaviors and challenges. You can create your personas by following Two Rivers Marketing’s 7-step guide.

Set goals for your demand and lead generation marketing. These goals should be based on your customers and their journey, and could include an increase in brand awareness, higher social media engagement, and increases in form completions or blog views. Set SMART goals like number of leads for a specific division or a certain percentage increase in leads month over month or year over year.

Create a content strategy to help achieve your goals. A strong content strategy is a key to both demand generation and lead generation. You need a solid content foundation to ensure that you are creating awareness for your brand to drive demand generation. You also need a collection of useful content to help convert those leads into customers. Your content strategy should take into consideration your personas and where they are in the buyer’s journey.

How do I start generating leads?

There are an endless number of ideas surrounding lead generation. What you decide to do will likely depend on aspects of your buyer personas, like which types of content they like and where they like to consume it. As you create your strategy for lead collection, don’t forget the proper opt-in and communication permissions for your new leads based on your company’s privacy policy. A few thought starters include:

Gated content on your website

Gated content means asking a lead for first-party data in exchange for a piece of content. The content should be something valuable and relevant to your lead, such as e-books, white papers, webinars, and videos.

Paid media directing to landing pages

Paid media can be a targeted way to drive leads to a landing page for more information, quotes, or consultations.

Paid social media collecting leads within the platform or via a landing page

Like paid media, paid social media is a good strategy to make sure you are reaching the right audience. It is a way to either drive leads to an existing landing page or collect leads within certain social platforms.

Tradeshows and events

Tradeshows and events are not only excellent places to connect and network, but they can also help in gathering leads through event registrations and badge scanners. Consider additional methods to engage with your potential leads. These might include in-booth sign-ups for prizes, sweepstakes entries, or special on-site offers.

Get more ideas for putting your lead generation tactics into action.

Demand generation, lead generation, and what’s next

Once you create personas and goals, it is time to turn your demand and lead generation strategies into reality. Be sure to engage with your teams that work along the buyer’s journey and to test and learn what is working.

Need support on how to get started or looking to enhance your current strategies? Reach out to us with any questions or to learn more about our integrated marketing services.