Have you come across a situation when a term come in your way repeatedly, but you do not know what it really means? Sounds a familiar situation?
If you are in the field of marketing, then How to incorporate it into the overall marketing strategy of your organization?
Well, we live in a world of information revolution, and it is impossible to remember every word and its meaning. Thankfully, Google is there to help us. However, sometimes it is better asking an expert about it.
By the time you read this article, it will be quite clear to you that what the demand generation is and what is its importance to you?
Demand Generation, What is it Actually?
The changing technology evolves the role of demand generation. Nowadays, BB marketers are enabled better with tools and mechanisms to fill the pipeline with real opportunities versus loads of leads.
What makes demand generation more relevant today than the good old times? Well, as he cliché goes, “there is no perfect pickle only perfect pickles”; you must include everything into your marketing strategy that helps in elevating your sales graph.
Today marketers find it the key component of the marketing strategy to fuel the sales pipeline. Since there has been a tremendous change happened in the buyer’s journey, the concept of ‘one size fits all’ is no longer relevant
You need to derive mechanisms by using new-age methods and technologies to engage buyers with personalized messages that are relevant to the specific buyer at a specific time.
Making use of marketing automation can help in creating brand awareness, demand and expansion of customer marketing and adapting the ever-changing journey of buyers.
Demand Generation is an Activity that Directly Contributes to The Revenue
According to the bookish definition, demand generation is an approach to focus on targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in the products or services of your company. When it is combined with the conventional outbound marketing approaches, it drives revenues.
It is used in B2B(Business to Business), B2G (Business to Government), B2C (Business to Consumer) sales cycles. According to marketing gurus, demand generation is in fact, the marriage of structured sales process and effective marketing programs.
It involves the whole spectrum of marketing and has a great potential of taking your business to new heights.
Demand generation involves a broad view of your business. The aim is to make your customers your brand ambassadors, and they generate further demand marketing and demand generation.
Demand generation ensures that the content targets the best business prospects that are very likely use your service or product.
It focuses on revenue-generating activities that give good value for money.
How to Make Demand Generation Successful?
Demand generation is the activity where your sales and marketing functions get aligned for making the best use of all marketing activities and sales leads. Integration of customer relationship management and marketing automation makes the demand generation successful. Here are a few key tasks that make demand generation a revenue generating activity.
- No disconnect between sales and marketing activities: Yes, it is the first principle when you want an effective demand generation. Get away from the habit of having discrete marketing activities and inculcate the habit of an integrated sales and marketing process. When you use a systematic framework to align customers of similar prospects and create a demand funnel, it becomes easy to track the progress of buying process.
- You should know the buying rationale: Yes, you must know what people buy and why? When it happens, sales picks up at the point where marketing department hands over. The transition is absolutely seamlessly. It becomes possible by developing a holistic buyer persona. Also, it is important that the right content is delivered to the right buyer at the right time.
- Focusing the right target buyers: After understanding the buyer behavior, you can make a priority list and handover to the sales team. Thus, they can focus on the right leads.
Events, An Important Tool for Demand Generation
Statistics says that more than 80 percent marketers invest heavily on event, especially if they are into B2B business.
In-person events are targeted towards a specific group (regardless of its venue or magnitude). These events acknowledge the problems faced by the businesses or the industry as a whole and they offer solutions.
Examples of Events
- Conferences
- Classroom seminars
- Road shows
- Tradeshows
- Webinar
- Live streaming
- In-person events like breakfast, lunch or dinner for a smaller group of customers, dinner with CEO kind of activities or movie screening and other events.
Role of Today’s Demand Marketer’s Perspective
Earlier, technology was not in place to take the real benefit of demand marketing. However, demand generation is about developing sales pipeline that will convert every opportunity in revenues.
When you know what your target is and who are your prospective buyers, it becomes easy to derive appropriate strategy. You know what problems can be addressed by your marketing strategies. It gives you tools to get information about every stage of buying journey.
From initial awareness about your product to converting a prospective buyer into the real customer; demand generation is incredibly helpful.
When your work with the sales team to convert marketing-qualified leads into a sales-acceptance lead or converting sales-acceptance lead into sales-qualified leads; demand generation plays a vital role.
In the data-driven world, you must build a marketing automation platform to connect the dots, from the beginning-to-end; so that there is sufficient visibility.
Demand generation using new-age tools would help in achieving incredible heights whether you are a small-sized company or a large corporate house.
Leverage the technology as much as possible because in the competitive business environment today, when bottom lines are always under pressure, you need ways to save every possible buck.
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