One of the toughest hurdles for new businesses, especially startups and companies in competitive markets, is demand generation. Unlike lead generation, demand generation is a far more complex process, making it even harder for emerging brands.
This post will delve into what demand generation is, how it contrasts with “traditional” lead generation, and explore nine demand generation strategies tailored for new brands. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of what it takes to generate excitement for your products and maintain a steady flow of (qualified) leads. So, let’s dive in.
Defining Demand Generation
Simply put, demand generation is – as the name implies – the process of creating demand for a company’s offerings. This involves a gradual, multifaceted, and comprehensive approach that often encompasses entire marketing departments.
Image via neilpatel.com Demand generation, much like conversion paths, can (and should) be visualized as a funnel. It starts by identifying audiences likely to resonate with a brand’s marketing message and then guides prospects through a funnel addressing each stage of conversion. However, unlike inbound marketing or conventional conversion paths (both integral to the process), demand generation tightly aligns marketing with sales to achieve these goals. Imagine demand generation as an enduring partnership between a brand’s marketing and sales teams, and its potential customers. It begins by identifying and qualifying prospects through content and inbound marketing, direct response and email campaigns, and events. These leads are then passed on to a nurturing team who further qualify them using scoring systems based on their position in the conversion funnel. Finally, these highly qualified, nurtured leads are handed over to the sales team.
Image via leadsmarketer.net
Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation
While demand generation and traditional lead generation may seem alike, there’s a critical distinction. Some businesses cast a wide net when it comes to leads, considering anyone who visits their website as a potential lead. This is particularly true for businesses reliant on high-volume cold-calling – like those persistent companies trying to sell you steak knives. In contrast, demand generation identifies prospects based on their initial interactions and guides them through a (often extensive) nurturing process. This provides sales teams with significantly higher-quality, truly qualified leads, resulting in more meaningful conversations, higher conversion rates, and increased sales.
Essentially, the most significant difference is that demand generation is a far more comprehensive and lengthy process than lead generation. It involves close collaboration between sales and marketing, integrating inbound, direct, and email marketing to nurture prospects while equipping them with the information needed to understand how your solutions address their problems.
9 Demand Generation Strategies for New Brands
Now that we have a clearer understanding of demand generation, how can new or smaller brands implement it? Here are nine actionable strategies you can employ today.
1. Offer Your Best Resources for Free
Whether it’s downloadable content, a complimentary offer, or another promotional campaign, always provide your most valuable resources for free. This may seem counterintuitive, but consistently offering high-value giveaways has numerous benefits.
One of HubSpot’s most popular content downloads, downloaded thousands of times. Firstly, it builds trust with your audience, increasing the likelihood of them returning to your content or website. Secondly, it reflects positively on your brand, potentially motivating enthusiastic prospects to become advocates, those coveted “brand ambassadors.” Finally, by offering something truly valuable, visitors are more likely to provide the information needed to qualify them as viable leads – the first step in demand generation.
2. Provide a Free Tool, App, or Resource
Offering a free tool or resource is one of the most effective ways for new brands to create a successful demand generation campaign.
nexus-security employed this strategy back in 2011 with the launch of the AdWords Performance Grader. This free tool has not only proven to be a powerful demand generation tool but has also assisted thousands of advertisers in auditing their PPC accounts and improving their campaigns. This reinforces our first strategy of offering valuable resources for free, positioning nexus-security as a valuable resource for advertisers. Over the years, we’ve graded billions of dollars in AdWords (and now Bing Ads) spend, solidifying our position as a trusted resource for PPC help, advice, and news. While developing a free tool or app involves development costs, we’ve found that these expenses are insignificant compared to the value the AdWords Performance Grader has provided advertisers and its role in our demand generation strategy.
3. Utilize Facebook Lookalike Audiences
For our third strategy, assuming you’re already advertising on Facebook (and if not, it’s time to reconsider), we recommend one of the platform’s most effective targeting options: lookalike audiences.
As the name suggests, lookalike audiences are custom audiences closely resembling users who have already shown interest in your products, services, or content, based on demographics and behavior. Facebook allows you to upload custom audiences created using data from your existing users, generating lookalike audiences with similar characteristics. A key advantage of lookalike audiences is the ability to double the reach of your Facebook campaigns by leveraging Facebook’s vast user data. The larger the uploaded custom audience, the wider you can cast your net. Considering the time people spend on Facebook, this targeting feature is a powerful demand generation tool you should implement immediately.
4. Collaborate with Industry Leaders on Webinars
Some brands, particularly tech companies and startups, don’t fully leverage the potential of webinars. While relatively easy to produce, if you don’t put your all into webinars, why would anyone tune in?
Larry has collaborated with renowned figures in digital marketing for his webinars. See the slide deck from his webinar with Rand Fishkin on content remarketing here. If webinars are part of your demand generation strategy, go all in and collaborate with industry leaders. This elevates your industry standing, forges valuable connections, and boosts brand awareness – all vital aspects of a successful demand generation strategy. Of course, partnering with industry stars isn’t as simple as emailing Guy Kawasaki and requesting his presence. Building relationships requires time and effort, and securing desired speakers might initially be challenging. However, when planning webinars, aim for the most respected and well-known guests and, as mentioned earlier, share your best tips, advice, and strategies during the webinars.
5. Utilize Managed Placements in Display Campaigns
Display advertising sometimes receives criticism. While it has limitations (and unique advantages), many advertisers overlook the power of Managed Placements in Display Network campaigns.
Image via Google For those unfamiliar, Managed Placements offer advertisers greater control over their display ad audience by specifying where their ads appear, limiting reach to individuals more likely to respond favorably. Consider it a more targeted approach compared to the broader reach of regular display ads. Since the primary goal of display campaigns is to increase brand awareness, display can be highly effective in a larger demand generation campaign. While conversions are always welcome, the focus is on increasing mindshare and promoting your brand – strengths of display campaigns. Managed Placements provide these benefits along with greater control over your audience, enhancing the effectiveness of this ad type.
6. Leverage Display Remarketing for Brand Awareness
Many marketers view remarketing as a powerful tool for boosting conversion rates. While this is true, remarketing is also a highly effective brand awareness-building strategy.
Image via Google Larry illustrated this principle in a recent post about remarketing, sharing an example from nexus-security’s traffic data. He explained that while we excelled at attracting new visitors, we struggled with retaining or converting them. Most of our traffic came from non-branded organic search and didn’t convert. Users typically visited once and never returned. That’s when we implemented display remarketing. As the figure below demonstrates, using display remarketing for brand awareness significantly increased our conversion rates over time:
Using direct traffic as an indicator of branded search terms, we discovered that after implementing display remarketing to promote the AdWords Performance Grader (see strategy number 2), repeat visitors increased by 50%, conversion rates rose by 51%, and average time-on-site increased by an impressive 300%!
7. Increase Investment in Content Creation
Inbound marketing is a cornerstone of successful demand generation, and content creation has never been more critical. A robust content strategy for demand generation incorporates elements of previous recommendations, including providing high-quality resources for free and establishing yourself as a valuable resource. Similar to demand generation itself, content is a long-term investment. Success requires consistent effort – something many businesses lack.
… And counting. Check out the live count here. If you’re regularly publishing blog posts, consider how to make them more valuable. Do they include original data or research, or rehash existing information? Do they offer timely insights into emerging trends, or are they always playing catch-up? Ask yourself tough questions about why someone would choose your content over your competitors’. At nexus-security, we’ve invested significant time, money, and effort into content. However, success didn’t happen overnight. It took several years of hard work for our efforts to pay off, and we’ve continued investing in content as a crucial element of our demand generation strategy. Don’t skimp on content – double down and publish only the highest quality content you can.
8. Optimize Your Email Marketing Strategies
Email marketing can be incredibly powerful for demand generation, but many advertisers misuse it or fail to utilize its full potential.
Image via Optimizely A/B testing is crucial for email marketing, and the phrase “Less is more” certainly applies. Bombarding your email list regularly risks alienating potential customers and harming your brand. Instead of constant blasts, work smarter, not harder. Every aspect of your email campaigns can and should be A/B tested for optimal performance. Test everything from headline length and subject line copy to linking strategies and offer placement to make data-driven decisions. Remember strategy number one – offer your best resources for free – in your email marketing as well. Constantly spamming your list with low-value offers will only annoy subscribers (and tempt them to unsubscribe). Offer your most valuable tools, resources, and offers to keep them engaged and eager to hear from you.
9. Consider a Lead Scoring System
Demand generation isn’t solely about increasing lead quantity but also improving lead quality. Lead scoring effectively determines if your leads meet your sales team’s requirements for closing deals.
Lead scoring analyzes your prospects’ past behavior and interactions with your brand to determine if they demonstrate sufficient interest to be considered “hot” leads. This involves examining their actions at various touchpoints, such as visiting specific pages indicating purchase intent, expressing interest in product demos, using your free tools, or their stage in the funnel (e.g., discovery vs. consideration). Lead scoring can also assess lead strength by considering the individual’s role within their organization, such as their decision-making authority and seniority. While tempting, lead scoring might not be suitable for every brand. If you’re struggling to generate enough leads, it’s probably premature to worry about scoring them. However, brands looking to elevate their demand generation strategies should consider lead scoring.