Demand Generation: Everything You Need to Know to Grow Your Business

One of the major challenges businesses face today is creating demand for their products or services. Because of this, the term “demand generation” has become a staple in the marketing and sales world.

When demand generation is properly understood and implemented, the results can be quite lucrative. In fact, it’s one of the top growth investments for businesses. In 2021, U.S. companies spent a total of $4.6 billion on digital lead generation advertising (Statista).

In this quick guide, you’ll learn what demand generation is and the exact strategies you need to follow to capture and convert high-quality leads and grow your business in 2023.

What is Demand Generation?

In marketing, demand generation encompasses the strategy of creating and nurturing demand for your company’s products and services. This is done by establishing awareness, interest, and desire for your products. The ultimate goal of demand generation is to increase your company’s number of qualified leads so you convert more customers.

In a typical demand generation strategy, you’ll see a combination of both inbound and outbound marketing techniques like:

Email marketing
Content marketing
Social media marketing
Targeted advertising
Cold-calling
Account-based marketing

When you use the right combination of these tactics, you’ll be able to educate audiences about your products, build brand awareness, and attract the right leads.

Once you’ve got high-quality leads in your funnel, the next step in the demand generation process is to nurture those leads. This is done by focusing on the relationship between your company and your leads, engaging with them until they’re ready to buy.

Successful demand generation leads to better customers, increased revenue, and business growth.

The 5 Most Effective B2B Demand Generation Strategies

Demand generation involves a combination of strategies. It’s all about bringing together the right ingredients at the right times—like a recipe. Here are the 5 most effective B2B demand generation strategies:

1. Email Marketing

According to the State of Email Report by Litmus, over 90% of survey respondents said email marketing is somewhat critical to the success of their company, while 41% said it’s very critical.

Email marketing is one of the best ways for B2B businesses to engage with and nurture leads to generate demand for your products and services. Email allows you to create relevant, targeted, personalized campaigns to contact and stay in touch with potential customers.

2. LinkedIn Networking

Another powerful platform for B2B demand generation is LinkedIn. Since the social platform is specifically centered around the business world, users are much more open to business opportunities. LinkedIn lets you easily connect with leads, nurture relationships, and build demand. By posting regularly, getting involved in LinkedIn groups, and reaching out to key decision-makers, you’ll be able to build brand awareness and trust with your target audience.

3. Cold Calling

Cold calling may seem like a thing of the past due to the advancements in internet outreach. However, it’s still an effective and direct way to reach potential customers, create demand, and generate leads. Even though it can be time-consuming, it is a great way to get in front of prospects, introduce your products or services, and generate demand. In fact, in a recent Rain Sales Training Report, 27% of sellers state that making calls to new contacts is extremely effective and making phone calls to existing customers is the most effective prospecting tactic.

4. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

If your B2B company sells high-ticket products or services, then account-based marketing (ABM) is one of the best ways to generate demand in high-value accounts. By crafting relevant and personalized experiences for each account, you’ll be able to build relationships with key personnel, develop interest, and improve your closing rates.

5. Build Site Authority with Backlinks

A critical component of search engine optimization is your site’s authority online. One of the best ways to build site authority is by implementing a link-building strategy to get high-value backlinks. Generating backlinks from relevant, high-authority websites essentially tells Google your site is trustworthy. But, these kinds of backlinks aren’t easy to acquire. The best ways to attract high-quality backlinks are to:

Create high-quality content

Reach out to websites to link back to your content

Work with a demand generation company that has access to a large pool of publishers

How Demand Generation Strategies Result in Higher-Quality Leads

The primary purpose of incorporating demand generation into your growth strategies is to attract more prospects from your target audience and increase product demand within your market. By implementing demand generation tactics, you’ll not only be able to attract and convert more leads, but you’ll be able to increase the quality of leads. Here are a few reasons why:

Targeting better audiences

Demand generation forces you to look at the type of customers you need to align with your business goals. By targeting your ideal buyer personas, you’ll be able to secure higher-quality leads with larger lifetime values. For instance, when you’re reaching out to prospects via LinkedIn or email, you can target decision-makers based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and buyer intent signals, allowing you to generate demand with potential clients that need your solutions the most.

Building relationships

While digital marketing has come a long way, it’s still a challenge to build real relationships with prospects since face-to-face interactions are far less common. This means you have to spend a lot more time, money, and effort on following up, which can be draining. However, when you engage with prospects through automated marketing tactics like email marketing and social media outreach, you can build relationships with potential customers and establish trust without taking up a ton of your time.

Nurturing leads

You can’t build demand without nurturing your prospects. By providing valuable content and offers through automated, multichannel campaigns, you can nurture more leads over time, keep them engaged with your brand and bring them further down the sales funnel until they’re eventually ready to buy.

Demonstrating expertise

If people can’t trust you, they won’t buy from you. As a B2B business, it’s crucial that you put in the effort to prove yourself as an expert in your field. This means educating prospects with content that’s engaging, informative, and enlightening. But this also means providing relevant case studies demonstrating what you’ve done for past clients. The fastest way to demonstrate your experience is by showing prospects results from real customers.

How Demand Generation and Lead Generation Work Together

While lead generation is all about turning leads into customers, demand generation is all about turning unaware prospects into leads.

Demand generation and lead generation go hand in hand to help you attract and convert prospects into paying customers. Think of it like a two-step process. First, you build demand in prospects so they become leads. Then, you nurture leads so they become customers.

Your demand generation strategy creates a pool of potential customers. Your lead generation strategy works to turn them into customers.

Benefits of Outsourcing Demand Generation

Demand generation is essential for any growing business. However, it can be time-consuming and exhaustive for teams already wearing a dozen hats. Here are a few benefits of outsourcing demand generation to a third party:

Strategy and Industry Expertise

Demand generation involves a specific combination of marketing, sales, and technology expertise that can vary based on the industry and take years to master. By outsourcing this activity to a demand generation agency with experience in your market, your business can access top-performing professionals who know how to quickly scale demand for your solution.

Cost Savings

Since demand generation requires a large capital investment in employee training, planning, and optimizing, the done-for-you services of a demand generation agency are often more cost-effective. Plus, you’ll save additional money since an outsourcing company won’t require salaries, benefits, and other overhead costs. On average, most companies save over 65% by outsourcing demand generation.

Scalability

Outsourcing demand generation lets you scale your efforts as needed since you can turn up demand gen efforts without investing heavily into staffing and resources. This means you can easily respond to market changes to ramp up efforts (or scale them back) when necessary.

Access to Technology

Modern demand generation involves a combination of both marketing and technology expertise. Hiring a demand generation company allows you to access the latest tools and technologies without making a significant investment or signing long-term contracts.

How to Outsource to a Demand Generation Company

Hiring an outsourced demand generation company can be one of the best ways to ramp up your demand generation efforts and bring in new leads quickly, all while saving time and money. Here are a few tips to follow when it comes to finding the right company:

Before hiring a demand generation company, you should define your sales goals.
Research multiple demand generation companies with a proven track record of success.
Schedule consultations to ask questions to your shortlist of companies.
Evaluate prospective companies based on experience, team structure, and results.
Hire the demand generation company that most closely aligns with your ideal outcome.
Continuously monitor the progress, performance, and ROI of the outsourced team.

What’s Next?

Demand generation is a crucial part of a successful marketing strategy. However, it requires continuous and consistent promotion through content creation, email marketing, social media outreach, and more.

Many companies outsource their demand generation, which makes it easier to build a prospect pool, unlock new opportunities, and convert consumers into customers.

If you want to accelerate your demand generation strategy, but don’t know where to start, reach out to Martal Group today. Our team of experienced B2B demand generation experts will do the heavy lifting so that you can take your business to the next level. Contact us today for a free consultation.

Customers Also Ask

What does a Demand Generation Person Do?

A demand generation person is responsible for generating and nurturing leads for a company’s sales team. Their main goal is to increase the number of qualified leads that can be converted into paying customers. The specific responsibilities of a demand generation person may vary depending on the size and structure of the company but typically include: developing and executing demand generation campaigns, creating and managing campaigns, analyzing data, nurturing leads, and collaborating with sales.

Is Demand Generation the Same as Marketing?

While both demand generation and marketing are important for driving business growth, they are distinct concepts with different goals and approaches.

Marketing refers to the broad range of activities that a company undertakes to promote its products or services and build its brand. This can include advertising, public relations, content marketing, social media marketing, and events, among other tactics. The goal of marketing is to create awareness and interest in a company’s products or services and to build its reputation and credibility.

Demand generation, on the other hand, is a subset of marketing that specifically focuses on generating leads and nurturing them through the sales funnel. The goal of demand generation is to attract and convert potential customers into paying customers. This involves a variety of tactics, such as email marketing and lead nurturing, to educate and engage potential customers and to move them through the sales funnel.

What is a Demand Generation Agency?

A demand generation agency is a firm that specializes in helping companies attract and convert potential customers into paying customers. These agencies provide a range of services, including prospecting, lead generation, and lead nurturing, to help companies grow their business.

Demand generation agencies typically use a variety of tactics, such as email and social media marketing, to reach potential customers and generate leads. They also use data analysis and marketing automation to track the success of their campaigns and to make informed decisions about future tactics.

The goal of a demand generation agency is to help companies increase their marketing ROI and to generate high-quality leads that can be converted into paying customers. They work closely with their clients to understand their needs, goals, and target audiences and to create customized demand generation strategies that meet those needs.