What is demand generation? And is it the same thing as lead generation? While some people use these terms interchangeably, they actually mean different things. Misusing these terms can create serious confusion within sales and marketing teams, and among non-marketers who have a stake in your sales and marketing strategies.
Let’s get on the same page by defining and taking a closer look at these three marketing practices, how they are commonly misconstrued, and the benefits businesses can expect from their proper deployment.
Defining Marketing Terms:
Brand Awareness: The ongoing process of maintaining a strategic, cohesive and visible company presence among target buyers. Brand awareness should build credibility, help your brand be known among target audiences and build awareness of what your brand stands for via content and thought leadership.
Demand Generation: Gaining the attention and trust of potential customers through valuable information – often achieved via thought-leadership content and third-party credentialing. Demand generation brings potential buyers into contact with your brand’s content and nurtures these contacts’ initial interest in your products or services. The focus here is to build brand recognition and to educate. Educate, not sell. It’s your opportunity to demonstrate that you understand your buyer’s problems and to explain how your solutions can address them.
Lead Generation: Capturing the contact information of interested contacts, through tools such as gated content, webinars, event meetups, etc. These contacts should be expressly interested in your products and services and ready to engage in sales conversations.
How PR Can Support Brand Awareness:
At The Fletcher Group, we believe brand awareness can serve two important roles in the sales process: as a “halo” hovering above the traditional sales funnel and as the “glue” holding the funnel together.
A buyer’s journey may begin at the top of the funnel, but they will have likely become aware of your brand and even developed opinions about the quality of your brand before being identified as a potential buyer. PR is a great way to reach a prospective audience outside the funnel and reinforce the brand throughout the nurture process.
Through earned media coverage – especially with outlets your buyers read and engage with – earned media brings the value of third-party credibility to your brand. A tenacious PR team can help grab customers’ attention and earn their trust, priming them for the initial sales funnel effort: stoking their demand.
The Problem With Top Of Funnel Lead Generation:
This chart from Garner Digital insights highlights one of the biggest mistakes we see B2B brands make in their lead gen efforts.
Notice how Gartner labels lead gen toward the bottom of the funnel. This is exactly where it should be, but many B2B marketers think of lead gen as something that they do at the top of the funnel.
Here’s how this typically plays out. A B2B business pays to acquire a large number of leads via sponsored content, events etc., but these leads are not really qualified and have not been interacting with their brand in any meaningful way.
You can guess what happens next. These contacts go into their database labeled as MQLs (marketing qualified leads). But most of these leads will never convert and your cost of acquisition will skyrocket.
Why? because they were never leads in the first place! They are unqualified contacts. Yes, they might have some interest in your industry, and they might even have a problem that you can solve, but they come into the funnel not knowing enough about your brand or your solutions to have a real interest. Pitching or directly selling to a lead at this stage in the journey feels like spam and the lead leaves the funnel altogether.
Demand Generation is the Long Game: Why It Pays to Be Patient
We get it. Everyone wants real qualified leads in the funnel now, or yesterday. And if you need to take a short-term approach to scratch that itch, then go for it, but be careful not to overspend, and start building your long-term demand generation strategy now. Here’s how.
Create content that educates: Work closely with your CRO/sales team to align on your buyer’s burning questions. Know what they are and answer them and then put that content everywhere.
If your product is complex and your buying committee includes technical personnel, create technical content too. This can include addressing technical pain points, illustrating/visualizing a complex process or promoting access to test environments, like a sandbox or a suite of APIs.
Need to demonstrate ROI? Consider an online calculator or other targeted content that resonates with the CFO.
Remember, this content is not designed to convert, it’s written to educate and credential, so it should not be gated. Understand the difference here and avoid the hard sell. You will be seen by and build more trust with prospective buyers.
Be where your buyers are: Amplify your demand gen content by putting it in the places your targets are. Be in the trade publications they read, at the events they attend, in the LinkedIn groups where they are members, and engage with the influencers they follow. A well-rounded distribution/amplification strategy will make it impossible for prospective buyers to miss your message.
Real Lead Generation:
With sustained brand awareness and demand generation programs in place, more contacts will become leads, and more leads will come inbound seeking your most useful content.
Does this mean you can’t pay for new leads? Not at all. Just understand what you are actually buying, which is new contacts, some of whom can be nurtured into new leads. Sponsored and syndicated content programs can put you in touch with new buyers in the right industries who are seeking solutions like yours. But they need the support of your content marketing machine before they become qualified prospects worthy of a salesperson’s time.
At the Fletcher Group, we employ comprehensive public relations and content marketing strategies to support your sales and marketing goals from brand awareness to lead generation and beyond. Need help with brand awareness, demand gen or lead gen? Let’s connect!
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