For any B2B or healthcare organization, demand generation is a critical marketing activity. After all, a brand needs to have an established level or recognition in the industry before marketers can successfully deploy lead generation and lead nurturing tactics. Demand generation creates that awareness and interest.
As we take a deeper look at demand generation, it’s time to dive into the three phases that make up any successful demand generation strategy. Take a look:
Building brand awareness is a vital component of demand generation. While the audience of a demand generation campaign is usually aware of their need, they may not be aware of your brand or the solution to their need. This stage of demand generation activities might include direct advertising, search engine marketing, social media, email campaigns and mobile marketing efforts. Unlike lead generation, much of the brand awareness activity occurs before any leads are collected, through actions like giving away valuable educational content in order to attract interest and build a reputation as a thought leader.
To stand out from the crowd, consider what your brand can offer that goes beyond your competitors and offers real value that your audience won’t find anywhere else. Consider the digital ad company Wordstream, which in 2011 launched a free tool, the Adwords Performance Grader, that allows anyone to assess the effectiveness of their Google Adwords campaigns, and where those campaigns could be improved.
Before launching a demand generation effort aimed at building brand awareness, make sure your brand is conducting the appropriate research and making data-driven decisions. Conduct market research to get a sense of your current brand awareness and perceptions, and work to determine what questions people have about your offerings. Create a campaign that will directly address the gaps in awareness that your research reveals.
Another critical aspect of a successful demand generation effort is facilitating engagement with your audience. That means creating content that is truly clickable, that addresses your audience’s pain points and is well-crafted, compelling people to read or watch and share.
Create a demand generation campaign that is designed to encourage engagement by planning a robust, cohesive content strategy. Make every asset you create embody the same messaging and tie back to the same goals. B2B video is one particularly compelling and growing content type that can drive top-notch engagement.
At this stage, you may even consider hosting an event to tie into your larger demand generation strategy or plan an appearance or a giveaway at an existing trade event. Such events can always be repurposed into digital experiences to share with your broader audience. Again, data and research are key. An event requires extensive resources, and so you need to carefully assess what will best serve your needs and how to reach the right people. Then, track the expenses and results of your event to guide future decision-making.
The third aspect of demand generation is optimizing performance, an area that we will explore in depth in Thursday’s blog post. In the meantime, learn more about how we approach demand generation.
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