There are so many options for creating a successful demand generation strategy works that it can be hard to choose where to start. Demand generation strategies have been known to work effectively with several marketing disciplines, including content marketing, social media marketing, and even more traditional outbound marketing methods, making choosing the right demand generation plan even harder.
Maybe the first question you should ask is; what do you want your demand generation efforts to achieve? The next question should be; do you have the budget or the tools to enact the given strategy? If you don’t know what you want to achieve or the tools you need to complete it, how are you planning to drive a demand generation marketing campaign?
Why Do You Need A Demand Generation Strategy?
The goal of any demand generation strategy is to help you reach your desired target audience and help with boosting sales and, ultimately, your profits. Your demand generation strategy provides an actionable plan that allows you to communicate your message to your desired target audience. Leveraged with the right demand generation tools, your demand generation strategy could be crucial for your business’s ultimate success.
Demand generation strategies can be utilized to achieve several business goals.
- Identify your ideal buyers
- Develop a lead generation plan
- Perfect your customer journey
- Manage your marketing efforts
- Highlight key sales and distribution channels
- Build and solidify brand voice and image
- Establish expert authority in the industry
Of course, these are just specific business goals, or they can be side effects of an outstanding demand generation strategy. Your business may want to expand your reach into a new market or get existing buyers interested in a new product offering. Whatever the case may be, demand generation marketing is designed to get your company seen or heard by the right people in the marketplace.
By managing your marketing efforts alone, demand generation can save you money and wasted targeting efforts by helping you choose the right marketing automation, methods and target audience that can be used in other marketing campaigns. The demand generation strategy can make a big difference in filling your sales pipeline and how your company is perceived within the industry. But the true impact of any demand generation marketing campaign can only be measured by what you and your audience receive from your marketing efforts.
How Do You Measure the Success of Current Demand Generation Efforts?
You can use a few fancy demand generation metrics to measure the success of your demand generation efforts, but nothing says impact like good old money in the bank. However, before the money starts pouring in, you’ll start seeing some key signs that your demand generation efforts are paying off. Here are a few signs of demand generation success: –
- Increased website traffic
- Increased social media and community engagement
- Higher click-through rates on emails and webpages
- More sharing and saving of content
- Elevated search volume for branded keywords
- Change in customer demographics
- Increased brand and peer recognition within your industry
These results can be measured using analytical tools or social media and website analytics. Changing customer demographics can be positive and negative for your demand generation strategy. If you are getting more quality leads positively responsive to your demand generation tactics, then losing loads of empty followers is a good thing.
Though high search volume doesn’t guarantee clicks, it shows a growing audience interested in finding out more about your company’s offerings. Sharing and saving are key indicators that your content is helpful to the audience, and having ‘competitors’ read and appreciate your work shows you are headed in the right direction. Of course, all of this must be positive engagement and not something your Public Relations Officer needs to fix.
The best indicator of demand generation success is when your company can achieve its measurable goals within budget. Driving traffic and sales back to your website, store or social media accounts is often the leading indicator of demand generation success. However, your demand generation success will be short-lived without customer retention and positive feedback.
Elements of An Outstanding Demand Generation Plan
You can’t be Heath Ledger’s Joker running around creating chaos without a plan. He had a plan because he had two main elements of a successful strategy. He had measurable and achievable goals, and he had a target audience.
If you have a pulse, you’ve probably seen The Dark Knight trilogy, so let’s use that to understand why you need these key elements to have an outstanding demand gen plan. Or maybe, like the Joker, you love chaos and failing every time.
Have Clear, Measurable and Achievable Goals
The success of the Joker’s goals was easily measurable, they weren’t clear to his partners or followers. And to a sane person, they weren’t very achievable either.
Know Your Target Audience
Heath Ledger’s Joker knew the citizens of Gotham but lost out on achieving his ultimate goal because his main competitor Batman, knew them better.
Stick to a Fluid Marketing Strategy
The Joker was all over the place, and though that got him a lot of attention, it didn’t bring in high-value partnerships or followers. Pick a marketing strategy that targets the right customers and works with their needs and where they are in their customer journey.
Custom Marketing Automation
Batman had an assortment of custom tools at his disposal which ultimately gave him an edge over the Joker, who relied only on his ingenuity and sheer unpredictability.
Quality Content with Context
As anyone who has seen every version of Batman will tell you, a few of them didn’t need to be made. Because a few of them were content without context, they did nothing for the fans and brand and were ultimately a waste of money or seemed like cash-grabbing (or email-grabbing) schemes.
When you don’t have these critical elements in your demand generation plan, your company can either not be seen by the right audience or make a lot of empty noise and turn them away. Without clear goals or a specific target audience, you can waste money and tarnish your company’s reputation. Don’t become a joke on the internet by not having a clear demand generation plan or using the wrong demand generation tactics and tools.
Demand Generation Tactics to Enact an Outstanding Demand Generation Strategy
When creating a demand generation plan, a few things to consider are the impact you want to make, customers’ wants, needs, and the channels they frequent. You can create a short-term, high-impact demand generation marketing campaign that utilizes customer intent to achieve your business goals. Of course, this is achievable with the right demand generation tools and tactics in your demand generation strategy.
Different demand generation strategies will require varying demand generation tools, but you’ll need tools that drive high-impact results for an outstanding demand generation strategy. Marketers in Demand Gen’s 2022 Benchmark Survey have found several essential tools to increase pipeline volume, lead conversions, sales and customer retention. These tools can impact demand generation tactics once they are implemented correctly towards a measurable outcome.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation consists of software applications that make your demand generation efforts easier to enact. This can range from scheduling tools to Content Management Systems (CMS) or complete CRMs and user management systems. Marketing automation facilitates a smoother customer journey by reducing manual processes and increasing performance and output.
Account-Based Marketing
The core function of account-based marketing (ABM) is to leverage a customer’s entire digital footprint (i.e., website traffic, app usage, purchase history, etc.) to deliver highly personalized content and advertising. Marketers use ABM to lower their marketing costs and increase customer loyalty, brand awareness, engagement, and recurring revenue. In other words, account-based marketing is a data-driven marketing approach that turns a customer’s digital presence into a fully-functioning demand generation strategy. Many marketers view ABM as the future of digital marketing.
Content Marketing
Content is king when it comes to demand generation tools. And content marketing tactics span a wide range of marketing strategies. Content is needed for emails, blogs, case studies, videos, programmatic ads, and social media marketing. When it comes to content, the list and usage are almost endless. However, content must be relevant and valuable to the consumer. To achieve that relevance and provide value, content marketing needs the backing of data-driven marketing to be a profitable demand generation strategy.
Analytical Tools
Analytical tools help you measure the results of your demand generation efforts. It also enables you to select the proper channels, measure content performance and intent data, and compare your demand generation tactics against your competitors. The use of analytics in your demand gen strategy is not even an option if you wish to execute a high-impact marketing campaign. Analytical tools even help choose which demand generation tactics would be more relevant for a specific target audience.
Multi-Channel Lead Nurturing
Multi-channel lead nurturing is all about using a variety of communication and marketing channels to nurture leads. Multi-channel lead nurturing uses multiple channels to nurture online and offline customer relationships using other demand generation tools such as marketing automation, emails, chatbots, and push notifications. Though it uses multiple channels, it doesn’t automatically mean a multi-channel marketing strategy. Omnichannel marketing is another effective multi-channel strategy that works well for personalization, customer acquisition and retention. Like many demand generation strategies, multi-channel lead nurturing requires marketing automation, analytics, relevant data, and quality content to be effective on the appropriate channels.
Retargeting
The goal of retargeting is to increase the frequency of a customer returning to your site or purchasing from your store. Analytical tools play a crucial role in segmentation and personalization, which are key elements of retargeting. By segmenting based on consumer behavior, purchase history, and relevant buyer demographics, you can create a retargeting campaign that not only makes your customer aware of new offerings but retain their interest in your brand.
Chatbots
Automated chatbots are a great way to build a relationship with your customers, reduce customer service wait time, and generate interest in your brand. Some of the most successful chatbot applications have been in the financial and travel industries. Chatbots can turn cold calls into warm sales by creating conversational experiences designed to answer customers’ questions and provide guidance during the customer journey to purchase. The key to a successful chatbot strategy is developing a conversational interface designed to build a relationship over time.
These seven demand generation tools and tactics represent the most preferred tools used by marketers in 2022. And for a good reason, as they make their job easier, increase reach, retention and revenue. Some demand generation strategies can increase budget costs, take a long time to implement, and bring in the target customers. Other demand generation strategies rely on consistent effort and analysis to power results. The advantage of these demand generation tools is that they reduce the hassle of creating, executing and measuring the success of your demand gen plan.
FrescoData’s 7 Steps to an Outstanding Demand Generation Strategy That Works
How do we create an outstanding demand generation strategy? Start by using all seven tried and tested demand generation tactics and more. As a data-driven marketing agency, we already have the foundation of all your demand generation efforts – data. As an experienced digital marketing agency, strategizing your next demand generation marketing campaign is what we do best.
Focus on Data-Driven Marketing First
We deliver actionable consumer data for your customer acquisition strategy and boost loyalty and retention. Our advanced data management services are customer-centric data-driven marketing techniques designed to create detailed customer profiles to match multi-channel messages while retaining consistency and personalization.
Enhancing Marketing Automation
Customer Relationship Management systems are sometimes an effective tool in a company’s customer acquisition strategy and boost sales. What if you had an AI-powered service that seamlessly fits your existing CRM? Or a unique tool that can aid pinpoint targeting? We have several services, including geofencing mobile marketing that enhances marketing automation.
Use Analytical Tools that Do More For Data
Our AI-powered analytical tools maximize the value of your consumer and business data by seamlessly integrating, managing, and analyzing data across channels and systems. We can segment, enhance, manage and secure your data per GDPR and CAN-Spam regulations. And save you the hassle of attempting to translate data analytics into an outstanding demand generation strategy.
Don’t Forget the Power of Creative Content.
Content marketing is a powerful way to build a brand, connect with customers and generate leads. But it can be time-consuming and expensive. And that’s where artificial intelligence comes in. We use AI to help marketers create creative content at a fraction of the cost. With our programmatic marketing service, we can ensure the right content reaches the right person, at the right time, across all channels, on any connected device.
Use Omnichannel Marketing for Improved Multi-Channel Lead Nurturing
Reach customers across multiple channels with our omnichannel marketing service that delivers on the promise of improved customer experience. Lead generation is the apparent evolution of all demand generation efforts, and lead nurturing plays a vital role in converting cold leads to customers and thereby boosting sales. Omnichannel marketing provides access to your target audience across multiple channels while retaining consistent messaging and personalized customer experience.
Account-Based Marketing for B2B Demand Generation
According to the Demand Gen 2022 Benchmark Survey, 43% of marketers recognize the importance of generating the right contacts in their demand generation marketing efforts. For business-to-business (B2B) operations, this means having the correct email or contact information for your account-based marketing efforts. As we acquire consumer and business data from their digital footprint, we can provide accurate and impactful business data for an effective B2B demand generation strategy.
Remarket for Increased Retention
Too often in the past, marketers have forgotten to focus on retention as part of their demand gen strategy. We create a remarketing strategy that uses Google Ads and our own data analytics to target the Google Ads Display Network or your social media marketing campaign with our remarketing service. Remarketing can be a valuable demand gen strategy for B2B demand generation, customer engagement and boosting sales.
With FrescoData, you can access impactful data, find lucrative marketing channels, strategize and measure your B2B demand generation efforts. We provide the main demand generation tool for an outstanding demand generation strategy – data. Save yourself and your marketing team the chaos and cost of wasted demand generation tactics and get the right tools for designing and executing an extensive multi-channel demand gen plan.
Partner with us today, and Let’s Strategize an outstanding demand generation strategy.
