A Guide To Creating a Successful Demand Generation Campaign

By MTS Staff Writer On Feb 15, 2024

A demand generation strategy is as strong as the campaign through which it is created, but if you are not sure about the goals you are planning to achieve then you will struggle to build strategies that can give great results.

Demand generation is a powerful technique that can help you bolster brand awareness, and it is about giving the solution to those who need it the most. It helps you drive demand and improve the sales cycle. To achieve this, you must be able to create compelling and well-structured campaigns that should be built around your demand generation goals.

So, let’s understand what is demand generation and how to create a successful demand generation campaign that helps you meet your targets and boost conversions.

Know your audience:

Knowing your target B2B customers intimately is what will enable you to have an efficient marketing campaign. B2B is an aggressive space therefore having a very targeted and specific audience might just be your strength. On the demand generation campaigns, you master the art of identifying the things that customers have in their minds and finding the best solutions for them.

While demand generation can deliver positive outcomes for your business, it is a strategic thing to do. Maybe your company wants to launch certain campaigns, but you do not know how to implement the initial things. So, here is how you will get acquainted with things to consider when running your first demand generation campaign. In this guide, these things will be clarified.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a compelling tactic that blends storytelling with product education. Demand generation is a marketing strategy that pulls these two concepts together. It delivers a deep insight into the audience’s pain areas and uses the company’s practical products or services to eradicate those issues.

There are five stages of demand generation:

Enlist your targets for how many leads you want to find out
Building buyer personas to reach the target market
Tailoring the content based on the persona’s stage of the journey
Publishing content via the right channels
Measuring your success

Businesses that allocate their funds to the demand generation approach should have a mix of various channels including social media, content marketing, SEO, advertising, and account-based marketing to gain more demand from the target audience.

Demand generation tactics helps to gain the attention of your audience by producing content related to their issues published in the right place at the right time. The ultimate purpose and objective of demand generation as per marketing is to turn prospects into leads that you can cultivate to alleviate backlogs and bring them through the sales funnel.

In short, demand generation marketing is known as a data-driven inbound strategy that is used to generate demand and increase the number of prospective leads in the early stages of the sales pipeline.

What are demand generation campaigns?

The main goal of using a demand generation marketing plan is understanding your key audience. Hence you can achieve a spark of enthusiasm toward that group by showing how your solutions could solve pain points for that target audience.

Tune in buyer intent with a customer experience journey that makes it easy for prospective clientele to easily identify your company as the obvious remedy to their problem.

Through the implementation of this solution-focused approach once you figure out the right target audience you can increase demand. The outcome is better-qualified leads and getting a ready-made plan for your sales team to close deals much simpler. Demand creation campaigns are the set of tactics that you adopt to put them all together in building your full demand gen strategy. The main aim of demand generation strategies is:

Boost recognition of your brand
Educate prospective customers
Get qualified leads
Show your authority and knowledge.
Accelerate the sales cycle
Determine possible paths for sales
Boost the conversion rate of your website

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How is Demand Generation different from Lead Generation?

Demand generation and lead generation are two important assets of a full-blown marketing strategy, performing distinctive roles in revenue and the business growth-oriented process. Though they are similar, the outcome that the two concepts are crucial in the marketing funnel differs where both have specific roles and goals.

1. Promotes and leads to:

Demand generation includes the bigger strategy of promoting awareness and curiosity among the customers by the company towards its products or services. The main goal is to drive demand for the product, attract favorable buyers, and gradually build trustworthy relationships throughout the buyer journey. A fundamental characteristic of demand generation activities is their ability to engage as leads proceed through several stages of a sales funnel, ranging from the initial stage of awareness to consideration and eventually, the conversion.

On the other hand, lead generation is part of demand generation and demonstrates the activity of collecting leads at the early stages from prospects who are interested in a company’s product. Unlike demand generation, which is broader and more aimed at awareness creation and generating interest among a wider audience, lead generation is narrow, being more transactional and aimed at conversion, namely that of leads seeking the company’s contact.

2. Objectives and Scope:

The primary distinction between demand generation and lead generation lies in their objectives and scope. While lead generation is tailored to capturing leads and moving them through the sales funnel towards a conversion, demand generation, on the other hand, is more inclined towards building brand awareness, knowledge transfer, and relationship building that will develop awareness and demand for your product in the long term.

To put it simply, demand generation has a wider net that catches and engages the audiences at large while lead generation targets and converts potential customers who are more likely to be buyers.

3. Marketing Activities:

Demand generation is within a broad category of marketing activities and techniques tailored to develop an awareness creation, arouse an interest and an interactive process among prospective customers. There might be various types of activities such as the marketing by content, social media, email, SEO, and finally events or webinars. Demand generation focuses on creating brand value and positioning, creating trust, and developing prospects with a critical impact on the final conversion and commercialization of the product.

While lead generation deals with capturing leads or prospects who show some level of interest in the company’s services or products, it is the process of gathering people who are highly interested in these services or products that lead nurturing concentrates on. Usually this means someone persuades the prospect that the value of your offering is worth their contact information, as in a downloadable resource, registration for a webinar, or a product demo.

Lead generation techniques can be a wide variety of approaches like lead magnets, gated content, landing pages, forms and CTAs’s are the most used ones. Lead Gen is all about taking contact information and running a mail or email campaigns to directly engage with prospects who might become customers.

4. The Best Strategy:

The strategy of the top of the funnel, the demand generation, is the overarching marketing approach encompassing brand awareness building, audience engagement, and project nurturing. While lead generation is the part of the demand generation process which targets lead capture and conversion.

The duo of demand and lead generation are, essentially, vital pillars of effective marketing whereby they cause business expansion, raise revenue and also, maximize on return on investment (ROI) Through the cultural aspects of demand generation and lead generation, marketers are able to progress to the creation of more effective strategies and tactics that will attract, retent, and convert fans into the loyal customers.

Defining if the lead generation or demand generation will bring the best outcome, we must be aware of different aspects, such as what goals does the marketing campaign pursue, who is the audience and the specific needs of the business. It is crucial to recognize that both these strategic avenues of lead generation and marketing demand are fundamental parts of marketing strategy, and the way the each strategy is utilized depends on the particular application.

The most impactful marketing strategies frequently require the tie-in of the two different forms of demand marketing and lead generation tactics. The use of several lead generation tactics will also capture and convert leads while demand generation tactics will help increase brand awareness and engagement, thus providing a comprehensive marketing strategy to achieve both short and long-term goals.

Finally, the best strategy is the one that is consistent with the marketing campaign’s targeted objectives, and the business’s special requirements. Through the realization of the differences and similarities between lead and demand generation and using the strengths of both approaches accordingly, businesses can design targeted marketing strategy with an aim of obtaining the goals they set.

How do you design a campaign for demand generation?

Though many marketers are aware of lead generation, they may not know how to launch a demand-generating initiative. If you’re unfamiliar with demand creation, use this framework to create a campaign that works and gives you additional possibilities.

1. Initial research

The first step is to have a deep comprehension of the problems that your target audience faces. Undertake comprehensive investigation to:

Determine optimal client profiles. As a B2B company, your target market is specific types of businesses rather than individual customers. Choosing the best businesses based on their size, industry, goods, and audience creates an ideal customer profile (ICP).
Develop consumer personas. The fictionalized depictions of the purchasers you deal with at your ICP are known as customer personas. The personas contain details on a prospect’s work style, job title, age, gender, and other attributes.
Recognize their problems. The most urgent demands of your audience are their pain spots. Understanding their most basic demands enables you to present your business as the best option.
Be aware of appropriate customer language. Choose the messaging that will most likely cause your audience to take notice based on their areas of suffering.
Recognize the actions of your clients. Find out how long it takes your consumers to make decisions, whether they work in groups or alone, and how they like to be informed about new options. This will assist you in selecting the appropriate cadence and marketing channels.
Recognize the existing solutions. You can set your brand apart from the competition by being aware of the possibilities that are currently on the market. For instance, you may use audience complaints to present your company as a superior option if they say your rivals are sluggish or provide subpar customer service.

You’ll know more about how to portray your business as a solution if you deeply understand your clients’ demands. For instance, if your target market is budget-conscious, they probably won’t be impressed with a high-end item. Modify your messaging to match the expectations of the audience with your brand.

2. Define your solution

Having identified your target market, the following stage is to describe your product or service as a solution precisely. Here’s where you start coming up with a few talking points that explain why people need your good or service. There are several approaches to this, and we’ll go over a couple. You must define your solution to match the customer’s expectations with what you can provide.

Emphasize how your solution addresses the main problems faced by your audience rather than its characteristics. However, instead of making yourself the focus of attention, highlight how your ideas improve the prospect’s quality of life. Conversion rates will rise if you keep the messaging concentrated on the advantages you provide rather than your brand.

3. Decide on the specifics

You now have a broad concept for your demand-generating strategy. Next, choose your publication channels and make the following campaign refinements. Select the platforms where you are most likely to interact with your target audience based on your customer profiles.

This could be done through forums, social media, email, industry events, or forums. Select a few of the sites where your target audience is already active. Think of the following:

Deciding how long to run a campaign. Every demand-generating initiative must have an end. Establish clear start and finish dates for your campaign so that you can track its effectiveness with ease.
Selecting the kind of Content: To develop demand, choose whether to provide textual material, podcasts, social media postings, or videos.
Creating a spending plan: Making the most of your marketing resources is ensured by budgeting. Additionally, it enables the computation of the ROI following the conclusion of the demand-generating campaign.
Specify your key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics: Choose your metrics for success and failure. Select measurable indicators such as marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) or cost per acquisition.

Once the campaign’s details are known, enter them into your marketing automation program. To make campaign execution easier, assign responsibilities, make a content strategy, and mark crucial dates on your calendar.

4. Create quality content

Your content must be informative because demand creation aims to draw attention to a prospect’s problems and enlighten them about your solutions. The objective is to gently push your brand as the best answer while educating your customers about the issue they are facing.

Use these pointers to create the appropriate kinds of content for your demand creation campaign.

Consider offering free reports or case studies.

For a business-to-business audience, one of the finest methods to demonstrate the validity of your product is via quantitative data and expert studies. Provide highly analyzed, metric-rich information at no cost to add value, inform potential customers about a problem, and show why your company is the best choice.

Since the leads must read and distribute the report to their teams, this might result in a longer decision-making cycle. The detailed reports will assist you in identifying qualified prospects who are most interested in your offers so that the wait will be worthwhile. Seek after leads who show the greatest interest in your reports rather than those who don’t have an issue you’re seeking to fix.

Create your blog and try guest blogging

One of the most often-used content channels for demand development is blogging. Producing material regularly helps you gain credibility and positions your company as an authority on the issue you’re resolving. Blogging is an excellent technique to arrange frequent interactions with your target audience when combined with email marketing.

Although publishing guest posts on other sites might help you reach a wider audience, blogging on your website is still a terrific option. If raising awareness is your primary concern, publishing articles on other reputable websites will establish your business as a thought leader. Naturally, the caliber of the website on which you are guest writing will determine this. Make a pitch to well-known businesses, publications, or websites in your field to gain recognition more quickly.

Utilize social media channels.

Any digital marketing effort needs social media content. You’ll have more chances to raise awareness if you market yourself on the appropriate social media platforms, particularly if you provide material that your fans will want to share.

Two-way communication is another feature of social media that makes it easier for you to interact with your followers.

Demand creation generates interest in what you’re selling, which attracts additional clients to your funnel.

5. Track, test, and adjust

It’s time to monitor the status of your material after it has been created. This is where your KPIs and metrics are useful. Regularly check your stats to see how your audience is interacting with the material.

Examine your analytics to identify the underlying reason if you discover any failing areas. To determine which adjustments would most effectively raise your KPIs, you may need to conduct an A/B test. Your conversion rates can be affected by landing page design, buttons, pictures, and content style. Install heat maps to find areas of friction if you’re still unsure about why your content isn’t doing as well as it should.

6. Review the campaign

After your demand creation campaign concludes, get the team together for a post-mortem. Reviewing a campaign’s outcomes in terms of your performance metrics and qualitative evaluations is always a good idea to identify what worked well and what still needs improvement.

Make a list of the strategies you intend to use in the next campaigns and look for areas where you can improve. Before planning your next demand generation campaign, review these points to ensure you don’t repeat the same mistakes.

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Use the tools to help you manage your demand generation campaign

Creating demand for your business’s goods or services can fill your marketing and sales funnels with additional clients. But it’s more complex to drive demand. To handle everything on a scale, you need the greatest tools available to you and the correct plan in place.

When you’re ready to go, determine whether your present software’s demand-generating campaign creation and management capabilities are sufficient. Adobe Marketo Engage leverages marketing automation to increase engagement and growth. Marketers can offer successful demand generation automation, from acquisition to advocacy, using the full toolbox provided by Marketo Engage. Let’s check a few tools that can help to build successful demand generation campaigns.

1. Dealfront Promote: Target website visitors with precision

Dealfront Promote is an expert in business-to-business (B2B) display advertising. By targeting the IP addresses of certain organizations, programmatic display adverts may be directed to them. With major account lists as the emphasis, this precision targeting is especially helpful for brand and product awareness initiatives.

Dealfront Promote’s ability to go beyond conventional remarketing is what sets it apart. A wider audience can be achieved by the tool’s automatic targeting of open customer relationship management (CRM) deals. When a company has to target a wide audience then this tool can be highly effective. For demand generation campaigns it can help in the following ways:

Precise Targeting: Dealfront Promote makes sure that demand generation efforts are focused on relevant and high-potential leads by using their IP addresses to target certain organizations. Demand generation efforts can be as effective as possible because of this precision targeting, which raises the possibility of engagement and conversion.
Increased Brand Awareness: Dealfront Promote works with companies to make their brands more visible to their target market with programmatic display ads. Businesses can create interest and awareness among potential customers by addressing them at critical touchpoints. This lays the groundwork for further demand-generation initiatives.
Better Lead Quality: Demand generation campaigns are more likely to focus on high-quality leads with a greater conversion rate when they can target specific organizations and key clients. By doing this, companies may maximize their return on investment by avoiding wasting money on leads that are low-potential or irrelevant.
Extensive Analytics: Dealfront Promote provides organizations with real-time monitoring of the efficacy of their campaigns with its sophisticated analytics and reporting features. Businesses may obtain important insights into campaign success and make data-driven improvements to enhance outcomes by monitoring metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions.
Enhanced Interaction: Dealfront Promote expands target audience interaction by providing billions of potential impressions and the ability to run advertising across several internet venues. Businesses may boost contact and engagement with potential customers by engaging them through a variety of channels and touchpoints, which will enhance demand and interest in their products and services.
Cost: Starts with a complimentary 14-day trial. Plans with yearly payments start at €139 per month. Customized price plans are offered for extra features.
Perfect for: All sizes of B2B marketing and sales companies.

2. Voild Nobert

Voila Norbert makes it easier to get email addresses for leads by offering an intuitive platform for lead management and the ability to measure interactions right from the dashboard.

Voila Norbert improves an organization’s productivity by making lead finding easier and providing tracking features. It makes making lists and notes easier, which makes managing contacts and organizing tasks simpler. This feature is very helpful for handling a high number of leads, guaranteeing prompt and customized communication. It can support demand generation campaigns in the following ways:

Lead Acquisition: By helping businesses quickly obtain the email addresses of fresh leads, Voila Norbert increases the number of possible clients available for demand creation initiatives.
Lead management: It is made easier by the platform’s list and note creation functions, which guarantee that every lead is effectively arranged and tracked during the demand-generation campaign.
Personalized Communication: Businesses may customize communication to each lead by sending pertinent and targeted messages with Voila Norbert’s interaction tracking and contact management features. This increases the efficacy of demand-generation efforts.

Voila Norbert, all things considered, is essential to demand generation campaigns because it streamlines lead management and acquisition, allows for tailored communication, and ultimately boosts marketing campaign success.

Cost: There are various flexible plans available, with possibilities up to $499 per month for 50,000 leads per month, and starting at $49 per month for up to 1,000 leads.
Perfect for: Any business looking to obtain email addresses for potential customers.

3. Zapier

Zapier is a well-known tool that makes connecting different apps easier and automates processes to improve workflows. Zapier provides a dependable solution whether you need email notifications for new leads or want a smooth interface between email and sales software. Zapier makes a substantial contribution to improving the efficacy and efficiency of your demand-generation strategy by providing access to over 4,000 applications.

Here is how demand-generation campaigns can benefit from Zapier:

Automated Workflows: Demand-generation campaigns can run more smoothly because to Zapier’s ability to automate repetitive operations. Zapier helps save time and effort by automating tasks like lead notification emails and data synchronization across many platforms, freeing up marketers to concentrate on strategic projects.
Tool Integration: Zapier’s large integration library makes it easy to transfer data and communicate with different marketing and sales platforms. Throughout the demand creation process, this integration makes sure that all pertinent data is gathered and used efficiently, resulting in better decision-making and more focused marketing initiatives.
Better Lead Management: Zapier helps businesses stay organized and responsive to leads’ demands by automating lead tracking and engagement activities. Zapier makes sure that no lead gets lost in the shuffle by allocating leads to particular team members, updating CRM systems, and sending customized follow-up emails. This improves lead handling and conversion rates.
Enhanced Productivity: Marketers can do more in less time because to Zapier’s automation features, which boosts output and efficiency. Zapier increases ROI and yields better outcomes by automating tedious operations and optimizing workflows, freeing up important resources for other crucial demand-generation campaign elements.

All things considered, Zapier’s automation and integration capabilities make it an invaluable resource for demand-generation initiatives. Through process simplification, enhanced data management, and productivity gains, Zapier enables marketers to implement more precise and successful demand creation tactics, which in turn propels business expansion and prosperity.

Cost: Free access to the most basic features. Paid plans begin at $19.99 a month for yearly payments.
Perfect for: People and companies looking to include automation in their demand-generating plans.

4. Leadpages

Leadpages is a feature-rich software solution for demand creation that helps organizations maximize their marketing expenditures. Without the need for coding knowledge, its user-friendly platform makes it easier to create and test a variety of elements, such as websites, alert bars, pop-up bars, and landing pages. Let us see how Leadpages supports marketing aimed at generating demand:

Easy Creation and Testing: With Leadpages, teams can quickly develop and test various marketing assets, such as pop-up bars and landing pages, to see which ones work best for their target audience. Over time, better outcomes can be achieved by continuously optimizing and improving demand creation campaigns through the use of this iterative testing approach.
Real-Time Performance Tracking: Teams may monitor engagement metrics, conversion rates, and other important performance indicators by using Leadpages to track the effectiveness of their marketing assets in real time. Teams may maximize the efficacy of their demand generation efforts by making data-driven decisions and adjusting their tactics in real-time thanks to this real-time feedback.
Scalability: Teams that need to handle several marketing campaigns and assets at once should use Leadpages. Its cutting-edge features and adaptable packages meet the demands of expanding companies, offering scalability and flexibility as demand-generating initiatives increase.
Continuous Optimization: Leadpages helps teams continuously optimize their demand generation campaigns by giving them the tools to test and monitor results. To determine the best mix for generating leads and converting visitors into converts, teams might test out various offers, designs, and messaging.

With its user-friendly creation and testing features, real-time performance tracking, scalability, and continual optimization, Leadpages is an effective tool for demand generation campaigns overall. Leadpages facilitates the development and success of demand generation campaigns by giving teams the tools they need to easily generate and improve marketing materials.

Cost: When invoiced annually, the Standard plan begins at $37 per month. The Pro option, which offers customizable packages at the highest tier, is available for $74 per month and offers more advanced capabilities.
Perfect for: Groups looking to rapidly develop and test pop-ups, alert bars, landing pages, and websites.

5. Hubspot Marketing Hub

Sales and marketing teams can improve their strategy by utilizing the important information provided by HubSpot Marketing Hub, a comprehensive marketing software. These insights draw in leads that are ready to convert and allow for targeted offerings. A/B testing capabilities, social media integration, email template customization, CRM connectivity, campaign automation, and other elements are all included in the platform’s feature set.

Demand-generation campaigns can benefit from the use of HubSpot Marketing Hub in the following ways:

Personalization: Marketing teams may adjust their campaigns to the unique requirements and preferences of their target audience by using the tools that HubSpot Marketing Hub gives for customizing offers and communications. Businesses may boost engagement and conversions by providing targeted content and offers, which will eventually drive demand for their goods and services.
Data and Insights: The platform provides useful data and insights that help marketing teams monitor and assess the success of their initiatives. Teams may optimize their demand generation efforts by identifying what resonates with their audience and making data-driven decisions by monitoring important metrics like engagement rates, conversion rates, and ROI.
Automation Feature: HubSpot Marketing Hub’s campaign automation feature helps teams schedule and automate a range of marketing tasks and workflows, thereby streamlining campaign management. Because of this automation, teams can concentrate on high-impact tasks that increase demand and provide leads since it saves time and resources.
CRM Integration: The platform offers a consolidated database for handling leads and customer interactions by integrating easily with HubSpot’s CRM system. Marketing teams can track leads through the buyer journey, nurture them with relevant content, and eventually turn them into customers thanks to this connectivity.
Solutions That Can Be Customized: HubSpot Marketing Hub provides solutions that can be customized to meet the demands of big businesses with a range of marketing requirements. With its extensive reporting features, CRM connection, and powerful automation workflows, HubSpot offers the scalability and flexibility needed to manage demand generation campaigns at large volumes.

All things considered, HubSpot Marketing Hub is a useful tool for marketing teams trying to increase demand generation, simplify campaign management, and tailor their offers. Businesses can improve their marketing strategy and lead generation by utilizing their analytics, automation capabilities, and CRM integration, which will ultimately lead to growth and revenue.

Cost: You may use the simplest tools for free. Paid plans start at $20 a month when invoiced annually, and the most powerful capabilities cost $3,600 a month.
Perfect for: Marketing teams looking to target specific offers and messaging with the greatest possible impact.

Final Thoughts

Demand generation campaigns should be the cornerstone of the long-term sustainable growth of any business emphasizing staying on top of the game in the ever-changing marketplace. Such campaigns are dedicated to building awareness, drawing in people, and cultivating relationships that later can make way for sales transactions and eventually profits. Being successful in demand generation is mandatory for several reasons, and knowing the consequences of long-term use leads to greater business efficiency.

Creating effective demand generation campaigns, on the other hand, helps businesses with not only building the right brand image and establishing the needed credibility within the target market but also with communicating their message properly and reaching the right people. Through consistently providing helpful content, being readily accessible to prospects, and actively solving prospects’ needs, businesses occupy a leading position in the market along with becoming trusted advisors for that audience, which gives them direction and ultimately, loyalty.

Furthermore, successful demand-generation initiatives contribute to the construction of a stable lead-generating funnel that is always populated with qualified leads, this step helps establish a continuous introduction of potential customers to the sales funnel. Through the strategy of continually acquiring and interacting with prospects at different stages of the purchase journey, businesses establish a steady stream of sales, lessening the reliance on spikes or surges and rather providing a more predictable nature of revenue.

Additionally, the right demand generation campaigns are a key factor for improving marketing ROI by identifying the right audience with the right message at the right time. Effective demand-generation efforts also make it easier to maintain contact and develop relationships with clients after they’ve made their initial purchase. Businesses can cultivate advocacy, loyalty, and repeat business by fostering relationships with current customers through value-added services, personalized communication, and targeted content. This will ultimately increase long-term customer lifetime value and optimize return on investment from marketing initiatives.

**The primary author of this article is staff writer Sakshi John