Your digital marketing efforts are vital to continue filling your sales funnel and building essential relationships with your current customers. While your current digital marketing strategy likely focuses heavily on various lead generation tactics, you may be neglecting one very important piece of the puzzle: B2B demand generation.
What is B2B Demand Generation?
When you hear the phrase B2B demand generation, you might automatically think of creating demand for your products or services. However, that’s only one piece of the puzzle.
B2B demand generation is best split up into three pillars:
- Lead Generation – During this stage, your focus is to gather information from those who have shown interest in your brand.
- Demand Capture – Utilizing proper marketing tactics to capture the attention of those already searching for the solutions you have to offer.
- Customer Journey Acceleration – Once you’ve captured the attention of those genuinely interested in what you have to offer, you can move them through an accelerated pipeline to move them from lead to customer in as few steps as possible.
A standard demand generation framework is a multi-step process that not only focuses on drawing attention to your brand and the solutions you offer, but it focuses heavily on identifying potential challenges your audience may face – whether they realize it yet or not.
In other words, instead of simply addressing current needs and answering frequently asked questions, demand generation directly addresses a pain point that your audience is likely to experience (best identified via customer research and identifying customer behavior changes) and then positions your brand as the solution.
Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation: What’s the Difference?
B2B demand generation is a term that is often confused with the term lead generation. However, they are two very different processes. While demand generation activities and examples involve a highly personalized attempt at attracting leads who are ready to act, lead generation tactics are typically marketing efforts designed to simply start a conversation and begin building relationships with your ideal audience members.
4 Ways to Utilize B2B Demand Generation
So, how do you set your brand apart from competitors using B2B demand generation tactics? Here are four ideas to help you get started.
1. Freemiums are Your Best Friend
Freemiums are high-quality content and/or tools that you create and share with your audience. The goal is to provide them with something they need to give them a taste of what you have to offer. Freemiums can come in the form of:
- Free tools
- Downloadable reports/templates
- eBooks
By no means is this an exhaustive list. The type of freemiums that work for your audience can and will depend on your industry/niche and your audience’s specific wants/needs.
2. Social Media Marketing
With over 3.6 billion people using social media worldwide, having a social media presence is a no-brainer for most brands. Consumers are using social media for more than connecting with friends and loved ones. In fact, they are using their favorite platforms to not only maintain relationships with their favorite brands, but they are turning to their preferred platforms to research new brands, as well as their engagement behaviors and products/services, etc.
When building demand generation, you can use social media to discuss your products/services, make announcements that are sure to capture consumers’ attention, and share your best freemiums and content to prove that you have something worth investing in.
3. Partner Up with Thought Leaders in Your Industry
Another excellent tactic is partnering up with industry thought leaders to help you build brand awareness and credibility. Thought leaders are trusted individuals who not only focus their efforts on promoting their own products/services but alternative solutions that they believe could benefit their audience, even if it means turning them on to brands outside their own.
4. Always Test for Success
Whichever tactics you choose to utilize, you need to make sure you are always testing and analyzing your attempts’ success. Testing and monitoring key performance indicators are the only way to genuinely determine how successful your content or demand generation campaign is.
Testing will look different depending on the methods you choose. If you’re focusing on your social media efforts, you should be monitoring your metrics, such as follows, engagement, etc. If you’re offering up a free download, you should monitor the number of downloads over a given period of time.
Your Go-To B2B Demand Generation Experts
Trying to differentiate B2B demand generation from standard lead generation can be challenging for those who have always focused their attention on the traditional sales funnel.
If you’re finding it difficult to differentiate between the two, you could greatly benefit from a third-party Director of Digital Marketing. As a service, CadenceSEO offers help to those who need an extra hand in determining whether their current digital marketing efforts are benefitting their brand or wasting essential resources.
Curious how we can help you with your B2B demand generation efforts? Then contact us today!
