Your demand generation strategy is only as strong as the campaigns that make it up.
However, if you’re unsure of the goals you’re trying to achieve, you’ll struggle to build strategies that provide results.
Demand generation is about more than simply bolstering brand awareness. It’s about getting your solution in front of those who need it most, so you can drive demand and speed up the sales cycle.
To do this, you’ll need to create well-structured campaigns built around your demand gen goals.
Read on to learn exactly how to build demand generation campaigns that meet your targets, fuel demand, and boost conversions.
Want to jump ahead? Click here:
- What are demand generation campaigns?
- 6 steps for building effective demand generation campaigns
- 4 examples of high-quality demand generation campaigns
What are demand generation campaigns?
Demand generation marketing is a data-driven inbound marketing strategy that drives demand in the early stages of the sales pipeline.
The purpose of having a strong demand generation marketing strategy is to identify your target audience and drum up interest within this sector by demonstrating how your solutions can help solve relevant pain points.
Aligning buyer intent with a seamless customer journey, your demand generation program should make it simple for potential customers to recognize your company as the straightforward answer to their problems.
By using a solutions-focused approach to pinpoint target customers and generate demand, you net better-qualified leads, helping your sales team to close deals more easily.
Demand generation campaigns are the marketing tactics that you use to build out your full demand gen strategy.
While each campaign may serve a different purpose, the main aim of these strategies is to:
- Fuel brand awareness
- Educate potential buyers
- Qualify leads
- Demonstrate authority and expertise
- Accelerate the sales cycle
- Identify possible sales opportunities
- Increase your conversion rate
6 steps for building effective demand generation campaigns
The demand generation tactics you build should aim to boost brand awareness, highlight your expertise, and encourage prospects to convert to leads.
Here are the six steps you need to follow when creating a demand generation campaign.
1. Define goals and choose metrics
The demand generation strategies you create will depend on the marketing goals you’re trying to reach.
While a boost in brand awareness is a major win for your demand generation team, that's not the only goal you could aim for. You could also set targets to:
- Increase online engagement
- Boost your marketing-qualified leads
- Speed up prospect-to-lead conversions
- Improve the quality of your leads
- Net more higher-value leads
Of course, the goal that you aim for will determine the metrics that you measure and the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you monitor.
Although 75% of demand generation marketers intend to tie their demand generation key performance indicators more closely to revenue than before, there are a number of different metrics you can use to determine whether you’re on track to reach your goals.
These metrics include:
- Volume of MQLs
- Marketing-generated revenue
- ROI by channel
- ROI by content type
- Visitor to lead time
- Lead to sales time
- Lead source
Make sure that you align these goals with your sales department so that everyone is clear on messaging throughout the entire marketing funnel and sales pipeline.
2. Identify target audience
Once you know what you’re trying to achieve and how you’ll measure your performance, you need to work out who you’re targeting with your campaigns.
User intent data is extremely handy to help you get a grip on what your target audience looks like and how they behave. While 45% of B2B marketers say that they find it hard to pinpoint their target audience, 53% agree that intent data helps them to better define their ideal buyer persona.
You can collect first-party intent data about your website visitors from your CRM or Google Analytics. First-party social intent data is available through your social platforms.
If you want to access and assess third-party intent data, you need to purchase this from a provider such as Bombora.
Once you have an idea of who your ideal potential customer is, you can use intent data to better shape your demand generation campaigns. 52% of marketers use intent data to improve targeted advertising, while 52% say this data helps with their content marketing strategies.
Plus, intent data can help to align your marketing and sales teams, so it’s easier to identify key sale opportunities. As 29% of marketers recognize, the best way to enhance the sales/marketing relationship is to deliver highly qualified leads.
With that in mind, 44% of data intent users say that using data is most helpful for identifying potential accounts to target, while 40% agree that it makes it easier to prioritize and score potential leads.
3. Build brand awareness
Once you know who you’re trying to attract, build an omnichannel presence to bolster brand awareness across all the major channels that these prospective customers use.
As 70% of brands know, nowadays, you need more touch-points before qualification to generate demand than ever before. That’s why 36% of marketers plan to increase their omnichannel budget and 43% use multiple touchpoints to drive campaign success.
Consider online approaches such as a professional website, social media marketing, email marketing, webinars and online events, and paid advertising. You can also try to net this audience offline using radio, TV, and print ads, real-world events, publicity stunts, and a bricks-and-mortar store.
Make sure you tailor each marketing campaign to match the behaviors and preferences of your buyer persona. After all, 93% of brands with robust behavioral targeting strategies experience a boost in profits.
This may involve picking the right platform, changing the wording, or targeting your audience at the right time. For example, if your ideal customer shops on Instagram, it’s best to post on Tuesday morning.
It’s also crucial to demonstrate your brand identity to align your values with those of your target customer.
Show your audience who you are, what you do, who you cater for, and what you believe in.
For example, 51% of consumers want brands to focus on being more eco-friendly, while 41% want companies to prioritize social causes. Find out what your customers value and show how you and your solutions align with those values.
4. Reinforce your brand as the solution
It’s not enough to simply show your customers that you agree with their values and beliefs. You need to demonstrate that you can actively solve their pain points.
Create educational content that highlights the main problems that your target audience has and explain how they can solve these problems. Put your products and services at the center of these solutions.
If you’re thinking of writing a blog post, try creating a how-to article that targets keywords associated with your ideal customers’ pain points. You can also create guides and templates that work as problem-solving tools.
Consider writing whitepapers and ebooks. According to 49% of marketers, whitepapers and ebooks are the most valuable demand generation content types. They give you space to explore a problem in its entirety and to provide detailed instructions on how to solve the issue with your products.
Diversify your content marketing strategy with other forms of visual content, such as explainer videos, that demonstrate how your product solves problems. Right now, only 73% of marketers create explainer videos to show how their solution works, despite the fact that 94% of people say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
Not only that, but video is a highly persuasive tool: 84% of consumers admit that they’ve been influenced to buy a product or service after watching a brand’s video.
Why not consider creating a case study or testimonial video? After all, 41% of marketers agree that case studies bring the most value for your demand generation effort.
Plus, two-thirds of consumers say that they’re more inclined to purchase a product after seeing a testimonial video that shows how a company helps another person similar to them.
Not only can you use a case study video as a sales enablement tool, you can use it in all facets of your marketing campaign. Post it as a social media video, create a testimonial ad, or upload it to your YouTube channel.
Just look at this case study video that Testimonial Hero made for GrowthGenius.
In under two minutes, FirePower’s COO manages to convince watchers of GrowthGenius’ impact by outlining exactly how the sales meeting software solved their problems.
Webinars and live events are another effective campaign strategy. In fact, 43% of marketers say that live events are the most effective demand generation tactic.
Consider hosting a webinar to talk about industry-related issues and promote your product as the solution. Alternatively, appear as a guest on another webinar to show off your industry expertise and build credibility.
5. Convert prospects to high-quality leads
To move prospects from the demand stage to the lead stage, you need to build lead generation mechanisms that capture contact details. This enables you to direct future lead nurturing techniques at these prospects, as well as giving your sales team a way to contact them directly.
Use gated content, web forms, and free tools to capture lead data.
80% of demand generation marketers say they want to focus on lead quality over quantity.
To do this, make sure that you’ve designed a lead scoring system to help prioritize the leads that you connect with through your marketing activities.
The number one issue for demand generation professionals is finding sources of good quality leads. If you’re not scoring your leads, you won’t be able to tell which are worth pursuing and which are low-quality.
6. Track and measure success
Regularly track the performance of each demand gen campaign to make sure it’s on course to reaching your goals.
This will help you to identify any campaigns that aren’t working so you avoid wasting time, money, and resources. You can either try to tweak these demand generation strategies with the view of improving their performance, or scrap them altogether and reallocate the resources.
Tracking your campaigns will also help you to see which tactics are generating demand most effectively, so you can double down on these strategies. Design future campaigns based on the tactics that work best.
4 examples of high-quality demand generation campaigns
Wondering what a highly-effective demand gen campaign looks like?
Take some tips from these four examples.
1. Testimonial video ad for Robin
This concise testimonial video made by SoulCycle gives Robin the ideal social proof to use on its social media pages.
Posted to Instagram and Facebook, this testimonial video explains the business issues that SoulCycle was having and how Robin managed to solve those problems.
Not only that, but the video also manages to showcase the platform and how it works, while keeping the whole video to under 30 seconds.
2. Free tool with a trial as a lead magnet - Ubersuggest
Neil Patel offers a free, limited version of his tool, Ubersuggest, to help prospective customers with their SEO strategies.
By offering the tool for free, he shows his audience how he can solve their problems. Limiting results rather than functionality, the free tool gives you five free searches per day but hides some of the content.
This shows users exactly how the tool can help, persuading them to access the seven-day free trial to see how much more beneficial it is to have the full set of results.
The free trial gives you insight into everything you’ll get from the paid-for tool, tempting you to convert.
3. Video case study - UiPath
Check out this video case study that Deloitte made for UiPath.
In just two minutes, the Managing Director and Senior Manager of Deloitte Tax LLP manages to break down all the issues they were having and describe how UIPath’s solution helped solve those problems.
He outlines the tangible benefits they’re seeing, along with hard numbers to build a convincing business case.
Notice how they double down on social proof by using two different senior roles to endorse the product.
4. Step-by-step guide - Testimonial Hero
This step-by-step SEO guide by Testimonial Hero addresses the issue of creating B2B brand videos while targeting the relevant key phrase.
Not only does this push Testimonial Hero up Google ranks, it also demonstrates our expertise in creating first-class brand videos.
Conclusion
Design your demand generation campaigns so that they identify your target audience and then make a beeline for them. The idea is that by pinpointing their pain points, you can offer your solutions to help them overcome their hurdles quickly.
One of the best ways to do this is by showing your target personas how you’ve helped similar customers tackle the same problems that they’re having.
Showcase your satisfied customers to your prospects while building a solid business case with case study and testimonial videos. Contact the experts at Testimonial Hero today to find out more.
