Best Practices for Maximizing Demand Generation Efforts
Demand generation is a marketing tactic in which the goal is to drive customer awareness and interest in what a company offers – therefore, creating a “demand” for its product or service. Demand generation is often used interchangeably with lead generation, but the two are not the same. Eric Wittlake shares the clear difference between the two:
Lead generation – Collecting registration information, often in exchange for content, in order to build a marketing database for email or telemarketing follow up. The direct outcome of lead generation is new contacts available for sales or marketing.
Demand generation – The practice of creating demand for an organization’s products or services through marketing. The direct outcome is that your audience is more likely to purchase your products or services.
Now, that we are clear on what demand generation is, here are some best practices for maximizing your efforts.
Understand your value proposition
Before you can sell others on your product or service, you have to know: 1) what you’re selling, 2) why you’re selling it, and 3) how buying it will add value to customers’ lives. Once you know these three things, your company must preach them consistently and with conviction. This will instantly create a strong demand for your product or service. If you and others in your company don’t know, understand or clearly communicate your value proposition, you will create confusion among potential customers instead of demand.
Make content king
We’ve all heard the “content is king” line before, but in the digital age, it doesn’t hurt to re-emphasize it. The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) defines content marketing as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” Content allows you to create demand among prospects and customers by providing them with useful information that will meet their needs and help them solve their problems.
Protect your reputation
When it comes to demand generation, your company’s reputation – especially online – is important. If a potential customer comes across your company for the first time and decides to do research on your product or services, what do you think will happen when she finds negative review after negative review about your company on the Internet? She won’t be more likely to buy from you, that’s for sure. It’s important that you build a positive reputation for your company, both offline and online, and then protect that reputation fiercely. Doing so will organically increase demand for what you offer.
Make use of social media
When it comes to sales and marketing, social media is often seen only as a channel for content distribution. But it can also be effectively used as a channel for demand generation. There is almost no better place to create demand for your company’s product or service than on social media. Of course, you don’t want to spread yourself thin across all the social media platforms – there are a lot. Do some research. Engage in experiment. Find out the one or two platforms where you can best implement your strategy and reach more of your target audience.
Want to maximize demand generation efforts in your company? Bython Media can help. Connect with us today.
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