#demand_generation_funnel

Marketing has emerged as a whole new industry in itself in the past years. A lot of new marketing terms used these days can be quite confusing and understanding them thoroughly can be quite a task. In this article, we will discuss a marketing technique called demand generation and how it can help a business to improve the conversion rates.

In simple terms, demand generation can be defined as a strategy that is aimed at generating awareness among the prospects and therefore, drive their interest towards buying your products or services. It is a lot different from lead generation. In fact, it can be understood as a stage just before a prospect turns into a lead. Since it is among the very initial steps of your prospects’ interaction with you, it can have a huge impact on conversion rates because the first impression is powerful. Here are a few demand generation strategies that will boost your business.

1.     Put your best content forward

Content is what rules your all marketing strategies because without that good punch line or that promotional video, you cannot get the attention of your audience. Especially now when the internet is full of all kinds of blogs, videos, and infographics, you need to take an extra step towards making your content stand out. Therefore, our advice to invest in good quality content because that is the first thing your prospects will interact with. Make sure that it has something of value to offer.

 2.     Give your prospects free tools or apps

Who doesn’t love free stuff? Invest in developing a tool or an app that your prospects can use free of cost. In addition to establishing your credibility among customers, it strengthens your position in the industry. Also, it is one of the most trusted resources for PPC help. For example, a financial institution can offer an app that assesses individual profiles free of cost to find out whether or not they are eligible for a loan.

 3.     Partner with other businesses

Some businesses are using partnering as a great demand generation strategy. Also referred to as partnership marketing, this strategy is a collaborative effort between two businesses where they come together to work towards the same business goal. Working with another similar business can help you save money, resources, and time while it can work wonders for your struggling business. You can get better exposure and hence, increased brand awareness among customers.

 4.     Use content syndication

Blogging is known to improve your ROI by over 13 times. Companies that blog on a regular basis get more customers to their websites and therefore, they get a number of conversions. But what is even more beneficial is content syndication. It can be defined as a strategy in which similar businesses guest post on each other’s websites. Not only does this give them an advantage of partnership marketing but they reach out to a much wider audience.

 5.     Leverage the power of social media

It goes without saying that the businesses that are not tapping into the benefits offered by social media are losing big time on profits and business opportunities. In the modern business landscape, social media has emerged as the primary platform for business promotion. Video marketing is one of the most popular social media marketing tool being used these days. Therefore, using it for demand generation and all other marketing techniques is crucial to the success of any business.

 6.     Improve your email strategy

Do not keep sending bulk emails because those either end up in spam box or are never read. Instead, work on the optimization of your email strategy. Everything from the subject line to salutation should be well written. Leverage the power of personalized emailing to get maximum results.

Marketing has emerged as a whole new industry in itself in the past years. A lot of new marketing terms used these days can be quite confusing and understanding them thoroughly can be quite a task. In this article, we will discuss a marketing technique called demand generation and how it can help a business to improve the conversion rates.

In simple terms, demand generation can be defined as a strategy that is aimed at generating awareness among the prospects and therefore, drive their interest towards buying your products or services. It is a lot different from lead generation. In fact, it can be understood as a stage just before a prospect turns into a lead. Since it is among the very initial steps of your prospects’ interaction with you, it can have a huge impact on conversion rates because the first impression is powerful. Here are a few demand generation strategies that will boost your business.

1.     Put your best content forward

Content is what rules your all marketing strategies because without that good punch line or that promotional video, you cannot get the attention of your audience. Especially now when the internet is full of all kinds of blogs, videos, and infographics, you need to take an extra step towards making your content stand out. Therefore, our advice to invest in good quality content because that is the first thing your prospects will interact with. Make sure that it has something of value to offer.

 2.     Give your prospects free tools or apps

Who doesn’t love free stuff? Invest in developing a tool or an app that your prospects can use free of cost. In addition to establishing your credibility among customers, it strengthens your position in the industry. Also, it is one of the most trusted resources for PPC help. For example, a financial institution can offer an app that assesses individual profiles free of cost to find out whether or not they are eligible for a loan.

 3.     Partner with other businesses

Some businesses are using partnering as a great demand generation strategy. Also referred to as partnership marketing, this strategy is a collaborative effort between two businesses where they come together to work towards the same business goal. Working with another similar business can help you save money, resources, and time while it can work wonders for your struggling business. You can get better exposure and hence, increased brand awareness among customers.

 4.     Use content syndication

Blogging is known to improve your ROI by over 13 times. Companies that blog on a regular basis get more customers to their websites and therefore, they get a number of conversions. But what is even more beneficial is content syndication. It can be defined as a strategy in which similar businesses guest post on each other’s websites. Not only does this give them an advantage of partnership marketing but they reach out to a much wider audience.

 5.     Leverage the power of social media

It goes without saying that the businesses that are not tapping into the benefits offered by social media are losing big time on profits and business opportunities. In the modern business landscape, social media has emerged as the primary platform for business promotion. Video marketing is one of the most popular social media marketing tool being used these days. Therefore, using it for demand generation and all other marketing techniques is crucial to the success of any business.

 6.     Improve your email strategy

Do not keep sending bulk emails because those either end up in spam box or are never read. Instead, work on the optimization of your email strategy. Everything from the subject line to salutation should be well written. Leverage the power of personalized emailing to get maximum results.

Businesses in the world of late are experimenting a lot with strategies that might help them grow and be successful. Changing business landscape means a change in strategies and which is why you might be wondering if it is the right time to go from demand generation to account-based marketing. We are not here to tell you which one is better but we will discuss the key differences between the two strategies and help you find what is right for you.

What is Demand Generation?

Demand generation is a wider concept with a much wider audience as a target. It can be defined as a process of reaching out to as many prospects as possible in order to increase brand awareness among them. In simple words, a general message is sent across multiple channels with an intent to get the attention of leads. Their behavior is then tracked down by the CRM to know their level of interest. The idea is to create a demand for your services or products among your potential customers. The outcome, in this case, is response oriented.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-based marketing (ABM), on the other hand, is a more specific and targeted approach. It is a process where the lead in question is researched and tracked. Profiling is done in order to know their needs and potential and later, they are targeted with customized strategies. In other words, a lead is first qualified and then pursued under ABM. This technique is much less elaborate than demand generation with surely less output quantitatively but the quality is often found to be superior.

The Difference

1.     The Sales Cycle

One major difference is that the sales cycle under ABM is much shorter than that in demand generation. In demand generation, marketing and sales work separately. Marketing first qualifies the leads and then send it to sales. However, in ABM, sales and marketing come together to qualify the lead, thereby shortening the sales cycle.

 2.     Reaching Out to the Potential Customers

When it comes to reaching out to the potential customers, ABM gives more personalized touch than demand generation. While demand generation targets the audience collectively without knowing their needs, ABM targets the prospects that are more likely to convert.

 3.     The Content

As ABM is a more personalized approach than demand generation, the content used in both strategies differ. ABM creates personalized messages targeted at specific prospects keeping in mind their requirements. However, in demand generation, the messages are more general and are only aimed at creating general awareness of business services and prospects.

What makes ABM stand out?

1.     Sales-marketing coordination

This most important factor that many businesses are moving to ABM is that in its sales and marketing work more closely. This not only shortens the sales cycle but also improves the number of sales-qualified leads.

 2.     Deep account profiling

ABM is about researching and giving a personalized touch to the business. This is the reason it relies greatly on deep account profiling to identify the key initiatives and challenges. This allows the marketing team to focus on good personalized content.

 3.     A steady mix of campaigns

Next, ABM relies on a mix of campaigns to achieve results rather than focusing on one particular strategy. It includes offline campaigns, high-end direct mail campaigns, calling, and online promotions. ABM is about using the best of all strategies to achieve the results.

 4.     Customized programs

Lastly, the programs implemented under ABM are more specific and customized. For example, there are account-specific events conducted to target a prospect. Outbound sales are critical to the success of ABM, which is why the efforts are personalized to fit in the customer needs.

Businesses in the world of late are experimenting a lot with strategies that might help them grow and be successful. Changing business landscape means a change in strategies and which is why you might be wondering if it is the right time to go from demand generation to account-based marketing. We are not here to tell you which one is better but we will discuss the key differences between the two strategies and help you find what is right for you.

What is Demand Generation?

Demand generation is a wider concept with a much wider audience as a target. It can be defined as a process of reaching out to as many prospects as possible in order to increase brand awareness among them. In simple words, a general message is sent across multiple channels with an intent to get the attention of leads. Their behavior is then tracked down by the CRM to know their level of interest. The idea is to create a demand for your services or products among your potential customers. The outcome, in this case, is response oriented.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-based marketing (ABM), on the other hand, is a more specific and targeted approach. It is a process where the lead in question is researched and tracked. Profiling is done in order to know their needs and potential and later, they are targeted with customized strategies. In other words, a lead is first qualified and then pursued under ABM. This technique is much less elaborate than demand generation with surely less output quantitatively but the quality is often found to be superior.

The Difference

1.     The Sales Cycle

One major difference is that the sales cycle under ABM is much shorter than that in demand generation. In demand generation, marketing and sales work separately. Marketing first qualifies the leads and then send it to sales. However, in ABM, sales and marketing come together to qualify the lead, thereby shortening the sales cycle.

 2.     Reaching Out to the Potential Customers

When it comes to reaching out to the potential customers, ABM gives more personalized touch than demand generation. While demand generation targets the audience collectively without knowing their needs, ABM targets the prospects that are more likely to convert.

 3.     The Content

As ABM is a more personalized approach than demand generation, the content used in both strategies differ. ABM creates personalized messages targeted at specific prospects keeping in mind their requirements. However, in demand generation, the messages are more general and are only aimed at creating general awareness of business services and prospects.

What makes ABM stand out?

1.     Sales-marketing coordination

This most important factor that many businesses are moving to ABM is that in its sales and marketing work more closely. This not only shortens the sales cycle but also improves the number of sales-qualified leads.

 2.     Deep account profiling

ABM is about researching and giving a personalized touch to the business. This is the reason it relies greatly on deep account profiling to identify the key initiatives and challenges. This allows the marketing team to focus on good personalized content.

 3.     A steady mix of campaigns

Next, ABM relies on a mix of campaigns to achieve results rather than focusing on one particular strategy. It includes offline campaigns, high-end direct mail campaigns, calling, and online promotions. ABM is about using the best of all strategies to achieve the results.

 4.     Customized programs

Lastly, the programs implemented under ABM are more specific and customized. For example, there are account-specific events conducted to target a prospect. Outbound sales are critical to the success of ABM, which is why the efforts are personalized to fit in the customer needs.

Demand generation can be understood as a wider term that covers all activities targeting potential customers, which are aimed at making them aware of your brand and services. But it is not just that. It is more strategical than most of us understand it to be. It is backed by data and is designed carefully to target the audience that is more likely to respond to it. Demand generation can be tough sometimes, especially when you are doing everything you can and it is still not working.

This article highlights some common faults that might be keeping your demand generation strategy from giving the desired outcome. Most often, it is not something that you are not doing but it is something that you are not doing right. Further, there are also suggestions that can help you fix what is wrong.

1.     Not measuring the outcomes properly.

It is important for a demand generation company to measure the outcome of your strategies closely and precisely. You might not want to sacrifice quality over quantity. Therefore, there are good chances that people responsible are not measuring the outcomes properly and because of that your overall demand generation is suffering.

Here’s how you can fix that.

–    Track web analytics

Tracking the goals using Google Analytics helps you identify the valuable on-site user behaviors and lets you know which marketing channel has brought the results. Further, with the help of UTM parameters, call tracking, and multi-channel, it becomes clearer.

–    Watch your CRM

The amount of data passed from web analytics to CRM can be one major fault line. The poor data quality or erasure of important data along the process can give you results that are not necessarily true.

2.     Strategies are based on faulty data.

Limited measurement of outcomes results into another fault, which is bad data and further, it affects the strategies too. So, it is one thing to closely watch. It is important to segment the data. For example, if you have left an open text field rather than a drop-down, the amount and variety of data that you will receive will be overwhelming. A disorganized CRM leads to wastage of data. So, with bad data, it is quite possible that by the time you start with your demand generation campaign, the audience is completely new and the data you have becomes obsolete.

Here are a few tips to avoid this mess:

–    Make sure that the data that goes into your CRM is clean.

–    Further, it is important to segment this data and the needs for it.

–    Next, focus on creating and distributing content to these segments.

–    Based on the new CRM data, refine your campaigns once you have done the above steps.

–    Keep repeating these tactics.

 3.     Narrow Influence

Narrow influence of the demand generation techniques can be a big cause of their failure. It has been observed that even the well-targeted tactics are bound to fail when they focus just on the prospects’ benefit. A situation, sometimes, arises when there is a conflict before sales arrive and the marketing has no idea how to solve it. Therefore, it is suggested that the techniques you use have a wider scope and don’t just focus on the prospects.

In the world of late, only those demand generation techniques are successful that are capable of solving the larger issues of prospects and have the capability to expand methodically. Also, once you have started, it is important to watch the whole process closely. Experts emphasize experimentation a lot in order to find out what works for your organization. The breadth of the strategy and the number of campaigns, creatives, and partners should be watched. Another thing to consider is the potential and investment. All of this combined will give you a strong demand generation strategy.

MarkSpace Media identifies itself as demand generation, lead generation, and IT service-provider Company. With more than 25 clients across various sectors, MarkSpace has managed to retain 95% of the customers and has an upscale of 4000 percent in revenue. What makes it stand out among the other competitors is that fact that the team behind it is customer-centric and manages to pull out the desired outcome in toughest scenarios.

For any company to survive the market competition, it has to focus on maximizing its ROI. ROI stands for return on investment and can be understood as a performance measure that determines how much has a company gained from certain investment. In simpler terms, it is the profit that a company has made on some investment. MarkSpace Media helps the businesses increase their ROI and take their business to next level.

Here’s how we did it.

B2B Lead Generation Services

The team at MarkSpace Media is keen on narrowing the gap between the service provider and the buyer. We make efforts to bring both parties together and go on to generate more leads. Lead Generation is the gist of all marketing and hence, the business. Therefore, we bring in the best lead generation strategies that there are and deploy them to make sure you have enough and good quality leads. A lot of time and resources are invested in finding the right target audience and creating a good sales pipeline. We understand the importance of the lead generation process and leave no stone unturned get the desired outcomes. Our previous clients take pride in our work and we strive to continue doing it.

Account Profiling

Under this segment, the MarkSpace Media team endeavors to help you know your target accounts and the key people behind them. Therefore, we help you see more business opportunities and score more deals. The idea is to expose you to the most authentic, customized, and fresh information as per your requirements. We use multiple verification methods to make sure the information at your hand is complete and verified.

ABM

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is one of the best B2B strategies that result in better sales as it helps to focus the efforts to specific accounts that are most likely to buy. Therefore, personalized campaigns are run under this strategy to cater to the needs of the target accounts. We help you frame the right target account list and use to send personalized content, which most often results in conversions and sales.

Sales-Qualified Leads

We believed that a sales-qualified lead is crucial to a business. We help you qualify the leads and understand whether they are ready for the next level or not. We undertake targeted research and qualify SQLs so that they can be approached with customized content and efforts.

IT Services

We provide an array of competitive IT services in the industry. This includes application and software development, search engine optimization (SEO), web hosting services, and web design and development. We are known for the quality of our services and commitment towards the quality.

Social Media Marketing

MarkSpace Media has an upper hand in social media marketing strategies where we endeavor to make the businesses get increased visibility online. Our team is well-equipped and skilled to make use of the best social media to promote the businesses. This includes tools like blogging, online videos, social bookmarking, photo-sharing, publishing articles, and public relations. We understand the power of social media and are trained to get the maximum benefit out of it.

What the future looks like?

B2B Lead Generation is one of the most important factors for any B2B service providing company. However, generating quality leads is not one of the easiest jobs out there, hence many companies have found that outsourcing B2B Lead Generation made more sense. Many companies claim to be able to provide you with sales-ready B2B leads, but making sure that the leads provided by these companies are of good quality is important too, for you to end up with high return on investment (ROI).

There is one major problem associated with the purchasing of leads, they take out a huge chunk of your marketing budget. It is an investment that you must make in order to get returns. However, trying to justify this expense is usually very difficult. There are a lot of marketers who tend to shy away from buying leads since they do not know how to justify this expense. This is a short-term problem and will go away as soon as the ROI is seen.

To ensure that you are buying good quality leads you first must “Define a Lead Generation ROI”

Before you buy leads from a third party you have to ensure that you have a clear idea of what the ROI is. Calculating this kind of ROI is similar to that of traditional ROI the only difference being that your gain is calculated based on the number of opportunities that have been acquired through the leads. This can be calculated by a simple formula.

Although this formula can be used for almost everything keeping a track of the ROI is difficult unless you divide it into even smaller parts, namely, Creator-Level Metrics, Manager-level Metrics, and Director-Level Metrics. At this point, it may be a little difficult to understand but when you find the right B2B Lead Generation service you can gain very high amounts of ROI in a shorter period of time.

Here are a few simpler steps to ensure that the leads you are buying are of good quality

Make sure that the targeting requirements provided by you to the B2B Leads Generation service provider are clearly defined. Without doing this you may end up with leads that do not fit your requirement and are ultimately useless to you. These guidelines help the B2B leads provider get a direction that can help them choose the channel that they are going to use to generate the leads. If any of the leads do not match this requirement, ensure that there is a return policy in place. This return policy also helps to hold the B2B Leads provider accountable for the leads that they send to you.

There are three basic categories of requirements for a lead.

Firmographic: Details about the companies that have to be targeted.

BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline of the contact. Although this is one of the best ways to measure the requirement it may be difficult to find a lead that fits all the criteria.

Intent: This is based on the position that your target contacts are in their buying process. The further along they are in the buying process the better the chances of them choosing your service.

Insist on Accurate Data

Various leads providers do not always provide you with the most accurate data. This is especially true for companies that claim to give you leads at unbelievably low prices. This may cause you to have numerous awkward conversations due to faulty information, or contact the same lead multiple times due to multiple entries, or get an array of failed delivery notifications due to inaccurate email ids. Make sure that the B2B leads that you get from your service provider are accurate and that your service provider has the resources to back these leads up.

Diversify the Source of Your Leads

Relying on only one method of generating leads could be a huge risk. Lately, more and more companies have started to use multiple ways of generating leads. They use inbound as well as outbound lead generation methods. This improves the quality of leads that you can get.

Pay for Quality

At the end of the day you get only what you pay for, so make sure that you choose to pay a little higher for better-qualified leads rather than get a higher quantity of leads at a lower price but later have to use precious time to qualify these leads.

Keep in Mind the Method of Delivery

You should not have to jump through hoops in order to gain access to your data. Make sure that the method your service provider uses to deliver the leads is easy to access. In an ideal scenario, the leads should be directly sent to your CRM by the B2B Lead Generation service provider.

Ever thought of hiring a demand generation company? It looks like an added expenditure at a first glance and so, most of the businesses actually consider doing demand generation by themselves. However, the fastest-growing businesses have found that outsourcing demand generation is more beneficial and cost-effective. This article will briefly discuss a few important factors that highlight the advantages of hiring a third party for demand generation.

Understanding Demand Generation

The term demand generation can be understood as a name given to all the processes involved in getting a potential customer excited about your company’s services or products. In simple words, it is defined as a strategy that makes your prospects feel the need for your services or products. It has been found that demand generation programs help your business enter new markets and promote your services and products. This, further, generates consumer buzz, generate PR, and retains the existing customers.

However, you must understand that demand generation is much more than just branding. The goal of this strategy is to nurture potential customers for the long term. There are multiple smaller processes involved in this to achieve a larger goal. Don’t forget that it is not just a quick solution to your business woes but a process that will generate long-term benefits.

How a demand generation company can help?

Experts on the job

Outsourcing demand generation can take your business to the next level because demand generation companies are the people who are experts in the job. Instead of your marketing and sales team handling all the processes, the demand generation company team is able to handle them more effectively and efficiently. Their specialized team of experts also acts as a vital support to your internal marketing team.

Result-oriented approach

The skilled professionals at the company are focused on results. Their approach towards work is, therefore, more result-oriented than your marketing and sales teams. They are hired to generate results and that is their primary goal. Therefore, they implement multiples strategies to prove their worth and add value to your business. You must not shy away from hiring a company that will multiply your results.

Specialized in marketing automation

Demand generation companies are specialized in marketing automation tools. They are experts in determining what works best for what type of business. Therefore, they can help you make the most of your existing investment. It is a fulltime job in itself to implement marketing automation to drive maximum profits.

Go beyond cold calling

The team engaged in demand generation in the company you have hired use the tools beyond cold calling to drive results. Data suggests that only 2% of cold calls actual result in appointments. Therefore, it is for the skilled professionals to know what works in which scenario. They use emails, newsletters, blogs, social media, videos, and other tools that are most effective in the world of late.

Smaller sales cycle

With the right tools being used and the best strategies at work, a demand generation company can effectively shorten the sales cycles. This means that there is a significant drop in the time taken by your prospect to move to sales since their first interaction with your brand or services. Smaller sales cycle often results in higher sales volume because the more time customers take, the higher are their chances to not buy from you.

Increase online presence

One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing demand generation is that it increases your online presence considerably. This is because the people at work will leverage the power of social media and online tools to drive results and therefore, you are more visible online.