What is B2B Demand Generation & How do you create it?

Unfortunately, building a great product or service is just not enough to bring in customers. With so many products out there, the competition is fierce. To drive sales and revenue, you need to target your preferred audience and generate buzz effectively. If you're ready to get your product into the market or looking for new channels to add to your marketing mix, you've come to the right place.

What is B2B Demand Generation?

Generating demand is the process of making your target audience aware and generating interest in your product or service. The primary goal of demand generation is to familiarise potential customers with your brand and steer them through your sales funnel. Demand generation involves a combination of marketing activities such as webinars, content, or advertising designed to pique interest in your product (or service).

Building brand awareness and positioning your business as a trusted authority in your industry is vital to generating demand. By generating buzz around your brand, you attract more visitors to your website and more potential customers who are interested in learning about what you offer.

The Difference Between B2B Demand Generation and Lead Generation

Demand generation and lead generation are often referred to as one and the same however, they're two distinct concepts that both work together to drive sales.

As we already discussed, demand generation is the preliminary stage that creates awareness and generates interest among your target audience. It aims to attract a broad audience and build credibility for your brand.

Lead generation, on the other hand, focuses on converting the audience you've attracted through demand generation into prospects and eventually paying customers. A successful lead generation campaign involves collecting contact information from interested prospects and nurturing them through the sales funnel until they are ready to purchase.

Both demand generation and lead generation are crucial for a successful B2B marketing strategy. Demand generation paves the way for lead generation by creating awareness and interest, while lead generation converts those leads into customers.

B2B Demand Generation Strategies

To effectively generate demand for your B2B products or services, you need to implement a well-rounded demand generation strategy. Here are some key strategies you can incorporate into your marketing efforts:

1. Invest In Paid Advertising

An effective way to generate interest quickly and to a large target audience is by investing in paid advertising. Leverage advertising channels like Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, affiliates, and other paid social media channels to target a readymade audience for your products. For example, with Google Search Ads you can target keywords that relate to your brand and serve adverts as users search for them. This is a highly targeted approach to paid advertising and can bring results quickly. Additionally, use remarketing campaigns to continually remind interested customers about your brand and the products or services you offer.

If you are considering paid advertising, you can waste a considerable amount of money quite quickly. We at Lever Digital are experts in PPC and have helped scale many B2B brands via paid advertising. Get in touch for a free proposal.

2. Develop Compelling Content

Content is one of the most effective strategies for creating awareness and generating demand. Focus on creating content that provides value and educates the reader. Types of content can include, blog posts, white papers, eBooks, videos and more. Content marketing is also a great way to position yourself as an industry leader and build trust within your niche.

Create content that resonates with your audience by understanding their pain points and providing insights through your content.

Unfortunately, developing content is usually not enough, you also need to consider how you will distribute it so your audience reads it. This is often something that isn't considered when building a content strategy.

3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

As mentioned previously, the distribution of your content is key to a successful content marketing strategy. One such way of doing this is through SEO. If you do decide to invest in high-quality and informative blog content focused, remember that SEO will play a large part in getting that seen by your audience. Optimise each piece of content you create for search engines.

SEO is not just limited to your content strategy. You also need to consider your main website experience. Conduct keyword research to discover what your audience is searching for and what the most valuable keywords are, with the goal of ranking on the first page of Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo.

3. Social Media Marketing

Social media provides a massive opportunity for B2B demand generation, not just for B2C businesses. The vast majority of us are now on multiple social media platforms, and we're not just on them for the Memes. LinkedIn, Twitter, and less so, Facebook or Instagram can be a great way to reach potential customers through informative and interesting content.

To effectively use social media for demand generation, you must create and share engaging content, participate in discussions, and interact with your target audience. Building a strong social media presence takes a lot of work, and it's not an overnight success however establishing yourself as a thought leader will generate interest and attract leads to your business.

4. Webinars and Events

Webinars and events provide an excellent opportunity to educate and engage your target audience. By hosting webinars or participating in industry events, you can showcase your expertise and provide valuable insights to your audience.

To make the most of webinars and events for demand generation, choose relevant topics for your audience and address issues they may be experiencing. As with creating content, webinars are only as good as your distribution. Promote webinars through email marketing, your website and social media. Increase audience participation by allowing them to ask questions during the sessions to foster engagement.

5. Influencer Marketing

When we usually think about influencer marketing, we think of B2C, and it's a highly effective channel for B2C however, there is also an opportunity to generate demand in B2B also. Partner with industry influencers and thought leaders to leverage their credibility and reach their audience. This is not only limited to influencers. You should consider your current customers in this, too, and encourage them to refer new customers. Incentivising them through a referral program will help foster word-of-mouth sales.

Implementing an effective influencer marketing strategy can be quite time-consuming. Identify influencers who align with your brand values, engage with them by sharing their content and build relationships.

To implement an effective influencer marketing strategy, identify influencers who align with your brand values and target audience. Engage with them by commenting on their posts, sharing their content, and building relationships. Collaborate with influencers to create content, host webinars, or participate in industry events to expand your reach and generate demand for your brand.

6. Outbound Sales

Outbound sales is another strategy that you can employ for demand generation. There are a few methods you can use, for example, personalised emails, cold-calling, and direct mail. To establish trust with prospects, outreach should be tailored to the individual and their needs. When reaching out, focus on the value you can provide and how it will benefit them.

To track the success of your outbound activities, you can use a CRM system. This will help you understand what messaging gets a response, the reply rate and the conversion rate. You can then use this data to adjust your outreach strategy.

A successful outbound sales strategy requires ongoing effort and testing different approaches to find what resonates with your target audience best.

What Metrics Should You Measure For B2B Demand Generation Strategy?

To understand the effectiveness of your demand generation efforts, it's crucial that you track and measure data. Otherwise, how will you know what works and what doesn't?

Here are some metrics you can track to measure the success of your demand generation strategy:

• Website Traffic: Although it's not always a good indicator of success. Monitoring the number of visitors to your website can help inform you that your content is demand generating. If these visitors don't take action on your website, you must consider why and how to fix that.
• Lead Generation: This should be a given. Tracking the number of leads from each demand generation channel is essential. Make sure also to understand the quality of the leads per channel.
• Conversion Rate: This can be the conversion rate from website visitor to lead or from lead to customer. Measuring these will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your website conversion and lead nurturing strategy.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Calculate the CPA by taking the cost incurred over the number of leads or customers generated.
• Engagement Metrics: Again, these are softer metrics that give an indication of how engaged users are with your content. Monitor click-through rates, email open rates, and social media engagement to assess engagement levels.

Analysing these metrics allows you to make data-driven decisions and help refine and optimise your demand generation strategy.

Need help with generating demand for your business?

We at Lever Digital are experts in growing B2B businesses through PPC. Our experts have worked at some of Europe's leading B2B businesses, where we have helped scale them to multi-billion dollar valuations.

Get in touch today for a free proposal.

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