logo
logo
Sign in

Demand Generation Is So Much More Than Just Marketing Automation

avatar
John Thompson
Demand Generation Is So Much More Than Just Marketing Automation

Demand generation is a technique of B2B marketing where certain strategies are implemented to create interest in some products and services among potential customers. A good demand generation strategy is one that ends in happy customers and profitable businesses. Previously, lead quantity was the focus. However, recently there has been a shift and more and more businesses are now considering the quality of leads as a primary focus. No business wants a lead that doesn’t convert into sales leads. So generating just the interest in not enough anymore.

Demand generation, as understood today, is more about the generation of interest in products and services as well as better brand authority and recognition. The focus has to be on the entire sales funnel rather than just the top for the success of a business. Therefore, the latest practices in demand generation are about building better relationships, operational efficiency, and adopting the latest technologies for enhancing the whole process. This article examines and briefly explains eight demand generation practices that marketers can use to make their businesses profitable.

  1. Automating the top-funnel processes

The marketing automation tools have led to the automation of the mid-funnel processes. Research in this field suggests that automation is being used for personalization of content, profiling of leads, and lead nurturing. While this has led to more efficient processes, the top-funnel processes are still ineffective and manual. Therefore, the need is to automate the top-funnel processes so that marketers can centralize their leads and make the processes like lead data validation, vendor management, standardization, and enhancement more efficient.

 

  1. Adopting improved account-based marketing techniques

Further, the organizations have to switch to better account-based marketing (ABM) techniques to increase the ROI. It is time to ditch the old ABM practices like cold contacts, email blasts, etc. and adopt new and sophisticated ones.

 

  1. Generating high-quality data

This is being stressed upon the most by the industry experts. Data quality has a huge effect on all aspects of marketing. It is important to have high-quality content at each stage. There are many effective tools in the market that ensure the data quality and data match the MAP and CRM requirements.

 

  1. Frequent and improved communication with clients

Traditionally, marketers do not engage with the clients. However, communication with the client has a huge impact on demand generation. Marketers who are in frequent touch with their customers have better knowledge of how to attract and retain their clients.

 

  1. Better communication with sales and customer service

A research has revealed that better communication with sales and customer service department’s leads to 38% higher sales win rate and 36% better customer retention rates. This happens due to the fact that improved communication with these departments gives you a better understanding of success metrics.

 

  1. Co-creating content and events with other brands

A lot of stress is now being given on partner marketing where two or more brands come together for marketing efforts. This is done mostly between complementary and non-competing products. Collaborative marketing allows better use of resources as it focuses on sharing. The output is better content, wider exposure, and higher engagement with the audiences. Some of the co-creation opportunities include webinars, white papers, and research.

 

  1. Understand and prepare better for privacy regulations

Data privacy and B2B marketing are related more than you think, especially for the organizations who are in some way doing business in the European Union. With the coming of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), this has become more important. The impact is significant on B2B tech firms as not complying with these may lead to regulatory risks.

 

With the rapidly changing landscape of demand generation, it always hard to forecast the trends. However, the organizations that are actively engaged in improving their strategies will be performing the best. Adapting to changing trends and times is the need of the hour. Therefore, the most successful demand generation techniques are the ones that are in line with improving technologies, increased demand for better content, and compliance requirements.

collect
0
avatar
John Thompson
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more