Why you need a demand generation that not only creates brand awareness but leads

by Mauricio Romero Mauricio Romero | Nov 4, 2020 12:41:24 PM

Not just generate brand awareness, generate leadsWe all agree that creating demand is the most important task of your business. If there is no demand, there is no business. Brand awareness is the first step, but is not sufficient any more for medium and small businesses. They have to generate real leads into their funnel because theri wallet can't afford to stay only in the brand awareness stage. Join the conversation to discover this problem that makes medium and small businesses lose a lot of money.

What is the difference between demand generation and lead generation

Demand generation is the strategy and tactics that a business makes to create awareness of their solution. In a simple way is to get your name out there.

Lead generation is the process of getting personal data from the audience in which you create brand awareness. They become from audience, visitors or prospects to leads. They have shown a little bit of interest in your solution and voluntary gave you their name and a way to contact them like an email or phone number.

They are almost the same. Get your name out there and attract people that need your solution, but here is the issue, demand generation is an amorphous mass of data that sales teams can't work with. In your marketing analysis you see these as likes, shares, impact per points, reach, visits, sessions etc...

If you convert this numbers and attach a name and an email they become real people that you can contact and follow up to start a conversation.

So you need to take this step forward if you are a small or medium business that need to have an specific return on your investment in marketing.

Brand awareness cost a lot of money and is a game for the big leagues. Most big companies invest millions of dollars per year and they really don't know exactly the return on their investment. They know a lot of people are aware that their brand and solution exists and they have a share of mind in the market. Sales are coming in and they have the budget to play this game.

If you are a small or medium business you can't afford to play this game with your eyes wide shut. You need to have this ROI relation clear. How much does a lead cost, or the cost of customer acquisition? What is the lifetime value of a customer? and how many real leads are getting into the sales funnel or pipeline.

If you know that the money you invest in all the communication channels gives you a good margin, they return more than they cost you should invest more in these ones and kill the channels that don't generate money.

The impact of a demand and lead generation strategy

If the pareto principle is correct in businesses, the demand and lead generation strategy is the one you invest 20% of your efforts and will make you 80% of your revenue. If you understand how it works and how you get to play all the cards aligned into a good strategy you will solve how to generate demand for ever in a cost effective way.

It is really important that you understand if you are playing a game of money or a game of intelligence. Think about this, your marketing budget should be unlimited. If you find a channel in which you invest 5 dollars and returns 10 it's a no brainer. What you should do is invest all your money on this. But the reality is that if you don't have the cash flow to play this game of massive brand awareness you should play smart rather than cash flow.

How to create demand generation

The first step to create demand generation is to make a message and spread it all over the world. Make that all humans on earth see you everywhere. This message should be compelling so they remember you exist. This is ok if you can pay a lot of repetitions in a lot of channels and sustain this investment a long period of time.

There is another way:

Create a message around the needs of your audience. In other words make content on how they can solve the problem your solution solves. This will attract a lot of people into your website, instead of getting your name out there. When people has a problem they are going to look for a solution and start a research online on how to do it.

Your message or content should be around that topic. This way they are going to search for you and get to you, instead of you trying to reach them all the time, even though when they don't need you.

If you think about it, getting a message from someone you don't really know, with a solution you don't need at the time or probably never need, it is what we call in our email: SPAM!

How to create lead generation

We have a methodology to create a demand and lead generation machine for businesses that is proven. We base the strategy on the INBOUND MARKETING methodology.

It has 5 simple steps that should be managed by your marketing and sales team.

 

 
methodology eng

 

1 Attract your audience

This involves making messages and content that people will search on internet and get to your website. Also remember we can do brand awareness as well but it depends on the budget.

2 Convert them into leads

When people are in your website you have to offer more content in which you exchange your content for their name and email. This content is about generating value for them. What they have in mind is how to solve their issue. So Give them content around that.

3 Nurture your leads

Leads are starting to come in but the reality is they just showed up a little bit of interest, they are not ready to buy. This is when you try to make a relationship with them through a nurturing campaign. What is this? It's a series of messages based on value for them in which you help them advance in their buying decision process. This means explaining:

  • What does your solution does and why they should have it?
  • What is the result of using your solution?
  • Why they should buy from you?

4 Close the leads into customers

If all the previous process is done correctly and you excel in your communication the natural effortless result is a sales. Then of course your solution should have the quality and customer satisfaction to get to the next stage.

5 Delight your customers

Once they are satisfied customers you should find a way to keep in touch with them and do more business. It is way much easier and cost effective to do this, because they already know you and have used your solution.

You can learn more about each stage of the methodology in our website. Feel free to subscribe to our blog to get more ideas and information about demand generation, digital marketing and inbound marketing. Browse our blog that has tons of information about how to do it.

We can help you understand more about how to generate leads for your marketing funnel through our experience making great strategies. Visit the next page to learn more.

B2B LEAD GENERATION HOW TO GUIDE

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