Demand generation
Encyclopedia
Demand Generation is the focus of targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company's products and/or services. Commonly used in business to business, business to government, or longer business to consumer sales cycles, demand generation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of marketing programs coupled with a structured sales process.
There are multiple components of a stepped demand generation process that vary based on the size and complexity of a sale. These components include: building awareness, positioning relevance, supporting validation and mitigating customer evaluation.
Advanced demand generation programs typically rely on some form of proactive Lead Generation activities supported by more traditional market programs and processes:
Branding
Inbound Marketing
:
Outbound Marketing
:
Again, in this phase of the demand generation process, many approaches and tools are used and this list is only a selection of the more common approaches.
This later phase of the buying process involves validating that a selected vendor will meet specified requirements, coming to an agreement with the vendor on costs, contract terms, support and services, and finalizing the purchase process.
This often involves coordinating the involvement of other organizational and extra-organizational resources such as sales representatives and reference clients.
The coordination of sales involvement, the selection of the right sales resource, and the timing of the involvement can be difficult to determine. The scoring, ranking, and routing of leads into sales is a sufficiently deep topic to warrant further exploration.
There are multiple components of a stepped demand generation process that vary based on the size and complexity of a sale. These components include: building awareness, positioning relevance, supporting validation and mitigating customer evaluation.
Building Awareness
The demand generation function in most businesses resides as part of the marketing organization. Demand Generation is a holistic approach to marketing and sales cohesiveness within the company. Building awareness is a vital component in the demand generation process. Building awareness often takes a continued effort and involves multiple facets of marketing.Advanced demand generation programs typically rely on some form of proactive Lead Generation activities supported by more traditional market programs and processes:
Branding
Brand management
Brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand.The discipline of brand management was started at Procter & Gamble as a result of a famous memo by Neil H...
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing
Note: The sole purpose of this article is to disambiguate two pairs of meanings of inbound and outbound marketing. Please see the linked articles for in-depth information on the respective meanings....
:
- Search Engine OptimizationSearch engine optimizationSearch engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
- Viral MarketingViral marketingViral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
- Social Media MarketingSocial media marketingSocial media marketing is an addition to personal, small business, corporate, and non-profit organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans...
- Email Marketing
- Pay Per ClickPay per clickPay per click is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the publisher when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market...
Marketing
Outbound Marketing
Outbound Marketing
Interruption marketing is a pejorative term that refers to promoting a product through continued advertising, promotions, public relations and sales. It is considered to be an annoying version of the traditional way of doing marketing whereby companies focus on finding customers through advertising...
:
- Inside Sales/TelemarketingTelemarketingTelemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...
- OutsourcedOutsourcingOutsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
Lead GenerationLead generationLead generation, or lead gen is a marketing tool used, particularly in internet marketing, to generate consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. Leads can be generated for a variety of purposes - list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for winning customers.... - Outsourced Appointment Setting
Facilitating Discovery
The second key area of focus for a marketer focused on demand generation is ensuring that when a prospect decides to seek a vendor to provide a solution in a given solution category, they discover the vendor that the marketer serves. This is again accomplished with a variety of techniques and tools, often overlapping with the tools used for creating awareness of the category, but with a different emphasis.- Search Engine MarketingSearch engine marketingSearch engine marketing, , is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion...
– the purchase of advertisements on search engines to appear when keywords on the specific category, or known competitors in the solution space, are searched for.
- Search Engine OptimizationSearch engine optimizationSearch engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
– the use of a variety of techniques to increase a web site’s natural position in search engine results when keywords on the specific category, or known competitors in the solution space, are searched for.
- Webinars or SeminarSeminarSeminar is, generally, a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some particular subject, in which everyone present is...
s – online web based seminars, or in person seminars to allow prospective buyers to discover and understand a vendor’s solution, how it can be used, and who else is using it, in detail
- Demonstrations and Free Trials – easily accessed, often online, tools for demonstrating a solution or accessing a time-limited or feature-constrained trial version to assist prospective buyers in discovering the solution and its fit with their need
Again, in this phase of the demand generation process, many approaches and tools are used and this list is only a selection of the more common approaches.
Guiding Solution Validation
Often confused with Demand Generation is the lead process itself. Converting demand into sales is a totally separate task. Many companies, however, will call themselves Demand Generation organizations when they are really lead generating.This later phase of the buying process involves validating that a selected vendor will meet specified requirements, coming to an agreement with the vendor on costs, contract terms, support and services, and finalizing the purchase process.
This often involves coordinating the involvement of other organizational and extra-organizational resources such as sales representatives and reference clients.
- Marketing Tools as Detailed above – trials, demonstrations, whitepapers, and seminars designed for a more detailed evaluation and validation of the solution in question
- Reference Management – cultivation, management, and selection of client references willing to provide a potential purchaser with the perspective of a current (or past) client.
- Sales Involvement – coordination of the right sales resource to interact with the prospect to navigate the final stages of the buying process including contract negotiation, legal terms and conditions, and signoff
The coordination of sales involvement, the selection of the right sales resource, and the timing of the involvement can be difficult to determine. The scoring, ranking, and routing of leads into sales is a sufficiently deep topic to warrant further exploration.
Sales Involvement
The involvement of sales professionals in the solution validation process involves three main aspects. These are the same whether inside sales or field sales professionals are being involved.- Lead ScoringLead scoringLead scoring is a method of assigning points to each prospect you come across. Points are assigned based on specific criteria you set—those attributes you've identified as being most often associated with serious prospective customers...
- understanding which prospective buyers warrant being contacted by a sales professional. Lead scoring involves scoring two distinct aspects of the prospect; whether he or she is qualified to be a buyer, and whether he or she is interested in being a buyer. The former looks at explicit information such as title, industry, and revenues to understand whether that individual is able to make a buying decision, while the latter examines implicit information such as recent online activity and marketing response in order to determine whether the individual is currently interested in making a buying decision
- Lead Ranking – based on the scoring of leads, leads can be assigned ranks based on the business process sales should follow in interacting with the leads. For example, if explicit scoring leads to a 1, 2, or 3 ranking on how qualified the lead is, while implicit scoring leads to an A, B, or C ranking on how interested the lead is, a follow-up process may have 1A leads contacted within 24hrs, 1B leads contacted by a field sales professional within 72hrs, while 1C, 2A, and 2B leads are contacted by an inside sales professional and 2C and all leads ranked as a 3 are not contacted.
- Lead Routing – once a business process is determined, a lead routing process determines which lead should be connected with which salesperson, based on geographic territory, industry, company size, or any other factor. Often this involves management of the notification of the salesperson and monitoring of the time taken to follow up.
Related Disciplines
In order to effectively manage and optimize the required communication, response, and lead management processes outlined above, marketers focused on demand generation must become proficient at two other related disciplines- Data ManagementData managementData management comprises all the disciplines related to managing data as a valuable resource.- Overview :The official definition provided by DAMA International, the professional organization for those in the data management profession, is: "Data Resource Management is the development and execution...
– the centralization, de-duplication, profiling, appending, normalizing and cleansing of marketing data so that it can be effectively used to personalize communications, define target lists and segments, score leads, and route leads to sales. - Marketing analytics – the analysis of the effectiveness of marketing efforts, from individual tactics such as email communications or landing pages through to overall campaign performance.
See also
- Comparison of demand generation softwareComparison of demand generation softwareThe following table compares general information for Demand Generation software.-General information:-Features:...
- Comparison of marketing workflow automation softwareComparison of marketing workflow automation software-General information:...
- Marketing automationMarketing AutomationThe name given to software platforms designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate repetitive tasks is Marketing Automation. Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then...
- Demand chainDemand chain-Concept:Analysing the firm's activities as a linked chain is a tried and tested way of revealing value creation opportunities. The business economist Michael Porter of Harvard Business School pioneered this value chain approach: "the value chain disaggregates the firm into its strategically...
- Digital marketing engineerDigital marketing engineerThe term Digital Marketing Engineer is used to describe someone that applies web 2.0 technology and digital marketing platforms for the purpose of achieving business goals. It is a hybrid role that involves marketing and technology knowledge...