Digital Marketing is a broad category with several branches. If you wander around the world of marketing, you must have heard all the related terms like Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, and Pay-Per-Click. But very few know that these two buzz terms – Demand Generation and Lead Generation are also a part of digital marketing.
As technology advances, terms like these help in meticulous tracking and increased accountability. You probably might’ve heard these terms quite a few times every day in your office. But people often get confused as both have many same tools and tactics. In simple words, demand generation shapes audience perspective while lead is inclined toward capturing their information.
On the surface, many other terms talk about building a relationship with a prospect and bringing them through the sales cycle, such as account-based marketing and persona-based marketing. Considering the popularity of demand generation and lead generation, we will discuss the difference between them today.
Demand Generation
Demand generation is one of the branches of marketing that is designed to build awareness and drive interest in the products and services. It brings together various marketing approaches intending to reach customers through multiple touchpoints. A B2B Demand Generation Company implements a strategy in a way that the prospects feel the need to buy the product or service.
It brings together multiple marketing practices such as PR (public relations), social media, advertising, and email marketing to pave the way toward the customers. It is for the online as well as offline customers. And all these practices are implemented to create the demand for a product or service. Every Demand Generation Company would enlist these as their core services as these can be defined as the best examples of demand generation activities.
Examples:
• Resource guides
• Whitepapers
• Blogs
• Email campaigns
• Exhibiting at tradeshows
• Press releases
• SlideShare
• Case studies
• Social media posts
• Free tools
The above might sound like a description to lead generation. Except it is not. Lead generation is a personalized way of marketing by converting potential customers into qualified leads.
Learn here in the next section.
Lead Generation
While demand generation is the need for a product or service, lead generation is then qualifying the people you’ve attracted, taking them to the level of purchase. In simple words, it is about creating content or marketing campaigns designed to capture the contact information of the prospects. The process of capturing information is done through surveys, questionnaires, lead forms, and newsletter signups.
For the answer to how it is performed, a lead generation company or a lead generation activity focuses on creating the value out of something and giving it as an incentive to give you the contact information in return. Also, they create a unique piece of content—in the form of Google AdWords or Landing Page—which will further help in attracting a targeted audience. According to the top marketing qualified leads provider, you can give the prospects a teaser or a hint of valuable content to receive their personal information via form filling or downloads. Be it a B2B lead generation company or a demand generation solution agency, they perform a few common activities to attract leads.
Examples:
• Form on the pay-per-click landing page
• Webinar
• Form to download
• Whitepaper/Ebook
• Courses
• Free trials
• Product demos
• Email subscription
• Contests
What do you want to pick for your organization?
For people putting one above the other can go wrong. Both lead generation and demand generation have their designated place and significance in the world of marketing. Demand generation has a long tail, and it can take years to reach the ROI as it is about stimulating the demand, and not delivering sales-qualified leads.
So, how you go about putting them together in your organization? Firstly, let your efforts go in the direction to generate traffic by making people aware of a product or service. Create social media pages and publish PR(s) (press releases) to maintain and build an online presence. It is a part of demand generation. Now, the next step is to direct the visitors to leave their footprint on the website/landing page. Sounds like a tough job, but it is the best way to convert visitors into customers.
If your organization is not able to decide what value you can offer in exchange for a customer’s contact information. And how will you use the contact information to build a relationship as you nurture that customer for sale? Contact a B2B Lead Generation Company or Demand Generation Company to set a strategy, maximize your ROI, and optimize your results.
Lastly, never use these two terms interchangeably, but put them together at the right time and right place within your customized marketing strategies to enjoy the advantages of each of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment