Driving interest in a product or service can seem like a daunting task, but it actually doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right B2B demand generation strategy, you’ll soon find yourself swimming in clients!In this blog, get ready to learn more about what B2B demand generation is — and how to utilize it in your next marketing campaign to obtain optimal results.
What Is B2B Demand Generation?
When you think of digital marketing, the two teams that come to mind are probably marketing and sales. While the two are intricately bound to one another, there are occasionally obstacles that can cause a disconnect between them in your organization. That’s where demand generation comes into play. Bridging the gap between marketing and sales, demand generation helps attract new leads and turn them into qualified leads that are likely to convert.
Demand generation is the act of driving up interest for a product or service that can be used by other businesses to solve a problem. Keep in mind that B2B demand generation is not lead generation. While the two work together, you cannot generate a lead without first generating a demand for the products or services that your business is offering. In other words, lead generation relies on demand generation. The main difference between the two is that demand generation offers something for free, such as a blog article; while lead generation requires a trade such as a prospect’s email in exchange for an eBook or case study.
One last topic to understand before moving on to B2B demand generation strategies is the difference between B2B and B2C demand generation. B2C focuses on selling products and services to consumers, and B2B focuses on selling products and services to other businesses. Both can use the same tactics, such as creating dynamic blog content, but B2B content needs to be presented at a higher level than B2C. One great way to improve your B2B demand gen is to offer white papers while you might use a top 10 video for B2C.
B2B Demand Generation Strategy
Tip #1 – Develop Your Brand Identity
To generate interest in your products or services, you need to make sure that your branding has been perfected. B2B marketing of any sort is only effective when the seller has a professional, well-developed brand. Making a great first impression is the first step to generating demand.
Tip #2 – Boost Brand Awareness
Once you have your branding nailed down, it’s time to grow your online presence. One way to do this is to create a blog on your website that contains high-value content your target audience wants to read. Remember that you are marketing to executives and other professionals. They want to read articles containing information that is worth their time.
Other ways to boost brand awareness and help out your B2B demand generation is to write for guest blogs, release white papers, answer questions on online forums and share your content on social media platforms like LinkedIn.
Tip #3 – Incorporate Automated Marketing
The best way to keep tabs on every aspect of your demand generation strategy for B2B is to use some form of marketing automation. Choosing an automated marketing stack that includes CRM, content management, email marketing, social media campaigns and analytics with reporting can do wonders for your business. You won’t have to hire as many people, and it will also remove repetitive tasks from your marketing team’s schedule.
Tip #4 – Create Detailed Buyer Personas
B2B demand generation works best when you have detailed buyer personas. Chances are you’ve already generated at least one basic buyer persona to kickstart your digital marketing campaigns. It’s time to develop that persona by incorporating in-depth details about your ideal customers. What time of day are they most likely to check their emails? What pain points do they have that you haven’t addressed yet? How likely are they to become a repeat customer? These are all questions that you can ask to build your buyer persona for optimized demand generation.
Tip #5 – Create Insightful Content
Building an online portfolio of high-value content is a great way to generate demand for your products or services over time. Whether you are writing for your own blog or guest blogging for another highly-trafficked website, your content should read as informative and high-level to gain and retain the trust of your target audience.
Find out more about demand generation for B2B and how to boost your digital marketing efforts! Contact us or get a demo today for more info.
