3 Huge Pitfalls of Ignoring Demand Generation
Demand generation is vital to any business’s growth, but you can only take advantage of this marketing opportunity if you have an effective strategy.
Whether you are an inbound marketer using content creation and outreach to attract leads, or an outbound marketer prospecting via email or other techniques, demand generation should be at the heart of your efforts.
This article explains what is demand generation and the three huge pitfalls of ignoring demand generation.
What Is Demand Generation?
Demand generation is the process by which you create awareness and interest in your product or service by educating potential customers on what they need, why they need it, and how your company can help them.
It’s not about spamming potential clients with messages about your products. Instead, the goal is to find new ways to reach out to people who might be interested in what you offer so that when the time comes for them to buy, they’re more likely to come straight back and buy from you.
The marketing technique involves creating new demand for products or services by targeting a specific group of customers and marketing to them in different ways and over time to stimulate demand and increase sales.
Why Is Demand Generation Important?
Demand generation is about increasing lead generation and finding more customers for your products or services. Below are some benefits associated with this marketing strategy.
Helps to Increase Brand Awareness
The demand generation process is part and parcel of B2B lead generation, which is essential to any smart business strategy.
Lead generation is focused on increasing leads that are potential customers by engaging with people who could have an interest in your product or service.
This is achieved through marketing methods such as social media advertising, email marketing, and old-fashioned sales calls.
Increases Lead Quality
Another benefit to demand generation marketing is the increased opportunity to produce better quality leads.
This means you’re creating a more beneficial source of leads. A successful demand-generation marketing campaign lets other companies know what you offer and how it can benefit them.
The customers who reach out to your company for more information or a price quote already know much about you. The team is, therefore, more likely to close the deal with these leads.
Decrease Your Customer Acquisition Costs
One way to make your business as profitable as possible is to work out what you need to spend on acquiring customers and ensure it is less than what customers spend with you.
To the extent you spend more acquiring customers than those customers spend with you, you are running at a net loss.
A successful demand generation strategy will help to decrease customer acquisition costs by determining how much your customer acquisition costs are versus the customer’s lifetime value. Keeping your acquisition costs low is crucial.
Huge Pitfalls of Ignoring Demand Generation
Nowadays, many startups are thriving. You may think this is because they have a good product or service.
However, they could be successful because they know how to generate demand for their company and what customers want. Here are three pitfalls you will fall into if you ignore your demand gen strategy:
Not Having The Right Data To Make Decisions
Demand generation strategies must be data-driven and use the right technology to achieve your key metrics and KPIs. With information about which strategies are working well and which are less effective, it will be easier to assess your customers and implement improvements.
You need to choose and track the most important metrics for your business from the beginning with analytics software, marketing automation programs, and CRM systems.
Additionally, you should use the right attribution models to identify how well your marketing strategies affect customer conversions and increase sales.
The problem with not having the right data is that it can lead to making decisions without the proper information. This could lead to costly mistakes or not realizing what you have until it’s too late.
Not Generating Results From Content
Regarding demand generation strategy, “content is king while persona is queen.” However, the strategy involves laying out a tight strategy and being specific to personas and touchpoints.
You may need to consult your personas if you are still waiting for the desired results. What information do they require to be successful? How and where do they go to find information? What content might they find useful? What channels do they prefer to consume content?
Above all, remember that the content you use needs to be relevant, specific, informative, and interactive. It should give readers everything they need to make informed decisions about the things discussed in the post and give them an idea of how these principles can apply to their scenarios.
Not Talking To Your Customers Enough
Most companies cater to a few different buyer types, making it hard to create content that fits multiple personas. By analyzing intent data, companies can identify decision-makers’ behaviors and the issues those buyers face.
For this strategy to be effective, journey mapping and customer profiling need to move outside the marketing department, involve more people from all different departments, and have a defined process that leads to standardization.
Wrapping Up
When starting a business, it can be tempting to put your marketing efforts into other areas. But ignoring demand generation is a huge pitfall as it will lead to wasted time and money in the long run.
It’s important to invest in demand generation at the beginning so that you don’t have to spend more time and money later on when you may need more.
It also saves time because you can make changes earlier instead of waiting until things are more out of control before realizing what needs to change.
Lastly, by establishing customer relationships from the very beginning, you’ll know who your best customers are and be able to provide better service for them going forward.