Lead Generation vs. Demand Generation: Conceptual and Practical Differences

Basic Definition

Demand Generation is a process in which a marketing executive or sales leader creates a need for specific products or services. It’s a closed deal that works to create a demand for a particular product – based on what the company has to offer.

It’s an intricate process that isn’t as simple as it sounds. It doesn’t always result in demand generation, as multiple issues and problems can arise during the process. That is why carefully approaching the process itself is vital.

Organization and micromanagement are pivotal aspects of demand generation. Properly preparing for a demand generation effort is going to ensure that things are running smoothly. To do so, you’ll need to conduct a lot of data accumulation, refinement, and further analysis.

Making informed business decisions is practically impossible without data analysis and visualization, and since demand generation is a complicated endeavor, you’ll have to prepare appropriately.

Any B2B marketing effort can benefit from the use of demand generation. Instead of generating leads, demand generation rests upon creating business endeavors, opportunities, and golden areas, further resulting in revenue, ROI, and business value.

To put demand generation in layman terms, it’s the process of making a demand for your company’s products by making intricate, interactive, and exciting content. One of the simplest examples of this is creating a problem and making your products or services resolve it within the same content.

What Does It Involve?

Demand generation is a content-specific tactic. However, some things are present in all types of content that include demand generation. It’s a specific and intricate marketing tactic that includes:

• Content interlacing and marketing;
• Event marketing and advertising;
• Social media marketing and advertising;
• Traditional marketing and advertising;
• Lead scoring and automating;
• Data accumulation, refinement, and analysis;

The demand generation process, while intricate, comes naturally to most marketing executives. It’s the age-old process of satisfying a demand – only you’re tasked with creating a demand based on your product or service. It’s having a solution and creating a problem to satiate it.

Five Demand Generation Strategies

1. Giveaways

An excellent way to generate demand for your products is to give them away. People adore freebies. Giving the consumers a chance to get a product and use it for free is a fantastic way to generate demand – especially if you add a sense of urgency and competition to the mix.

2. Establish Brand Identity

People like brands they can trust, so you have to build a proper brand identity if you’re looking to generate demand for your products. People are far more likely to purchase your products or solicit your services if a known brand offers them.

3. Present A Problem

An excellent way to sell your solution is to present a problem. If no problem exists, you have to devise it. You’d be surprised how far a simple lexicon combined with proper wording can take you.

4. Create Problem Solving Content

When you present a problem, you’ll have to solve it. Directly offering your products or services as a solution is far less likely to result in sales. You need to be subtle when you’re trying to present your solution – so backlinking, accompanying links, and subtle nudges towards your services and products are the way to go.

5. Create SEO Friendly Content

When you’re trying to generate demand, you’ll want to appeal to your customer. Customers trust the first page of Google significantly, so getting your content on it is essential. An excellent way to stand out on search engines is by SEO optimizing your content with keywords.

Basic Definition

Lead generation is far less than demand generation. Lead generation is a small portion of the overall demand generation process. It’s the process where you accumulate as much information and data on your target audience.

While it might sound relatively simple, understanding your target audience is essential. Collecting the right data is a fantastic way to cut down on the intricacy and complexity of the data refinement process.

The collection of information on your targeted audience is used to create potential prospects for sales leads, created opportunities, and finally, the consumer.

The lead generation process leans on getting your prospects interested in your sales funnels. It’s a fantastic way to create mailing lists, targeted content, or sales leads. Lead generation is a critical point in any marketing endeavor.

The process is not only expansive – it’s complicated. However, if done right, it results in quite a lot of profit. Your sales rep team needs to target potential customers that are interested in your products, so wasting time on people that aren’t is directly wasting resources.

Another thing that goes into the process of lead generation is tightening down on the list of potential customers. Finding the best of the best is a surefire way to give your sales team a fantastic opportunity to maximize their efficiency and increase sales.

Through lead generation, you’re actively augmenting the value, performance, and growth of your corporation. Lead generation and demand generation usually go hand in hand, as creating a demand for a product and scouting out potential customers is a fantastic way to drive sales overall.

What Does It Involve?

Lead generation usually comes with demand generation but has some specific practices attached to it. Depending on the industry, the marketing goal, and sales rep team, the lead generation process will include the following things:

• Whitepapers, blogs, and eBook offers;
• Inbound content offers;
• Webinars, target courses, and mailing lists;
• Paid and targeted social media targeting;
• Advertising retargeting;
• Live event marketing;

Five Lead Generation Strategies

1. Use Mailing Lists

A fantastic way to generate leads is to use mailing lists. Once you’ve accumulated as many emails as possible, getting your message out there at once with minimal human interaction is essential. Through webinars, quizzes, and checklists, you’ll accumulate email addresses – and through mailing programs, you can use them to their full extent in your lead generation effort.

2. Post Consistent Blogs

Consistency, punctuality, and quality are all essential aspects of any content, primarily written content. When you’re making written blog posts and content for your lead generation needs, you’ll have to maintain consistency as much as possible.

3. Have a Personal Approach

When you’re generating leads, you’ll have to know your target audience. If you have an intricate insight into who your potential customers are, you’ll have to devise a personal approach that appeals to them. Demographic orientated content is far more effective at generating leads than broader, more general content.

4. Promote Your Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a tool, product, or initiative that a marketing professional offers potential customers in exchange for their email address. Promoting your lead management will be your best friend if you’re trying to put together a mailing list.

5. Create A Inviting Newsletter

When you’re sending actual emails, you’ll need to make it as attractive as possible. No one likes overly long, boring, and uninviting emails. There are many newsletter templates readily available on the internet, so marketing executives can benefit from making some simple modifications.