Demand gen comes in many forms. For B2C businesses, it is often called growth or acquisition (with a hint of retention). For B2B businesses, it is most correctly known as demand gen which encompasses the groups of marketing programs that drive leads and turn them into closed/won business. This is a primer to the things you should be thinking about when you’re focused on demand gen.
There are so many places you can start when you are building out your first B2B demand gen program and you’ll find plenty of guides on what you need to be thinking about (examples: here, here, and here). The place I generally start is asking some relatively basic questions. Having the answers to these questions should give you the clarity in how you should build your program.
But first… I would like to stand on my soap box and make it very clear that lead management not lead gen nor is it demand gen. Nor should demand gen be labeled as lead gen. To be extra clear:
Lead Gen is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service.
Demand Gen is the focus of targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and/or services. A true demand gen strategy accounts for every touch point in the buyer’s journey.
I’ve met far too many start-up leaders/executives & sales executives who are fixated on lead gen, but don’t think place any priority after that initial conversion. Think about it – for anyone that has ever dated – generating dates can be easy (well in an app-led dating world in the city), but getting them to that next stage is the hard part. For the marketer (forget dating for a min, or this gets weird), we all know there’s an elegant dance that needs to be implemented to get anyone to buy your product.
/end of soapbox
Questions to answer before starting your demand gen program
Who is involved?
Generally the Marketing and Sales functions are the most involved in the process. In Marketing, you’ll likely have a demand gen function consisting of operational, content, and events marketers. In sales, it is sales operations, strategy, enablement, and the AEs (and potentially B/SDR’s should be involved).
What are your goals?
You should be thinking about both long term and short term goals. Your LT goal should be that big picture or what you imagine success looks like: Do you want a well oiled machine that is supporting X% of revenue (think: >50%); that is shortening your sales cycle; and at higher conversion? If yes, then what are your ST goals to get there?
How achievable are your goals?
The best way to determine this is to take a step back and look at the big picture (this is when you say: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”) So do you have all the pieces in place for you to achieve success?
- Do you have the right resources (people, tools, etc)?
- Do all of your goals tie back to larger business goals that are also supported by individual departmental goals?
- Do you have any historical data to establish a baseline and project success?
- Are you able to measure success?
What is your budget?
This will be key in determining your marketing mix. There are general benchmarks in how much you should be spending, but the easiest way to not overpromise and underdeliver is to build a bottoms-up model. You’ll have to have a baseline for blended CAC to estimate how much you should be spending, but if you can estimate the amount of leads coming in, multiply that by blended CAC – then you should have a demand gen budget. If it seems low, then your blended CAC may be incorrect or you’re incorrectly estimating your leads.
How will you measure success?
Occasionally you have to build demand before you can build the ways in which you can capture the data for success, but don’t wait to start thinking about how you’re planning to measure. It’s critical that you have a plan and you know what kinds of data/insights you are looking for. It’s far more difficult to untangle poorly set-up data too late, or look for data that’s not there.
Creating a demand gen program is not easy – especially in organizations that are fast moving or in a constantly changing industry/environment. Making sure you take a step back to think about your program before your build will go a long way toward your demand program’s success!