Why demand generation is more than lead generation

Ninety-one percent of marketers say lead generation is their most important goal.

And the desire to generate leads gets amplified in times of economic uncertainty. This year’s consumer spending pullback has had the knock-on effect of slowing B2B spending across the board. For example, a predicted 14% decline in home renovation spending this year is forcing construction businesses and materials suppliers to reassess their expenses and strategies. That puts even more pressure on B2B marketing departments to generate actionable leads to pass to sales teams quickly.

But savvy marketers know a linear process of awareness-to-leads-to-deals isn’t how B2B sales work today. A successful marketing operation requires a strong demand generation program to be in place before – and long after – those actionable leads come into play. 

In this article, we’ll define what demand generation means, how it relates to lead generation, and show how a thoughtful demand generation engine – built off of both short- and long-term wins – can boost your brand’s ability to deliver continuous leads and drive revenue.

What is demand generation? And how does it compare to lead generation?

In a recent webinar with Industry Dive’s studioID, Robert Rose, chief strategy officer at the Content Marketing Institute, warned against marketers’ instinctive reaction to focus solely on driving leads during an economic downturn. 

“One of the first things we want to kill when we’re in a downturn is true demand generation,” Rose said. “[But decision makers] who know nothing about our solution … need to be taught how to become – and inspired to become – customers.

“Demand generation is generating demand where little or none exists. And this is a huge opportunity during an economic downturn, because your competitors won’t be [doing this].”

Demand generation is essentially the sum of your marketing team’s efforts to demonstrate the need for your brand’s products, services and solutions. 

Lead generation, meanwhile, is a part of your brand’s demand generation machine. It’s true that there’d be no sales if you didn’t have leads. But, if you zoom out, it’s easy to understand how there’d be no leads if your team couldn’t generate demand.

To better understand how the two concepts work, think of a brand’s sales cycle with each potential customer involved in a never-ending engagement. At some point the potential customer may become a lead, but there’s no way of predicting if that’s a year before they make a buying decision or mere weeks before making a purchase. In the meantime – both before and after they become a lead – these decision makers are researching your brand and alternatives, hopping from articles to product pages to YouTube videos, engaging with the occasional social media post and perhaps converting on a gated webinar or white paper that puts them firmly on your sales team’s radar.

“Lead generation is a critical part of a demand generation strategy, but lead generation alone is insufficient to achieve marketing’s true goal: driving sales,” said Jane Qin Medeiros, General Manager and Executive Vice President at Industry Dive’s studioID. “Marketers need to align their tactics to buyers’ behaviors today – think about how they discover content, the type of content they engage with, and what they are in the market for.”

So how do marketers adjust in a world where decision makers are always watching, but converting on their own varied schedules? We’ve broken it down into five short-term and five long-term ways marketing leaders can score wins to turn their teams into always-on demand generation powerhouses.

Short-term demand generation wins

Invest in the latest audience research

Continuously researching your audience helps your team uncover new insights while challenging current assumptions and biases. Everyone likes to talk about having data, but this is your chance to show you know how to use it. Take the information your customers are giving you – whether it’s zero- or first-party data, surveys, stakeholder interviews or other tactics – and analyze it to discover buyer trends and needs. Then, start crafting narratives that fit your most common buyer journeys. 

Define ownable conversations

Marketing leaders who take time to build ownable conversations for their brand will be able to reframe how their entire team drives demand. Ownable conversations identify key gaps in the industry discourse, allowing your brand to own those areas of opportunity. Explored over time, ownable conversations can make a brand stand out as a thought leader in a crowded marketplace, setting the stage for increased demand.

Tweak your SEO

This is another investment that can pay off in the course of months as opposed to years. Focus your keyword research on terms your audience is using, as opposed to industry terms that may seem second nature to you … and no one else. (A universal example: targeting the phrase “work from home” instead of “hybrid work.”) Creating content around keyword clusters you identify as popular in your niche but aren’t ranking for your site can help close some early buyer journey gaps.

Identify the channels where your targeted audiences live

This sounds almost too elementary to mention. But many marketers don’t do this consistently. Simply reevaluating whether or not every channel is receiving the correct amount of focus for the return it delivers (whether that’s clicks, views or some other form of engagement) can increase efficiency faster than any other tip on this list.  

Leverage intent data 

Intent data can help you understand your audience’s motivations and needs when searching online. For example, Informa Tech’s NetLine found B2B buyers in the tech space who attend live webinars are likely to make a buying decision at some point in the following three months. Drawing those types of insights from intent data allows you to deliver relevant messaging to the right audience at the right time.

Long-term demand generation wins 

Invest in your brand 

Set aside your measurement frameworks for one moment and think about these questions: Why do people do business with your brand? What makes you stand out in the marketplace? Where do you aspire to be? Earning a stack of leads during a campaign is something to be happy about, but investing in people and processes that grow your share of voice and organic reach over time will generate demand long after any leads have cycled through their initial buyer journeys.

Consistency isn’t just key. It’s the only way. 

This can feel like a Catch-22. Once you understand the power of demand generation, you’re then faced with the significant challenge of pulling all the levers needed to maximize it every quarter, month and day. Still, establishing consistent publishing and messaging cadences will help decision makers learn when and where to look for your content, while also adding an aura of reliability and expertise to your overall brand.

Integrate sales and marketing both strategically and operationally

Siloing departments that have the same end goal of revenue generation and reputational enhancement doesn’t make sense. Creating a strategy and establishing KPIs that require marketers and sales representatives to rely upon each other and share constant feedback will allow you to build messaging and content executions that appeal to your target audiences in new and creative ways. 

Move away from a lead campaigns-first approach over time

We understand you might read that and say “But I need leads now!” And anyone advocating for a demand generation-first approach would be remiss to ignore the current economic hurdles some brands are facing. The good news, as we’ve alluded to previously, is demand generation and lead generation aren’t mutually exclusive. The lead generation campaigns you launch over the next several quarters can all fit into your long-term demand generation strategy without sacrificing near-term sales needs. This is done by building the aforementioned short-term wins we discussed earlier as you push for leads to meet your brand’s immediate sales goals. Creating consistent messaging based on audience research and re-evaluated keyword research, then sharing it in the optimal channels and using the intent data you get back to better identify decision makers in the buyer journey can create perpetual demand for your products and services. If done well – or even just better than you’re doing them now – these activities will all earn you more leads in the long term without damaging any lead-generating pushes in the short term. 

Building a sustainable pipeline is the best way to fuel sales acceleration

Creating a demand generation machine over time is the most significant gift you can give your sales team. Refined, always-on messaging and content strategies that are tested over time have the power to draw in educated and engaged decision makers at a more predictable rate, providing the opportunity for constant self-guided re-engagement until the buying decision is made.

You have the team – now you just need the roadmap. Our ebook “The customer journey multiverse: Are you ready?” provides the blueprint straight from digital marketing industry leaders. Download it today.