Successful businesses must continually work at finding new ways to stand apart from the crowd. This struggle typically falls to the B2B marketing department who often focuses on top of the funnel marketing campaigns. But marketing success doesn’t start and stop with leads. Demand for your product or service can be just as valuable.
In this post, we’ll give you tips and insights into B2B demand generation that marketers can infuse into their strategies.
What is B2B Demand Generation?
B2B demand generation focuses on creating a reliable sales pipeline by increasing product or service awareness, effectively generating demand.
Demand generation creates excitement about your brand and grows your audience, while driving traffic and interest capable of converting visitors into customers.
B2C vs. B2B Demand Generation
As the name implies, B2C companies typically focus on getting buy-in from a single customer unit. B2B companies, on the other hand, work to get buy-in by executive decision-makers, teams, departments, or entire organizations.
The result is a longer B2B sales cycle than B2C. B2B purchase decisions take anywhere from six months to a year or longer, and only come after lengthy and careful discovery and due diligence.
Most Common Marketing Tactics and B2B Demand Generation Activities
While every organization is different with unique B2B demand generation needs, there are a number of generally accepted methods popular across industries and business verticals.
Create USEFUL Content
Your customers are likely some version of an expert themselves looking for specific types of information that can directly speak to highly technical solutions, business and cost savings, or white-paper level experiences.
Creating content with genuine value requires company employees and executives to be included as part of the thought leadership for that professional space.
Examples of good B2B demand generation content include any of the following:
- Emails sharing a collection of thought leaders’ perspectives
- Whitepapers summarizing their insights
- eBooks with in-depth information
- Webinars where customers can interact with thought leaders
Use the APPROPRIATE Social Media Channels
Not all social media channels are created equal. This is especially important to note when you’re in the B2B demand generation game.
It’s critical to meet your audience where they are to successfully build trust while generating buzz.
- If your audience trends toward LinkedIn, you’ll benefit from presenting an educational perspective, sharing related insight and thought leadership to start a discussion.
- If they’re on Facebook, they may find a private Facebook group intriguing to explore their industry-related problems and solutions.
- If Twitter works best, keep things simple and quickly digestible, including links or images, such as infographics, or other shareable content.
Brand Building
In the B2B demand generation space, you’re often working to generate demand from other professionals that know what quality and intellect look like. Be sure to take advantage of making content that tells your brand’s story while providing quality, intelligent content.
Thought leadership and brand-building include any type of content that identifies and articulates industry problems and addresses how your product or service is focused on solving some aspect of that problem. This includes:
- Blogs, guest articles, and social media posts
- E-books, infographics, whitepapers, and case studies
- Webinars and virtual events
Email, Email, and Email
A comprehensive content strategy should leverage all assets available to you. Reaching out to your email subscribers can generate great results and revenue, and drive sales while building a community around your brand, like with a newsletter.
The Content Marketing Institute found that 81% of marketers reported email newsletters were the best overall form of content marketing, and a great addition to B2B demand generation strategies.
Online Events and Webinars
Online events and webinars help you build industry-relevant thought leadership while increasing your supply of opt-ins. They are an ideal way for you to acquire time with your target audience with minimal effort.
Use webinars and online events to educate attendees about a new product or address industry pain points.
Critical Questions For Creating B2B Demand Generation Strategies
How Does This B2B Demand Generation Activity Promote Awareness?
Demand generation is any action that generates awareness of your product or service. Every time you provide valuable information to your target audience, you create an opportunity to generate awareness.
This highlights the value of creating and promoting relevant, actionable content. B2B demand generation helps you develop trust, boost name recognition, and position your brand as the best industry resource.
How Do I Turn My Brand or Product Awareness Into a Consideration?
Moving from awareness to consideration requires understanding that different people will visit your site for different reasons. Create buyer personas to match each prospect segment and create content for each segmented persona. High-value, useful content with integrated calls to action can push your prospect further down the funnel.
Do I Have a Funnel Built That Nurtures a Lead and Assists the Sales Team, Ultimately Increasing Acquisitions?
Careful evaluating your funnel to determine whether it can support the various stages is critical for a successful B2B demand generation strategy. Your sales funnel is only as strong as its weakest link. If your funnel fails to assist the sales team by providing low-quality leads, they can’t meet or exceed desired targets.
Ensuring your sales and marketing teams are on the same page is crucial. Learn more about Sales and Marketing Alignment and How To Bring Them Together In Your Virtual Event Strategy.
Does My B2B Demand Generation Strategy Account For Loyalty and Additional Services to Current Customers
Having a B2B demand generation strategy that accounts for customer loyalty and additional services for existing customers is essential for continued success.
Current customers will provide more revenue throughout their lifetime and require careful courting to ensure they don’t slip away because of neglect.
Are We Turning Our B2B Clients Into a Marketing Tool?
Turning existing B2B clients into a marketing tool is seamless when you include them in partnered case studies or include their rave reviews in brand communications to have them help you spread awareness. Word of mouth works!
Metrics to Ensure Your B2B Demand Generation Strategy Is Successful
The following list of metrics can help you identify and track whether your effort and investment generate enough profit and benefit to make it worthwhile.
Visibility
Visibility refers to how often people find your website and other content channels.
Paid Traffic
Paid traffic refers to the traffic your website gets based on paid advertising.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic refers to the traffic your website and other channels get naturally, without encouragement like paid advertising.
Conversions/Conversion Rates
A conversion is when someone visits your site then completes the desired goal, like signing up for an email list or making a purchase. Conversion rates are how many people visit your site and then covert.
MQL
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is someone your marketing team deems as more likely to become a customer than a non-qualified lead.
SQL
A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is someone your sales team has identified as a potential customer.
CAC
The Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) is the money you invest to gain each customer.
Avg Lifetime Values
The Average Lifetime Values refer to the amount of money a customer spends on your brand throughout their lifetime with your product or service.
Avg Sale Value
Tracking each channel’s Average Sale Value shows a rough estimate of each one’s Return on Investment (ROI).
Demand Generation Spend
Demand Generation Spend refers to how much money you spend overall on demand generation.
Demand Generation Return
Demand generation return refers to the money you make or other gains from your overall B2B demand generation spend.
Execute Killer B2B Demand Generation Strategies Through Virtual Events with SpotMe
Try SpotMe with a free demo and see for yourself how easy it is to include webinars and virtual online events in your B2B demand generation strategy.
