Despite its increasing popularity, I’ve found that demand generation is defined differently depending on whom you ask. Here is how the bastion of all truth, Wikipedia, defines it:
Demand generation is the focus of targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and/or services. Commonly used in business-to-business, business-to-government, or longer business-to-consumer sales cycles, demand generation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of marketing programs coupled with a structured sales process.
While Wikipedia’s information can sometimes be suspect, this definition is fairly accurate. But if I had to put it more simply, I’d say demand generation is a strategically planned, persona-focused marketing program. While brochures, collateral, and logos are important parts of a company’s foundation, demand generation marketing is focused on orchestrated campaigns that support the buyer throughout the buying process and (as a result) drive qualified opportunities to the sales team.
Without question, brand is important. In fact there’s an argument to be made for its increasing importance. The problem arises when we use branding as a way to hide from accountability. If you or people on your team would rather hide behind refreshing a brochure that probably doesn’t need it or creating more collateral to gather dust in a storage room instead of figuring out how you can better support your prospects, demand generation might not be for you.
If, however, you like the idea of thoughtfully putting together campaigns built on persona-based insights, launching them, driving real business impact, analyzing the results, and improving from there, welcome aboard!
It might sound risky to make this transition and, to be fair, it is a big change from marketing’s traditional role. But the real risk is in not adapting to a changing marketplace and becoming a relic of the past.
This post was excerpted from Getting Started in Demand Generation. Pick it up today!
Ready to get started with your demand generation program? Check out the persona pack. It includes a framework and one-page worksheet for developing key personas for your business. Click here to download it for free.
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