Demand generation myths in 2022 – a guide for B2B tech and data companies
In the last year, the buzz and business focus on demand generation strategies have risen significantly. In fact, 70% of marketers are planning to increase their demand gen budgets, and 34% say their spending will grow by more than 20%.
For B2B businesses, this popularity is largely driven due to the strategy’s unique ability to deliver a stronger, more sustainable sales pipeline.
However, for some, demand gen strategies may have felt too complex - with some even trying but failing to make it work.
Building a demand generation strategy can be simplified.
This makes it more accessible to B2B businesses that don’t have the in-house expertise or large budgets.
👉Read more: ‘7 steps you can take today to boost demand generation’
Let’s look at some other common misconceptions…
Myth #1: Demand generation and lead generation are the same
Demand gen and lead gen are two different strategies.
Demand generation is a marketing strategy to generate interest in your company’s products and services – and then turns them into customers that you can retain for a long time.
Lead generation is a simpler approach to gathering contact information from those who might be interested in a service or product.
In the simplest form:
Lead generation = This approach markets to the masses to increase interest in your products and services. For example, creating a blog or webinar series are a proven way to successfully attract leads to your brand.
Demand generation = This term covers a variety of sales and marketing actions that attract, convert and retain customers. It includes activities much further down the sales funnel – such as lead nurturing.
With us referring to prospects as ‘leads’ – in both a lead gen and demand gen approach – it’s easy to see where the confusion comes from.
Demand gen is more successful because people don’t like to be sold to. They like to be nurtured/warmed towards a sale. If you ran a lead generation campaign and passed the data to sales for follow-up, it can come across too strong and you risk burn-out and losing the lead for good. We find that educating a customer and providing them value – for example, sharing free tips and tricks guides to help them solve their challenges – proves much more successful.
👉Find out more about: How to generate (warm) engaged leads.
💡Top tip: Patience is essential with a demand gen approach. And this is why businesses can sometimes favour a lead gen approach that can yield instant results (a win). Demand gen creates multiple sales and a sustainable pipeline. The quick wins are great – until the data is burnt or a brand reputation damaged.
Myth #2: Demand generation is one approach
Demand gen is not one singular marketing strategy – such as Account Based Marketing. It’s made up of multiple marketing activities.
This is important because if one demand gen activity isn’t working for you, say paid social media ads, it doesn’t mean demand gen isn’t the right approach for your business. Moreover, if paid social media works really well, upping the budget for this area alone may not necessarily lead to more of the same great results.
💡Top tip: A demand gen approach should be executed across multiple channels – website/Search Engine Optimisation, social media, email and more. This is because your target market engages with multiple channels during the buying cycle.
👉Read more: How to level up your B2B marketing for faster filling sales pipelines.
Myth #3: This approach doesn’t work
Sometimes, an approach to demand gen may be neglected because it wasn’t a fair test – not because it wasn’t working.
B2B businesses need to make sure they allow sufficient time to test an approach… And then it needs measuring correctly, with the right key metrics, to understand if it was a flop or very effective.
💡Top tip: Often, it’s the consistency that’s the winning ingredient with demand gen. So that could be as simple as always posting on social media 2-3 times a week, sending a monthly newsletter, sharing two new blogs a month,
👉Further reading: Building credibility – the key to winning B2B clients.
Myth #4: Demand gen and content creation work in silo
Content is THE most important element of any marketing. It allows companies to communicate their value and contribution to the needs, wants and pain points of their prospects. And so it should be pivotal to demand gen too. With this in mind, content creation and demand gen execution strategies should be created together.
Here’s why content is so important for B2B businesses:
Companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don't blog. (DemandMetric)
Businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors than businesses that don't. (HubSpot)
70% of people would rather learn about a company through articles rather than advertisements. (DemandMetric)
If a content strategy isn’t intrinsically built along-side your demand gen strategies, there are so many missed opportunities (it actually makes my eyes water a little 😅).
The content strategy should come first – this should be focussed on the target audience’s pain points and future needs. Then the distribution of this content, the channels you use, then help to maximise ROI (because you are sharing this incredible piece of content further) and help increase conversion (because more people will then see it).
💡Top tip: And to support strong sales pipelines, your content should also appeal to different stages of the sales funnel so that you capture the interest of those not ready to buy yet (c.97% of your audience).
👉Further reading: Why you should adopt a "full-funnel" marketing approach.
Myth #5: It’s great to hire multiple channel specialists to execute demand gen
Using a specialist is a great way to ensure the best expertise and know-how is brought in to grow your B2B business. However, specialists are exactly that. They focus on one element and do it really well.
Successful demand gen strategies require experts that can see the bigger picture and understand the overall demand gen strategy – the correct messaging, how channels work together, the best ways to measure campaigns - for it to be successful.
💡Top tip: You can benefit from multiple specialists if you have a senior marketer or agency that understands and can manage all activities. This helps to gain an overall perspective on what is working.
👉Further reading: 5 lessons we've learned to drive sales qualified leads.
Summing it up
Don’t be put off by perceived complexities or failed attempts. There are simpler and more successful ways to execute demand gen strategies. Often, it’s just about developing a little more knowledge so make use of experts’ blogs offering insight based on tried and tested approaches.
Take a look at our blog for more demand gen tips and tricks.