Have you sat down and assessed how well your audience knows your brand if your values are coming across in your marketing initiatives, or how much awareness your brand has raised with its target audience? These are all important questions when evaluating your overall marketing strategy.
A demand generation strategist can play a crucial role in your business’s success by answering some of these questions and initiating strategies and processes that build brand awareness, landing more paying customers and clients.
At CJAM, we go further than helping you find a demand generation strategist but finding the RIGHT strategist that understands your business and its needs. We’ve worked with and vetted more than 600+ agencies and partners to filter out the ones that are true to their word and can provide the work promised. Reach out today and book a call to get started.
Understanding Demand Generation
Demand generation focuses on cultivating interest, awareness, and overall demand for the product or services being offered by your business. It encompasses a vast range of marketing strategies conducted to engage potential customers and clients while helping them move through the sales cycle.
A deep understanding of demand generation is crucial for growing businesses looking to level up. It enables them to identify target markets, create personas, and establish a strong brand identity through effective marketing strategies. With the right demand generation strategist, companies can generate more leads, acquire new clients, and increase the overall revenue of their business.
Demand Generation vs Lead Generation
Demand and lead generation are similar aspects of the marketing and sales cycles that drive business growth. With that in mind, they are still different processes with different goals in mind.
For example, demand generation is focused on creating and initiating strategic marketing activities that build awareness, interest, and demand for a product or service. Its main objective is to attract and engage potential customers. Therefore, you may use content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), online advertising, events, and PR to achieve these goals.
Lead generation is identifying and collecting information about potential customers who may have shown interest in your products or services. Therefore, the goal becomes converting these leads into sales and paying customers. Lead generation processes include collecting contact information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, through forms, landing pages, or webinars.
Demand Generation’s Impact on Sales & Revenue
Finding the right demand generation strategist can be one of the best moves your business can make, as they can be pivotal members of the marketing team when it comes to driving sales and overall growth. Demand-generation strategies are aimed at attracting larger pools of potential customers, making the likelihood of sales increase at the same time. A good demand generation strategist will develop a strong understanding of your target market and attract qualified leads that are more likely to convert when presented with the offer of your business.
Identifying Goals & Objectives
In choosing the right demand generation strategist, you want to clearly understand your own goals and the goals of the person to be onboarded, whether an in-house or contract partner. Here are key steps to help identify your goals and objectives:
- Determine your target audience: Who are your ideal customers? Write down things like their demographics, behaviours, and preferences.
- Set quantitative goals: Set goals that can be easily measured and metrics that align with the overall ambitions of your business. It could be something like x leads collected in x amount of time.
- Look at the buyer’s journey: How does your buyer’s journey look? How can you prevent buyers from falling off by increasing brand awareness, nurturing leads, and driving conversions?
- Consider channel-specific goals: If you’re a larger business, you may use multiple marketing channels. To stay on track, consider setting goals specific to each channel being used—for example, open email rates, social media DMS, etc.
- Track and measure progress: It is vital to have a system that tracks and measures the progress of your goals. Define your optimal (KPIs) and make data-driven adjustments to your strategies so it becomes relevant.
Key Qualities to Look for in a Demand Generation Strategist
Finding the right demand-generation strategist can be challenging as there are several factors to consider. For example, do you want to hire an in-house team, contractor, or agency to perform the service? Nonetheless, here are a few things to consider when choosing a demand generation strategist:
- Strategic Thinking: Strategic thinking skills play an important role in demand generation, and your strategist should be capable of analyzing market trends, customer behaviour, and competitive landscapes when coming to conclusions and determining strategies.
- Data-Driven: Demand generation strategies should be focused on data and analytics. Therefore, a strategist should be proficient in leveraging data when it comes to decision-making, identifying trends, and measuring the overall effectiveness of a campaign.
- Research-Oriented: A good demand strategist should be research-oriented and able to develop a deep understanding of buyer personas that fit your business. They should be able to read customer needs, pain points, and motivations.
- Multi-Channel Expertise: A well-rounded demand generation strategist understands various marketing channels, including digital advertising, content marketing, social media, email marketing, SEO, and others.
- Problem-Solving Skills: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills are vital when choosing a proficient demand-generation strategist. With these skills, they should be capable of identifying problems, finding solutions, and optimizing campaigns based on collected data.
- Communicative: Demand generation requires communication with other members of the marketing team. For example, a growth marketing team will have copywriters, SEO experts, and PPC experts working alongside the demand generation strategist to achieve results. Therefore, your strategist should have excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively with the teams.
Too many marketing professionals boast skills and proficiency that they lack and fail to deliver the results promised. That’s why CJAM was founded; we have vetted hundreds of agencies and contractors to find those who can perform what they preach. Contact us today and help us find the perfect demand generation strategist for your business.
What Marketing Automation Tools & Technologies Should They Know?
Demand generation typically requires various marketing automation tools and technologies to execute their strategies effectively. Here are some fundamental marketing automation tools and technologies that a demand generation strategist should be familiar with:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, or Microsoft Dynamics.
- Marketing Automation Platforms: Marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot.
- Email Marketing Software: Email marketing tools like Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, or Constant Contact.
- Content Management Systems (CMS): Content Management Systems like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla.
- Analytics and Reporting Tools: Tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, or Mixpanel.
- Social Media Management Platforms: Social media management tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social.
- A/B Testing Tools: A/B testing tools like Optimizely, VWO, or Google Optimize.
It’s unlikely you’ll meet a demand strategist with complete knowledge of all these tools and systems, which is okay. But they should have some mastery over a few, which are more important for your business and its processes. Therefore, look at what your business is using and seek strategists experienced within your industry or the tools you’re currently using.
Work With CJAM Today
Whether you’re looking to find the perfect demand generation specialist or marketing analyst or build out your growth marketing team, CJAM has you covered, having vetted 625+ agencies and contractors to find those who can deliver their services on time and to standard. Save time and money by booking a call today and connecting with partners that suit your business’s needs.
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