The nature of demand generation has been evolving over the past decade or so and it continues to evolve even more in the year 2020.
With paradigm shift in the B2B market in the year 2020, the use of social media, chosen channels of communication and type of messaging has influenced the way people are investing in their demand generation efforts and also the way customers perceive services and products. Building long term relationships, nurturing and getting to know the customer better has taken precedence over making a direct offer through hard-selling.
Empathy has replaced aggressive marketing and personalization and customised messaging is working more than bland and cold communication.
While the marketing efforts now hinge over creating a slow but steady and consistent nurturing plan; the tech-savvy customer who is aware of the market and the trends is now treading slow, weighing their options before arriving at any final buying decision. This makes it even more crucial for B2B marketers to smartly strategize their demand generation goals.
Know more to convert more:
The first step to do demand generation right is to delve deeper in to the knowing what demand gen is and how it really works. In-depth knowledge of how it really works can help you implement it better. Many people confuse demand gene with inbound marketing, though many of its functions might look similar; they are definitely not the same. Messaging through demand generation intends to create brand awareness and not necessarily getting the customers into action right away. Content that acquaints the prospects with your brand and creates more familiarity and an ambience of comfort and trustworthiness; is the right content for demand gen.
Acquaintance can lead to conversational messaging to get to know your prospect well and then eventually building a long term relationship that culminates into business. This is the most crucial strategy for demand generation; after all for you to create the demand, your customer first needs to know you well and you need to know the customer well!
You also need to define the ideal prospect for your business, their typical challenges or pain points, their buying stage and their buying decisions too.
How do you get to know your customers well?
Creating top of the funnel content that makes them take notice of your brand is crucial for brand recall. Insights, reports, case studies or relevant information that resonates with who they are and what they are looking for can make them buy from you eventually.
Other than the above, some more techniques such as having a strong social media presence, having a robust PR strategy and even giving away a few tools and gated content for free can build the necessary relationship between you and your prospect for you to be able to convert them into customers.
Conclusion:
Demand generation as the name suggests is all about generating demand for your prospects to make them aware of what they need and to help them know how to get it. Today when people are not exactly in a mood to buy, it is important to stay in the eye-line of the customers so that they know you and also count on you to bring solutions to them and not just sell. It is a systematic process to win the customers without having to resort to hard-selling. Today, it is all about asking them what they need and convincing them to buy from you.
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