What is Demand Generation and Why is it So Important to Marketers Today?

Generating demand – in its simplest terms, that’s what demand generation is all about. It’s a term that is engrained in today’s marketing vocabulary and it’s gaining importance for marketers. Let’s take a closer look at what demand generation means and entails and why it is an essential focus for marketing teams today.

What is Demand Generation?

In a nutshell, demand generation (also known as demand gen) is any activity that involves driving awareness and interest in your products or services that directly contributes to more revenue generated for your business. It is an umbrella term that covers all your company’s marketing efforts from each touchpoint in the buyers’ journey – from anonymous visitors to upselling customers. Demand generation is a data-driven marketing strategy designed to nurture key prospects over their lifetime.

Demand gen marketers focus on the entire revenue cycle: attracting leads, converting leads to sales opportunities and converting these opportunities into sales. It is important for marketers to use demand generation tactics across every stage of the buyers’ journey, in various ways, in order to create something that adds real value for audiences.

Marketing tactics used to support demand generation can vary widely but often include driving website traffic, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, webinars and more.

Ultimately, the goal of demand generation is to create a predictable pipeline that will grow your business by committing to long-term customer relationships and by having a strategic mindset.

Why is Demand Generation So Important to Marketers Today?

If we had to use two words to describe why demand generation is so important to marketers today it would be this: more revenue. Marketing today is, after all, about generating revenue.

Demand generation is focused on ensuring that marketing efforts are fluid, relevant and influential. Through demand generation, your company can increase its revenue by enabling exposure to more opportunities. It is a fully integrated approach that aligns your company’s efforts with what your prospects and customers really want and need.

For today’s marketer, demand generation is a key component of the marketing machine, fueling your sales pipeline. Marketers use this strategy to increase the success of each touchpoint and ultimately have a positive impact on revenue. To create demand, you must educate your prospects by explaining why a challenge they face is significant enough for them to invest in a solution for it.

Implementing a fully integrated, measurable strategy can help you understand exactly what your customers are doing at each stage of their journey. Analyzing data from your demand gen efforts helps to provide insights into the effectiveness of your company’s strategy efforts, which can be utilized to better achieve your ultimate demand generation goal – generating more revenue.

Happy Marketing!