Demand Generation Marketing
Demand Marketing Services
What Are They?
Demand Generation is focused target marketing to create awareness and interest for your products and services, and attracting new people to your business. Some people may use the term lead generation to describe actually qualifying these people into "leads" for your sales team.
We believe in using all the available tools to generate demand, and we make choices based on where you are in your business journey (and budget) and where your prospective customers are found. Check out a selection of these below.
Content Marketing
Content is the absolute foundation of any strategy. We beg, cry, and plead for our Clients to seriously start working on their content strategy ... yesterday. We have a million reasons why, which we discuss here and here. but not the least of which is that Google's algorithm continues to reward "older" content. Even in B2B, the first thing people do when researching solutions is "Google it." If you aren't open to a content marketing strategy, we may not be the team for you. Based on both experience and research, content marketing is one of the pillars of a 21st century marketing plan. What do we mean when we say content? Well, we haven't met a piece of content we didn't like, but here are some starter content types:
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Blog Posts - Think of a company blog as a repository for short articles about your products and the kinds of problems they solve. We provide a great checklist to help people write more effective blog posts. These posts typically support a larger initiative.
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Case Studies - We love a good customer case study and will immediately start badgering our new Clients to let us talk to their customers to build some powerful testimonials. Want some tips for writing your own Case Studies? See here.
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Pillar or Topic Pages - These are long format, informative website pages (kind of like this one, heh heh), that are designed to attract people via search engine optimization who could use your product or service.
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White Papers - A longer, informative written document, sometimes used interchangeably with "eBook." We like to use these longer documents as a "lead magnet" which will require your interested prospect to provide their contact information before download.
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Interviews - Employee and founder interviews about your company and its products and services can be a great source of content.
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Checklists and Guides - Providing your prospect checklists or guides for solving problems on their own is a great way to get leads. They'll realize it's hard, and that they want you to do it for them. We do this all the time.
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Videos - More than 81% of B2B marketers are using video. You shouldn't be part of the 19%. Great videos take many forms: from "how-to," to the ever present explainer video.
Paid
Because "organic" reach via search and even social media is on the wane, companies need to include a paid component to their strategy. Paid opportunities abound of course, but a few to consider for starters.
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Paid Search
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Google Ads - Priority one. Even a tiny campaign is a place to start.
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Bing - If you have budget left over, Bing is the #2 search engine.
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Paid Social - Reach more of your own audience, and people like them. LinkedIn, Facebook and others are surprisingly effective when used correctly.
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Paid Review Sites - Buyers use review sites such as Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp to compare solutions like yours.
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Retargeting/CRM Targeting - Today we can target people who have taken a specific action on your site, or who are at a certain stage in your CRM.
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And a million other ways media companies will take your money. No matter your industry, there's a trade pub your prospects pay attention to. These trade publications have all kinds of paid opportunities. You must invest in testing and learning about these opportunities. There's gold in them thar hills.
Lead Collection
Building a lead list is critical. But how do you actually do that? What are the components of a good lead collection sequence? Our lead campaigns contain the following:
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"CTA" - Call to Action You need a reason for the prospect to provide their contact information. They do this as a sort of "quid pro quo" for your awesome content, or other reasons. We promote these offers using buttons or links that we call CTAs.
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Landing Pages - The landing page promotes the lead magnet offer. B2B SaaS startup founders often refer to their home page as a Landing Page, but don't be confused. You can have many (many!) different landing pages for different purposes.
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Form - The form on the landing page collects the contact information which becomes a lead in your CRM. We use different forms for different purposes.
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Thank You Page - After the form is submitted, the thank you page provides the user confirmation of the offer they requested and is a chance to promote another offer!
- Thank You Email - When people download your content, we send a follow up "from" your sales rep with the link to the download and additional information. You'd be surprised how often people reply.
Email is still the work horse of your marketing strategy. But, SPAM is always out of fashion. You can't reliably go out, buy a list, send 100,000 emails and sell a bunch of stuff. You may get lucky, but your investors want reliable and predictable. Email is used for more targeted opportunities.
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Newsletters - Weekly newsletters using your valuable content gets results and is minimal effort.
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Offers - Offers of valuable content, pricing promotions, and demos all have their place.
- Sales Templates - While SPAM doesn't work, targeted outreach, at scale, from your sales team does.
- Tradeshow Pre and post-follow-up.
Search Engine Optimization
We don't claim to be an SEO agency.,but we incorporate best practices to help your content rank where your prospects will find it. Some tactics include:
- Google Snippet - We perform research and create content to try to get the Google "snippet" for the topic that best describes your product.
- Pillar Pages - Also known as "topic clusters", this strategic content creation and linking process helps you link for relevant topics.
- "Off Page" - When feasible, we try to get your content linked to from other relevant sites. Beware shady folks selling this service.
Social Media
You ignore social media at your own peril. Whether you think so or not, your prospects and customers are on social media. We typically help with:
- Establish your big 3 social channels - LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, with the appropriate social headers and profiles. Maybe big 4, now that Instagram is taking over the world.
- Content Syndication - When we put up your content, we will also ensure it is featured on the right social channels with the appropriate "#" tabs and "@" tags.
- Social Engagement - Interacting with influencers (not Kim Kardashian, don't get your hopes up) that matter in your business.
Public Relations
PR is a special form of content. We'll push for newsworthy press releases related to funding, product launches and so forth. We're not a PR agency, so we won't have the personal contacts with your industry's media leaders, but we'll do our best to get your release into the right hands.
Growth Metrics
Marketing metrics are critical to understanding what is working and what isn't. We believe data helps find the truth. Every single marketing retainer comes with monthly marketing metrics so you know exactly what is going on.
The downloadable asset for this client Case Study pulled metrics right from our decks.
Marketing metrics are critical to understanding what is working and what isn't. We believe data helps find the truth. Every single marketing retainer comes with monthly marketing metrics so you know exactly what is going on.
