Demand generation increases brand awareness while lead generation aims at converting promising prospects into customers. The post enumerates the major differences between the two and offers tips for an integrated strategy for successfully growing the company’s business prospects.
Top providers of B2B demand generation services like The Global Associates strive to increase your brand awareness by strategically engaging with prospects who have shown interest in your products or services. B2B demand generation is top of the sales funnel activity creating awareness and interest in your products/services, penetrating new audiences by adopting effective methods and techniques, and then handing over the baton to the lead generation team to play their part in the organization’s business growth.
It’s important to understand the comparative strengths of demand generation and lead generation, and how they contribute towards revenue generation and growth of the company. You can look at it from this perspective: the objective of demand generation is to make people who have visited your website or product pages more aware of what you offer, while lead generation aims to turn the prospect’s interest into qualified leads for the sales team to convert into paid customers. Demand and lead generation are, therefore, in a way, two different stages in the sales funnel, demand gen leading into lead gen.
B2b demand generation occupies the top of the sales funnel, it’s less transactional than lead generation, endeavoring to bring interested people into your buying process. You target those who have shown interest in your products or services by frequently visiting your website or social media profiles.
B2B lead generation then takes over to encourage prospects with heightened interest in your brand or product to share their personal information, like their names and emails. This confirms that these people are keen to know more about the product/ service they have shown interest in. You can only generate enough quality leads if you succeed in generating demand, so demand generation is higher up the sales funnel, and it initiates lead generation.
It’s impossible to convert a prospect into a qualified lead if they aren’t aware of your brand or the services you offer. The important thing to understand is that there are some differences between demand and lead generation, but they don’t counter each other. You must have an integrated approach combining both to achieve great results. Following are some main differences between the two processes.
Differences Between Demand Generation and Lead Generation:
1. Difference in objective
The objective of demand generation companies is to build awareness about your company and the problems you can expertly deal with. Some of these people may not be interested in buying from you at the moment, but they are likely to get back to you when they face similar kinds of problems in the future. Lead generation has the responsibility to convert this demand into qualified leads. The aim is to make the audience aware of your products/ services in due course of time during this journey. Once you identify the issues of the prospect, you can make a customized offer to help them solve their problems.
2. Difference in the mode of engagement
B2B demand generation helps you build trust with the prospects and establish your brand value. It projects you as a thought leader in the industry with revolutionary ideas and encourages them to engage more with you. The process is less transactional than lead generation, which generates awareness about value proposition, and differentiates your brand and offerings from those of others in the business. The idea is to convey in clear terms all the benefits of using your product or services over that of other companies.
3. Difference in the intended impact
The intended impact of demand generation is educating your target audience about the products or services you are offering. You achieve this using strategy like creating free resources to satisfy the customers’ doubts and queries and measure their level of interest. You measure the impact in terms of interest generated so promising customers can be handed over to the lead generation team. B2B lead generation companies in India try to take it to the next level by using more explicit content to nurture promising leads. They offer some interesting free stuff to prompt prospects to share their personal information.
How can demand gen and lead gen work together:
It’s important to know how demand gen and lead gen can be brought together to ensure significant business growth for your organization. We must see this because modern marketing has somewhat shifted to a more targeted approach. So, generating demand becomes more important than just creating as many leads as possible, quality takes precedence over quantity. Modern-day buyers carefully evaluate their purchasing options taking their own time, which means that without a good B2B demand generation program lead generation will be expensive and inefficient. You must make sure the prospects are well aware of your solutions to effectively improve your conversion ratios.
Demand generation companies perform the important job of increasing demand and awareness of your brand and available solutions to prepare a solid platform for the lead generation team. You must strive to combine demand gen and lead gen strategically to pump good quality leads into your company’s sales funnel.
