8 Essential B2B Demand Generation Components
Getting more eyes on your business is easier today than ever before. Thanks to the internet, you can build visibility and connect with your core audience no matter where they are.
But there’s an issue — you’re competing for attention in a crowd of countless other businesses. Although it’s challenging, standing out is not impossible to pull off. At least, not when you employ the right B2B demand generation tactics.
So in this post, we’re going to discuss what it takes to build a successful demand generation campaign.
Let’s jump right in.
What is B2B Demand Generation?
B2B demand generation is a strategy companies use to create awareness and interest from targeted business customers. The more targeted your campaign, the higher the odds of getting attention from the right prospects.
There are various methods and tools you can use to build a demand gen strategy. For example, you can mix different content formats and share them across various channels.
The goal is to get the right message in front of the right audience at the right time. And the best way to do this is to learn your audience and then develop a campaign around those insights.
Here’s a look at key components needed to make your B2B demand generation campaign a winner.
What Are the Components of B2B Demand Generation?
The primary focus of B2B demand generation is to create demand for your product or service. So all you need to worry about is building visibility for your brand. Then your lead generation efforts will zone in on turning that attention into potential customers.
Here’s a look at how you can create visibility and demand from a B2B audience.
1. Buyer Personas: The Focal Point of Your Demand Gen
Before you can begin strategizing how to build demand, you need to know who it is you’re targeting. Likely, you have a good idea of the businesses you want to connect with. But if you don’t have a clear buyer persona created for each group/industry, you’ll risk creating messages that don’t resonate.
So, it’s vital to develop customer profiles before you begin. Collaboration between marketing and sales is critical here. By coming together, both sides can share intel about the best prospects to pursue. For example, sales can identify which prospects convert the best, their pain points, and the hurdles.
Then marketing can develop content that answers their questions and clears roadblocks that can prevent leads from converting. Sales teams can also use this content within the sales process to guide and convince prospects to close.
Buyer personas continue to grow in popularity because it simplifies marketing initiatives. Plus, it works — using buyer personas for email campaigns can double email open rates and deliver 5X clickthrough rates.
2. Content: In All Formats and Types
It’s not about how much content you produce. It’s about the type of content you put out. Not everyone enjoys the same formats, which is why it’s critical to offer different options.
But this doesn’t have to mean doing twice (or thrice) the work. For instance, you can create a blog post on a topic. Repurpose it into a video. And then turn that video into an audiogram. You could also go as far as to develop an infographic with the key takeaways, stats, and/or steps.
With this approach, you can create more interest by delivering content in ways your audience likes to consume. It’ll also enable you to reach more people you otherwise wouldn’t have. Plus, this allows you to test what works and what doesn’t.
For example, some prefer long-form blog posts, while others may want bite-sized video content.
3. Relevance: Without It, You Miss the Mark
Demand generation is the first step to getting your audience to notice your brand. But if the content you create doesn’t resonate with them, then they’ll overlook you and your offer. By creating buyer personas, you have the information needed to find messages and formats that are most relevant.
To ensure relevance, you need to perform in-depth market research. Go on social media, talk to your audience and survey them. Ask about their needs and concerns. Then create topic ideas and resources based on the information you gather.
When you have the answers to questions and solutions to problems, you’re more likely to get the attention you desire from qualified leads.
4. Conversations: Make Your Brand Human
People today want to have human connections with brands. This holds true in both B2C and B2B markets. One way you can humanize your brand is to start and join conversations as a brand.
Social media is the perfect place to have meaningful discussions with your target audience. Try finding topics to talk about on your profile. Or join conversations already started by others. The idea is to position yourself as a thought leader, so make sure to offer opinions and insights to add value to the discussion.
And social media isn’t the only place where you can have these talks. Podcasts are growing exponentially among B2B audiences. This presents an opportunity to go more in-depth on topics your prospects care about. Plus, you can host interviews with industry experts. This will entice your current followers to listen and join in discussions. And it’ll give your brand exposure to the followers of the experts you have on your episodes.
It’s an excellent way to generate demand for your brand.
5. Omnichannel: Being Everywhere Your Audience Is
It takes more than one interaction to make a brand noticeable. This is why ad retargeting works so well. It follows you around from site to site until you finally decide to click on it and return to complete your purchase.
And it works similarly with omnichannel marketing. With this strategy, you’re targeting your prospects on multiple platforms. And it’s done in a way that’s streamlined.
For example, a prospect who visits your website, views a product page, and then talks to your chatbot. It should detect that the visitor is interested in a particular product or service and offer relevant content. This can be a downloadable eBook or guide on fixing a problem they may be having (based on the persona that the product is targeting).
It’s about keeping track of the engagements potential customers have with your brand. And then bringing that in to create a seamless interaction wherever they may be (social media, blog, chatbot, online chat, phone, and email).
6. Data-Driven: Numbers Tell a Story
The data you collect about your audience is critical to making demand generation campaigns work. It can tell you things like who’s on the market for your product, why they need it, and who the decision-makers are within an organization.
But not all data is created equal. There are metrics you should be tracking to turn into actionable insights. For example, behavioral data from your website analytics. Seeing where people drop off and what pages they stay on longer will tell a story.
Maybe the content doesn’t resonate here, but it does there. Or the offer is more relevant to the visitors you’re attracting. Seeing your traffic source and how they engage with your content will determine how to move forward. For instance, you can switch up the content you create or redirect different groups to the content that it’s more suited for.
You’ll need the right tools in place to streamline data collection. This may include a customer data platform to organize, centralize, clean, and enrich your data. Then a CRM will gather information about how prospects engage with your brand and why. With this intel, you can deliver content that piques the interest of your target customers.
Whatever moves you decide to make, make sure it’s data-driven.
7. Personalization: Talking to One in a Crowd of Thousands
Giving your audience precisely what they want when they want it is an excellent way to get their attention. For example, you should be sharing content on a topic currently trending in a particular sector you cater to.
Those within that market will find the content helpful, and it’ll get them interested in learning more about your brand. This is why personalization is key. It also helps with relationship-building — roughly 77% of B2B sales and marketing pros attest to this.
But how do you personalize demand gen?
Well, there’s a lot you can learn about your audience when you gather the right data. You can gather insights from lead generation campaigns, customer support teams, and even your salespeople.
8. Automation: Demand that Keeps Going and Going
Attempting to manage demand gen manually will eat up too much of your time. Why spend hours on tasks you can automate? There are better things to do, such as finding ways to enhance your demand generation campaigns.
There are various tools you can use to automate demand gen tasks. For example, you have social media marketing platforms that come with scheduling features. You can use these to create social media posts weeks in advance.
The same is possible using content management systems like WordPress. You can schedule all of your monthly content so you can focus your efforts on improving campaign success.
What Are the Key Trends in B2B Demand Generation?
Demand generation continues to be a leading method for driving business to companies. This is why you’ll find four core strategies included in demand gen efforts:
- Content creation to ignite and build interest
- Social media engagement to build buzz
- Brand storytelling to compel audiences
- Thought leadership to establish authority
- Email marketing to nurture interest into consideration
So many of the trends will revolve around these factors (and ways to enhance them). Here’s a look at some of the trends we’re currently seeing.
Going Virtual
It makes sense to use virtual methods to attract today’s B2B customers. The pandemic didn’t create virtual methods, but it did usher in the push for full-on digital interactions. You can capitalize on this by hosting webinars and workshops to build interest.
Going Live
Humanizing your brand is about having conversations. And what better way to host one than in a live discussion? It’s a great way to get people to join in to ask questions and gain value from your videos. Consider hosting a Q&A event with an industry expert or influencer.
Using LinkedIn Marketing
If you’re targeting a B2B market, then it makes sense to use LinkedIn marketing. This platform has millions of professionals using it regularly. So if you’re looking to create ads or share relevant content, then this is where you want to be.
Making Decisions Based On Consumer Intent
Generating demand on a higher level is possible when you target users based on their intent. Let’s say users are currently looking for a solution to their problem. You can deliver posts that target these users specifically.
Intent data is behavioral-based intel about your prospects. It gives you information on content consumption, pages visited, and keywords used.
By going over this data, you can create better strategies to enhance your content and build better engagement.
Implementing Automation and Chatbots
Leveraging marketing automation tools is a smart move for demand generation. It allows you to delegate processes, prevent errors, and gather essential intel on your prospects. It also automates real-time notifications triggered by specific actions.
Chatbots are also helpful — ever notice them pop up when you enter a site? It’s the perfect tool for getting attention and even contact information from your visitors.
Start Generating Demand for Your B2B Company
Interested in building more demand from your B2B prospects? Then it’s time to start creating a strategy that incorporates the above essential components. You’ll also find the trends helpful for maximizing your results.
If you’d like to learn more about building successful campaigns, then watch the on-demand webinar: How Siteimprove saw 15x ROI from a Single Campaign.
