Are your lead Combine the Two generation tactics falling short? It might be time to rethink your approach if you’re finding it difficult to scale your business.
Rather than solely focusing on generating more leads—which may not always result in conversions—shifting your strategy to prioritize demand generation could make a bigger impact.
In the demand generation vs. lead generation debate, demand generation builds awareness and interest first, creating a stronger foundation for attracting high-quality leads. By creating demand, you’re more likely to engage prospects who are genuinely interested and ready to convert, making your lead-generation efforts far more effective.
Here’s an example: Imagine heading to the grocery store after work, feeling hungry but unsure what to eat. While on the subway, you see a video ad featuring crispy, mouth watering fried chicken. Suddenly, you’re craving fried chicken—they’ve successfully created demand by sparking your interest and shaping your decision.
Although not everyone sells something as universally tempting as fried chicken, this approach works across industries, including software companies. By creating demand, businesses can influence potential customers’ preferences and guide them toward their product or service, even before they realize they need it.
What is lead Combine the Two generation?
Effective demand generation aims to improve lead quality by building interest and desire for your product or service before encouraging prospects to Indonesia Email Data purchase. Rather than rushing to convert, the focus is creating demand that draws in more engaged and qualified leads.
This approach is especially impactful in B2B environments. At Leadfeeder, we’ve seen firsthand how demand generation can drive tangible results, helping us nurture stronger relationships with prospects and ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.
But first, let’s look at demand generation vs. lead generation differences and how each works.
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What is lead generation?
Lead generation identifies and attracts potential customers interested in a company’s products or services. This usually involves content marketing, email campaigns, and social media outreach to capture attention and gather contact information. Businesses can nurture and guide these prospects through the sales funnel by targeting already engaged people.
What is demand Combine the Two generation?
Once leads are identified, the focus shifts to qualifying them—assessing their level of interest and readiness to make a purchase. Effective lead generation helps ensure the sales team works with prospects who genuinely intend to buy, increasing the likelihood of conversions. The goal is to convert these leads into paying customers through tailored follow-ups and targeted offers.
What is demand generation?
Demand generation is a marketing approach that creates a demand for a product or service before gathering leads or pushing for conversion.
When it’s effective, it generates brand awareness and drives traffic to your website.
It is ideal for businesses with a new or less-known offering — especially those in the B2B sectors — but any organization looking to expand its pool of potential customers can leverage this strategy.
It might sound a lot like brand awareness, but there is a key difference.
Demand generation marketing doesn’t focus on your brand as a whole. Rather, it focuses on educating potential customers about their problems and possible solutions.
Demand generation is a process, not a one-step strategy. The first step generates demand by informing your audience of your offering and encouraging them to learn more.
What is the difference Combine the Two between lead generation and demand generation?
The second step is demand capture, where you capture intent and push them to convert.
This might sound like a strategy you’re already using — good old lead generation.
So what’s the difference?
What is the difference between lead generation and demand generation?
Demand generation builds awareness and fosters interest in a company’s products or services. It employs various strategies to engage potential customers and can also effectively reach new target audiences.
In contrast, Lead generation is all about gathering contact information from your target audience so the sales team can reach out later.
1) Goals
Demand generation: The primary objective is to increase awareness of your company and the specific problems your products or services address. Even if individuals don’t need a solution, they must recognize your brand as a potential provider when needed. By establishing this awareness, you create a foundation for future engagement.
Lead generation: The goal is to convert this built-up demand into actual leads. As potential buyers progress through their journey, they become increasingly familiar with your offerings. At this point, you can present your product as a solution to their challenges, effectively guiding them from initial interest to a willingness to engage and potentially purchase.
2) Engagement
Demand generation: This fosters trust between your audience and your brand, establishing your authority within your industry. By consistently positioning yourself as a thought leader, you encourage greater engagement from potential customers drawn to your expertise and insights.
How is lead Combine the Two generation different from a demand generation marketing strategy?
Lead generation: This is crucial in distinguishing your brand and solutions from competitors. It highlights your product’s unique benefits and value, effectively showcasing how it addresses the specific needs of your target audience. This differentiation is essential for capturing the interest of potential leads and converting them into loyal customers.
3) Impact
Demand generation: This focuses on educating your target audience by providing valuable, free resources that address their questions and concerns. This approach often includes blogs, videos, and guides that are readily accessible without any barriers, allowing prospects to engage with your content and build familiarity with your brand.
Lead generation: This takes this further by employing more targeted content to nurture potential leads and enhance brand positioning. This strategy typically involves gated resources, such as eBooks, whitepapers, or exclusive webinars, that require users to submit their contact information before accessing the material. By doing so, lead generation provides valuable insights and helps capture and qualify leads for further engagement.
How is lead generation different from a demand generation marketing strategy?
Lead generation is just one step in the demand generation process. With demand generation, organizations get users excited about their offerings, draw them in, and then work to push them through to conversion.
Lead gen only has one goal — gather as many contacts as possible. This can result in no leads if customers don’t know you exist or a ton of unqualified leads (no matter how hard you work to qualify them.)
Here’s the thing — the B2B buyer journey has changed dramatically in recent years. Traditional B2B marketing, sales, growth, and lead gen strategies are no longer a one-size-fits-all strategy.
How to Combine the Two bring demand generation and lead generation together
For starters, sales and marketing teams are moving closer together. That means separating steps like lead generation from the rest of the funnel is no longer effective — or needed.
To win at B2B growth, organizations must focus on building awareness and demand, creating high-quality content that solves a problem, and getting in front of buyers on the platforms they’re engaging on—not hiding it behind lead capture forms.
Once the demand is there, take the time to understand intent signals, build a presence on high-intent channels, and engage your sales team when prospects are ready to buy.
How to bring demand generation and lead generation together
Combining demand and lead generation requires a strong strategy that integrates both approaches to maximize their effectiveness. Here are some key steps to achieve this:
Create comprehensive content: Develop high-quality content that educates your target audience while addressing their pain points. Use demand generation techniques to create awareness through blogs, webinars, and social media, and complement this with gated resources like eBooks and case studies that encourage lead capture.
Leverage analytics: Utilize analytics tools to track audience engagement and behavior. By analyzing data from demand generation efforts, you can identify which topics resonate most with your audience. This insight can inform your lead generation tactics, allowing you to tailor your offerings to their interests.
Nurture leads effectively: Once you’ve captured leads through gated content, implement targeted email marketing campaigns that provide additional educational resources. This nurtures the relationship and maintains interest in your brand, effectively bridging the gap between demand generation and lead generation.
Align sales and marketing teams: Foster collaboration between your sales and marketing teams to ensure a unified approach. By sharing insights and feedback, both teams can develop strategies to convert interest generated through demand generation into qualified leads.
Focus on customer journey: Map out the buyer’s journey to understand how prospects move from awareness to consideration and ultimately to decision-making. Create tailored touchpoints that address their needs at each stage, integrating demand and lead generation efforts to guide prospects through the funnel.
Use retargeting strategies: Implement retargeting ads to re-engage users who have shown interest in your demand-generation content. This keeps your brand top-of-mind and encourages them to explore your gated lead generation resources, moving them further along the sales funnel.