73% of marketers are optimistic that they can create new opportunities for their brands over the next year.
But what makes them so confident?
Having solid demand generation strategies.
To fuel interest in their products and better qualify leads to identify top sales opportunities, marketers are developing intelligent demand generation strategies.
By leveraging intent data to understand their target audiences, marketers get a clearer picture of what drives demand among their key personas. This helps them create more informed campaigns that lead to greater brand awareness, higher conversion rates, and faster sales.
Read on to learn the top demand generation strategies to drive brand awareness for your company so you can reach better prospects more often.
What are demand generation strategies?
Demand generation strategies are data-driven top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) inbound marketing campaigns that create interest in your products among your target audience. The aim is to turn browsing prospects into leads before converting them to sales.
By aligning the customer journey with the buyer intent early on, demand generation marketing creates a seamless experience that draws in the customer and convinces them that you can solve their problems.
The purpose of demand generation efforts is to:
- Educate your target buyer persona about how you solve their problems
- Fuel brand awareness by showing who you are, what you do, and what you stand for
- Showcase brand authority and expertise to put yourself above the competition
- Qualify leads early to identify and prioritize sales opportunities
- Speed up sales cycles by guiding prospects down the demand generation funnel
- Increase your conversion rate by better qualifying leads
With a strong demand gen strategy, 1/4 of B2B brands use these tactics to better qualify leads, and 70% use them to improve conversion rates and campaign results.
Leveraging intent data to shape your demand generation strategies
Intent data is demographic and behavioral data harvested from existing customers and visitors. It helps you to identify which types of people become buyers and how these prospects behave.
59% of marketers use at least three sources of intent data. This could be first-party data from your website, CRM, or your social media platforms, or it could be third-party data that you buy from companies like Bombora.
91% of intent data users have been at least somewhat successful at reaching their goals by using intent data.
This is because intent data can tell you a lot about how you should structure your marketing strategy.
53% of marketers say that intent data helps them better define their ideal buyer persona. This can help you tailor your demand generation efforts to your target audience.
In fact, many marketing teams use this information to inform numerous aspects of their digital marketing.
52% of marketers say that intent data informs their advertising strategy, 52% also say it gives them insights into their content marketing initiatives, and 32% use intent data to tailor marketing messaging.
Not only that, but intent data also helps you to identify the prospects most likely to convert. 52% of marketers agree that intent data can be used to identify new opportunities to target, while 33% use it to prioritize prospecting.
10 demand generation strategies to reel in your target audience
Want to create a multi-faceted demand generation strategy that pushes every prospective customer down the sales funnel?
Try these ten highly effective demand generation tactics to build brand awareness and spark interest.
1. Produce solutions-focused educational SEO content
Considering that 50% of all clicks go to the first-place search result on Google, it’s clear why 64% of commercial leaders plan to boost their search engine optimization (SEO) tactics this year.
Getting to the top of Google boosts brand awareness by increasing web traffic.
But that’s not the only reason to create SEO content. A strong content marketing strategy should target your audience’s pain points and show them how you, as the industry expert, solve these problems.
In fact, 36% of people say they’d like to see more educational content.
Take this opportunity to create interactive content such as informative blogs, whitepapers, ebooks, and how-to guides to help customers.
After all, 60% of B2B marketers say content marketing generates the most qualified leads at the top of the funnel.
2. Compile compelling case studies
41% of marketers say that customer case studies are the most valuable demand generation strategy.
This is because you can use case studies to show each target persona how you solved problems similar to theirs in the past. This acts as social proof, demonstrating the expertise of your brand and the demand for your services.
Video case studies and testimonials are the ideal demand generation marketing campaign as they help customers in the research stage of the buying journey.
79% of people say they’ve watched a video testimonial to find out more about a company, product, or service, while 29% of B2B buyers say that case studies are their most important resource when making purchases.
More importantly, 39% of buyers agree that testimonial videos are effective because they help illustrate the impact a product or service can have on their lives.
In the early stages of the marketing funnel, you can use short case study videos and testimonial videos as targeted ads or as part of your social media marketing campaigns.
You can also use these same video case studies as a sales enablement tool to help your sales team close deals — no wonder 32% of sales teams leverage case studies.
Take this case study video that Testimonial Hero made for Robin as an example.
In just a minute and a half, SoulCycle’s People Operations Lead is able to explain exactly how Robin solves their problems and the tangible benefits they’re seeing from the solution.
This creates demand among companies that have the same business problems as SoulCycle.
3. Get involved in podcasting
In the U.S., 41% of people have listened to a podcast recently. Weekly podcast listeners tune in to an average of eight podcasts a week.
Podcasting offers a great opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in-depth by discussing solutions and talking about case studies while educating your audience on industry-related issues.
While you can create your own podcast, it’s time-consuming and costly to produce a whole show and drum up a significant audience. It’s much more efficient to be featured as a guest on reputable podcasts with existing audiences that mirror your target personas.
Alternatively, try podcast advertising since it’s highly effective.
In fact, 70% of people exposed to podcast advertising agreed that the podcast ads they’d experienced increased their awareness of new products or services, while 62% indicated that podcast ads made them consider new products or services.
4. Target your personas on social media
37% of B2B marketers say social media marketing is the most effective way to encourage early-stage engagement with your brand.
However, it’s not always easy to work out what type of content you should be posting and when.
51% of marketers use social listening to find out what their target audience is talking about. This helps you to better inform your social media messaging.
Use your social intent data to work out who interacts most with your posts and when most engagement takes place. This will help you to tailor your strategies to increase brand awareness and engagement.
It’s important to use social media as a vehicle to show off your brand’s identity and align with your target audience.
One technique is to create social posts that align with the causes your target audience support. This is especially important if your ideal customer is young since 92% of Gen Z and 90% of millennial buyers say they act in support of purposeful brands.
Alternatively, use the opportunity to build trust with your audience through social proof.
After all, 74% of consumers say brand trust is more important than ever due to the societal impact brands have, and 51% of global consumers feel it’s important for brands to create a sense of community and support.
Take this testimonial video created by Testimonial Hero for Symmons Industries.
Long-time customer and founder of Giorgi Plumbing, Larry Giorgi, explains exactly why he trusts Symmons Industries to provide top-quality products every time.
5. Build a free interactive tool as a sample of your expertise
A free tool or a trial of your product helps to actively demonstrate your expertise so that your potential customer can get a feel for the types of products and services you provide.
With a free supporting tool, you show prospective buyers the caliber of solutions you’re able to create. By offering a free trial, you demonstrate exactly how you can solve their existing problem.
Plus, you can always put the tool behind a gateway and treat it as a lead magnet. Customers enter their contact details to use your tool, providing you with lead details for future marketing activity.
6. Urge happy customers to review your solutions
85% of consumers admit that customer reviews influence their decision to buy a product. In fact, 62% of buyers read reviews on a company’s website before buying, while 51% read reviews on a third-party forum or on social media.
To leverage reviews as social proof, create a dedicated testimonial page on your website and show reviews from different customers who represent your target personas. Curate reviews so that they demonstrate how you solve different problems.
You should also point your satisfied customers to places they can leave a review, such as a third-party forum or your social media pages.
7. Leverage influencer marketing
By teaming up with online influencers, you can tap into their ready-made audiences, generating demand without having to spend a huge budget on building your own audience.
Look for influencers within your niche as well as those in different niches who may experience the same issues as your target audience.
Not only will these influencers help you boost brand awareness, but they’ll also act like a celebrity endorsement. 46% of marketers and creators already work with influencers to improve their brand’s reputation.
Consider using micro and nano influencers rather than hitting up big-time online celebrities. After all, influencers with fewer than 1,000 followers on Instagram get engagement rates that are more than triple those of influencers with between 10,000–100,000 followers.
8. Host webinars and live online events
Not only do 43% of marketers say that live events are the most successful demand generation strategy, but 38% of B2B buyers also say that they find webinars useful in the early stages of their buying journey.
Use webinars to offer guidance on particular industry-related topics to demonstrate your brand’s authority and expertise. Invite well-known thought-leaders to join you to boost your credibility.
You can also use these webinars and live events as a sales platform to introduce your solutions and drive demand for your products.
9. Use targeted pay-per-click advertising
According to 28% of B2B marketers, online ads are the most effective way to fuel early-stage engagement.
Target your pay-per-click (PPC) ads to your ideal personas.
50% of marketers leverage intent data to do this. By looking for patterns in your intent data, you can figure out the types of people and businesses that have problems you can solve and the messaging that they respond to. This helps to inform your targeting and your advert wording.
Try creating testimonial ads to leverage social proof and demonstrate the success of your solutions.
10. Create remarketing campaigns
70% of brands agree that a successful demand generation strategy will need more touchpoints to qualify leads than ever before.
This is where remarketing advertising works well.
Remarketing advertising campaigns target existing demand by showing adverts to people who have already visited your website.
These ads are displayed on different channels, such as social media platforms and as banners on other websites, to increase omnichannel exposure to your brand.
The main types of remarketing include:
- Standard: Sending ads to people who have visited your site
- Dynamic: Sending different ads depending on a site visitor’s behavior
- Search: Sending ads to people who search for certain key terms
- Video: Sending remarketing ads to people who have watched your videos
- Email: Sending ads to people who have opened an email from you
Conclusion
Driving demand is a multi-faceted operation. You’ll need a whole rainbow of tactics to reach your target personas on different platforms and build brand recognition through a variety of touchpoints.
Whitepapers, podcasts, SEO content, and free tools are all great techniques for demonstrating your brand authority and showing how you can tackle the pain points your target personas may be experiencing. Case studies and testimonials offer proof of your success.
If you’re ready to create customer evidence videos that provide social proof of your success so you can drive demand more easily, get in contact with the experts at Testimonial Hero.
