Successful demand gen grows brand awareness, engages potential customers, and drives leads.
The key to driving these positive results is understanding your target buyer well. This includes nailing down:
Who they are
What they struggle with
What their content preferences are
Where they spend their time online
It’s only when you have these insights that you can create a demand generation program that resonates with, attracts, and successfully engages your target audience.
Not sure where to start with creating such an ROI-positive demand generation campaign? This guide walks through the exact steps to build a demand gen program that drives pipeline. You'll also see three real examples of demand gen programs that work.
How to create a B2B demand generation program
From creating buyer personas to deciding which channels to use for reaching new customers and creating consistent brand messaging, there’s a lot that goes into developing a successful demand gen campaign.
Make a defined plan for your demand generation program. Having “A clear plan will help you allocate your resources appropriately, ensuring that you’re not wasting time or money on activities that won’t pay off,” says Gauri Manglik, CEO & Co-founder of Instrumentl.
Here’s where to start and the subsequent steps to take to create your demand generation program:
Step 1: Determine who your target buyer is
Knowing your target buyer is key to creating a plan that resonates with your audience and drives results.
“You have to understand who they are and what they want in order to be able to make them feel like you understand what they’re going through — that’s how you build trust and credibility,” shares Daniel Nyquist, the Chief Marketing Officer at Crosslist.
Understanding your target buyer includes the basics such as their pain points and extends to deeper insights. Instead, “You have to know what they care about and how they like to be communicated with,” Daniel advises. “Once you know that, it’s much easier to create content that resonates with them and builds a program around it.”
The Director of Demand Gen at PartnerStack and Founder of B2B SaaS Reviews, Joe Kevens, also adds you need to understand your customer’s average contract value.
“If it’s 4figures, you should have a high volume, inbound-driven demand program. If it’s 6 figures, you should create a low-volume, outbound-driven demand gen program. You should have a hybrid of the two if it’s in between.”
The foundation is thorough research. says Lilly Ice, Head of Sales and Marketing of NoContractVoIP. Find out: “Who are they? How can your offered solution benefit them? What are they missing? Where do they hang out?”
Step 2: Create a value proposition for your demand gen program
Next, work out how you’ll differentiate your B2B marketing efforts. “Developing a clear value proposition that differentiates your company from the competition,” Testlify’s Founder, Abhishek Shah, highlights.
Instrumentl’s Gauri also points out, “A demand generation program should be focused on creating a strong brand image” as a way to differentiate yourself. “The more people know about and love you, the more they’re going to want to buy from you.”
“You don’t need to spend lots of money on marketing. Just make sure that everything you do is authentic and genuine so that people can see that the business is run by real people who care about what they do,” Gauri adds.
Step 3: Decide which demand generation assets and channels to use
Use insights from your audience research to make data-driven decisions about:
What type of content you'll create and
Which channels you’ll use to reach out to, educate, and engage your target audience
Remember, though, there are tons of demand gen channels such as social media, email marketing, and dark social that you can use. Focus your efforts on 2-3 channels your audience uses so you can focus your efforts without spreading yourself too thin.
Make sure you consistently tell the same story across every platform & channel that you choose to engage in,” advises Brianna Doe, the Director of Demand Generation at Aion.
As for content formats, choose from whatever your target buyer consumes the most. For example:
Ebooks
Case studies
Infographics
Whitepapers
News articles
Original research
Email newsletters
Social media posts
In-depth blog posts
Step 4: Set measurable objectives
Next, set up objectives for your demand generation program. Ask yourself:
What do we want to achieve with our demand gen campaign?
What would be a realistic timeline for achieving these objectives?
What metrics should we use to track progress and determine whether we’ve achieved our objectives?
Brianna Doe of Aion stresses the importance of determining the metrics you’ll use to track performance. “[Demand generation is] about driving acquisition, retention, brand awareness, education, etc. Establish the metrics for success beforehand (for each marketing initiative & effort) so you can measure accordingly.”
The metrics you track depend on your program's goals.
At Aion, for instance, Brianna Doe shares, “The metrics for success might vary slightly based on the lever that I’m pulling, but generally speaking, it drives organic and paid traffic, higher conversion rates, a lower CPA (cost per acquisition) and a higher ROI (return on investment).”
Similarly, for NoContractVoIP, demand gen is more about building awareness than lead generation. Therefore, tracking their website and social media traffic is vital according to their Head of Sales and Marketing, Lilly.
Lilly adds, “Demand gen and lead gen work together. If my lead gen landing page isn't converting, the problem is probably in demand gen.”
Step 5: Create your demand gen toolkit
“The right toolset can make all the difference in how quickly you’re able to execute your strategy and how effectively you can ensure that everyone involved in implementing it understands how everything works together,” writes Gauri Manglik from Instrumentl.
The exact tools to use depend on the assets you create as part of your demand generation strategy.
For example, if you plan to use content marketing for driving brand awareness and educating target buyers about your product, you’ll need content ideation and search engine optimization (SEO) tools. Similarly, if you plan to use email outreach, you’ll need email automation software among other sales prospecting tools.
One tool that all demand generation programs can leverage is UserGems. It assists with high-quality pipeline generation — letting you quickly convert high-quality leads from your demand gen program.
Essentially, UserGems tracks customer job changes, notifying you every time a paying customer changes their job or a new person takes on a role at an account you’re targeting. You can then use this information to reach out to:
People who already know about your product and who are more likely to convert
And, folks who are looking to invest in new software for a new role they’ve taken
Step 6: Execute, test, optimize
Execute your demand gen program with an experimental mindset.
Remember: some demand generation efforts will drive better results and ROI than others.
You'll learn which demand gen tactics pull in the most qualified leads by testing, iterating, and optimizing.
As Instrumentl’s Head of Growth & Customer Success, Will Yang, recommends: “Experiment and track. Feel confident experimenting with different strategies and campaigns. By tracking the performance of your efforts, you’ll be able to identify what works best for your particular target market.”
Will also adds, “In addition to tracking, it’s important to measure the success of each campaign by focusing on metrics such as engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. You should then use this data to refine your strategy and optimize your campaigns for better results.”
Examples of demand generation programs
Three examples of demand gen programs that work:
1. PartnerStack’s social proof-led demand gen program
“PartnerStack has a demand generation program with paid ads, organic content, account and lead information, and buyer intent data,” shares Joe Kevens, their Direction of Demand Gen.
“What drives it all is a strong foundation of user reviews on sites such as G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius, to position PartnerStack as the leader in the categories it serves based on the voice of the customer,” Joe explains.
“40% of our closed-won accounts researched PartnerStack on G2, and our opportunities with and without G2 buyer intent activity yielded 8.5 percentage points higher win rate and a 27% higher average deal.”
2. Aion’s organic and paid marketing strategy
Aion’s Director of Demand Generation, Brianna Doe, shares “The demand gen program that I’m building at Aion involves 4 main pillars: content marketing & SEO, organic social & community, paid media/advertising, ABM (Account-Based Marketing), and thought leadership (with a few outliers).”
To this end, the team creates the following marketing and lead gen assets:
“Video content
Whitepapers
Blogs
Case studies
Email and remarketing campaigns
Podcast appearances
Webinars
How-it-works' articles
In-app notifications & customer marketing (for customers on the freemium plan)
Paid advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as sponsored media placements
Event marketing and sponsored events”
3. Instrumentl’s educational demand gen framework
“At Instrumentl, we have a comprehensive demand generation program in place. We've designed assets such as white papers and webinars that are aimed at helping our customers understand the nuances of fundraising better and how our product helps them do it more efficiently,” shares Will Yang, the Head of Growth and Customer Success there.
Their CEO, Gauri Manglik also adds they use social media to reach their target audience and build their sales pipeline.
To this end, Will shares their demand gen plan is based on the following core elements:
Content creation. We create content such as blog posts, newsletters, videos, and webinars to educate our target audience on the challenges posed by fundraising and how our product can help them overcome those challenges.
Lead nurturing. We have an automated lead nurture process in place where we follow up with potential customers via email or phone call over a period of time until they are ready to purchase.
Targeted campaigns. We run targeted campaigns aimed at specific segments of our customer base that are more likely to convert into paying customers.”
3 pro tips to learn demand generation and become an expert
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Becoming a modern-day demand gen marketer is critical for creating effective marketing campaigns. But it takes consistent learning, experimenting, and optimizing.
Three ways to level up your demand gen skills:
1. Understand the solution you’re offering
“Those who want to learn demand generation must learn people, first and foremost. They must learn the difference between a feature and a benefit,” recommends NoContractVoIP’s Lilly Ice.
“They have to learn to answer the great unspoken constant question asked by the target audience, ‘But what about ME?’
“Focus on how your solution benefits users rather than its technical features. Tell them how it will make their lives easier, increase their revenue, and reduce their costs, give them more time, reduce the amount they have to learn,” explains Lilly.
2. Learn from the experts
Learn from practitioners who consistently drive pipeline and revenue.
Consume content that demand gen experts share on their social media profiles, in their newsletters, social media posts, or courses. Also, make sure you ask questions and reach out to them to conduct informational interviews.
Joe Kevens from B2B SaaS Reviews and PartnerStack shares a list of people to follow on LinkedIn for continuous learning:
“Dave Gerhardt - Growth / Copywriting
Sam Kuehnle - Demand gen/ads
Kaylee Edmondson - Demand Gen
Sam Jacobs - Revenue strategy
Jason M. Lemkin - SaaS founder / C-Suite
Silvio Perez - Digital ads in B2B
Tim Davidson - Funny videos about B2B SaaS Marketing and Sales
Daniel Murray - Marketing Ops / Growth Marketing
Jill Rowley - Sales / Partnerships
Adam Schoenfeld - Data-driven research on B2B (PLG and Community)
April Dunford - Positioning
Justin Welsh - Solopreneurship
Brian Dean - SEO
Liz Richardson - Customer Marketing
Leslie Barrett - Customer Marketing
Shiv Narayanan - SaaS growth
Marc Thomas - SaaS growth”
“This post has another 25+ [demand gen experts you can follow],” adds Joe.
3. Learn how tools can optimize your efforts
Lastly, learn to use demand generation tools that automate and optimize your processes. For instance, by giving you the data you need to create your B2B demand generation strategy.
Brianna Doe from Aion advises, “If you’re currently in a marketing role, practice pulling different levers to drive brand awareness and education. Get comfortable with CRMs (like HubSpot) and marketing automation, so you can accelerate your growth!”
Skyrocket awareness with your new demand gen program
An effective demand gen program requires:
Understanding who your audience is
Testing different awareness-driving marketing tactics
Using data to make all your decision including optimizing your campaign
Signal-based pipeline generation tools like UserGems help you act on demand gen results faster. UserGems tracks target accounts and alerts you when champions change jobs or new decision-makers join—so you reach buyers when they're already looking to invest in new software.
UserGems tracks target accounts and alerts you when champions change jobs or new decision-makers join—so you reach buyers when they're already looking to invest in new software.
See how UserGems converts demand gen awareness into qualified pipeline. Book a demo.
Why UserGems
UserGems is a pipeline generation software that helps revenue teams generate and protect revenue efficiently. With UserGems, companies can track and automate outreach when their champions change their jobs, and capture the buying groups to find the warmest path into every account.
Companies like Mimecast, Greenhouse, Medallia use UserGems to reach their revenue goals, quickly and efficiently.
