TL;DR

• Understand what goes into a demand generation campaign and how to set one up
• Find out 11 best practices for improving campaign ROI
• Discover the value of case studies, focused marketing channels, and content marketing investment for demand growth

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Creating an ROI-driving demand generation campaign takes an in-depth understanding of your target buyers and their struggles.

It also demands thorough planning, consistent execution, and ongoing optimization to refine your strategy. Despite this, many marketers make the mistake of using a spray and pray approach, targeting as many leads as possible with general, impersonal messaging in the hopes that a handful of them will respond.

Not only does this drive poor results. But it’s also discouraging. In this blog post, we walk you through 11 demand generation best practices to help you build a solid and successful demand generation campaign. 

What is a demand generation campaign?

A demand generation campaign is a planned strategy that builds awareness and interest in your product or service.

The goal is to capture your audience's interest by educating them about your business.

For example, let’s look at the different demand generation strategies a DIY design tool could use. For starters, they could create a series of detailed blog posts about how customers can take design work into their own hands by using their tool.

Similarly, they could do live streams, teaching users how their tool works, demonstrating how to complete a specific task, or answering frequently asked questions.

And, another effective demand generation strategy they could take advantage of would be pairing up with influencers and asking them to create bite-sized videos promoting the tool.

Demand generation campaigns differ from lead generation campaigns, despite some marketers using the terms interchangeably.

The key difference is purpose and content access based on funnel stage.

Demand generation creates interest, while lead generation converts interested prospects into leads. Demand generation uses ungated content. Lead generation gates content in exchange for contact information.

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How do you create a successful demand generation campaign?

A successful demand generation campaign requires:

• Know your target audience. This tells you which ideas to test and which channels will reach your ideal buyer. It’ll also help you create content that resonates with and engages your audience.
• Build a demand generation strategy and execute it consistently. Once you've done the work to create your strategy, follow through.
• Track results and optimize as you go. Check how each tactic and content format performs—is it working, needs tweaking, or should you try something new?

11 demand generation best practices that improve your ROI

Here are the best practices that improve demand generation ROI.

1. Talk to your ideal audience

Customer research drives demand generation ROI.

If you're starting out, talk to people who match your target audience. If you have customers, talk to your happiest ones.

Ask them about their pain points, how they consume content, and which online channels they use. Also, consider asking happy customers about which of your product’s features they love and how they use them.

Use what you learn to create product-led content with examples of how businesses solve problems with your product.

Talking to your audience also helps you decide which content types to create—blog posts, webinars, videos, podcasts—and which channels to use.

2. Conduct a competitor analysis

See what competitors are doing to build awareness and generate demand.

Take a look at:

• The content they’re creating
• How they’re making it unique
• Which marketing channels they’re using
• How they’re engaging their audience

List your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. Then find opportunities to differentiate.

3. Create content for various stages of the funnel

You need content that educates and engages your audience at each funnel stage.

Don't just create product-led content. Mix it up.

Create content for people who are:

• Problem aware and looking for free, helpful solutions
• Product aware, who you can educate about your product’s features
• Product aware and ready to buy who need a little bit of convincing

For prospects at different stages, create:

• Educational pieces that answer readers’ questions and position you as an expert on the topic
• Product-led content that positions your product/service as the solution to your readers’ problems
• Product comparison content such as X tool vs Y tool to show on-the-fence prospects how your product is the one they need

4. Create case studies

Case studies share stories of successful businesses that have benefited from using your product or service.

Include case studies in your strategy, they provide social proof that convinces prospects to buy. Case studies let you answer different customer objections, as Joel Klettke, founder of Case Study Buddy, shares on LinkedIn:

Don't just publish case studies and hide them on your website. Instead, pull out results and customer quotes from those case studies and add them to your product-led content.

You could also create a live show where you invite your users to explain how they use your product.

5. Focus on 1-3 marketing channels at a time

Many teams try to be everywhere their audience is. This is a mistake.

The problem with this?

You stretch yourself too thin, which reduces your chances of driving the best results from a given platform. Instead, start with 1-3 social platforms. You can also add offline marketing strategies to reach buyers across channels. Create content and engagement strategies for each platform and execute consistently.

6. Invest in content marketing

88% of brands use content marketing to build awareness, 80% to educate their audience, and 72% for demand generation. The data is clear: content marketing works.

Chris Zacher, a content marketing strategist at Inter-Growth, notes, “Blogging is a great way to show your audience that you and the other people in your company are experts. If you can show people you know what you’re talking about, they are far more likely to want your products because they’ll see that you’re running your business from an informed perspective.”

If you've done customer research, you'll know which channels and content formats to use.

Then create a content strategy that covers:

• Which broad content themes you’ll create content about
• How often will you publish new content
• How will you make your content unique

Then follow through.

7. Repurpose the content you create into different formats

Content repurposing means taking published content and reformatting it.

For example, you can take the insights you share in a blog post to create a Twitter thread. Similarly, create a video from a blog post. Or turn a webinar or podcast episode into a blog post and vice versa.

This helps you get more value from each piece of content. It also ensures you’re sharing educational content in different formats to meet your audience’s different preferences for consuming content.

8. Create a content distribution plan

Creating and publishing helpful content on a regular basis is only part of the demand generation puzzle.

The other part?

Distributing content or sharing it on channels where your target audience is most likely to see it.

But here’s the thing: sharing a link to the content you create isn't enough to engage your audience.

Share key insights from your content, then link to the full article.

This approach gives your audience a peek at the content you cover, encouraging them to click through to read more.

9. Find warmer paths into your target accounts

Most teams overlook warm paths into accounts, but they improve demand generation ROI.

Finding warm paths into an account positions you as a business your audience has interacted with before, either directly or indirectly. Ways to find warm paths:

• Track job changes

Customer job changes are highly effective sales triggers. If your contact was a past customer or prospect, track their job change with UserGems. Reach out to people who knew your product—especially happy customers—to create new sales opportunities.

• Open closed lost opportunities

Sales opportunities can remain open for several reasons. Maybe the prospect didn’t have the budget at the time. Or someone might have blocked it. However, situations like these can quickly turn around, reopening the opportunity for you.

A new decision-maker may have been hired, and you can get their buy-in. UserGems tracks new hires at your target accounts so you can reach out and see if they're ready to buy.

• Keep in touch with your product influencers and champions

More companies require employee buy-in before purchasing. Track your champions and influencers—even as they move to new companies—so they can influence buying decisions.

10. Tap into influencer marketing

Influencer marketing builds social proof and delivers strong ROI—up to $18 for every dollar spent you spend on influencer marketing.

Identify influencers your audience trusts. Then reach out with a collaboration plan that includes your budget and creative ideas.

11. Audit your demand generation campaign to improve it

“Test new channels quickly and iterate based on customer feedback, not internal assumptions,” points out Tara Pawlak, the Head of Marketing at GetAccept.

Review your demand generation strategies regularly to see what's working.

Create a spreadsheet listing all your active demand generation campaigns.

Then, add columns to record:

• The results each tactic is driving
• New insights you learned about your audience, and
• What route you’d like to take moving forward

Ready to improve the ROI of your demand generation campaign?

Demand generation success comes from knowing your audience and delivering real value.

This helps you answer audience questions, show why your product matters, and build trust.

Most of all, keep in mind that successful demand generation thrives on strong relationship building with your audience. And it’s here that you’ll find UserGems helpful.

Our pipeline generation software helps you turn customer job movements and relationships into annual recurring revenue, by helping you:

• Automate repeat business by informing you when active or former champions change their jobs and provide you with their new contact information
• Power ABM execution by capturing every key unknown account in your target accounts
• Reduce customer acquisition costs by ensuring sales and marketing go after the same buyers