Demand Generation and Lead Generation

A lot of marketers use these two terms interchangeably: Demand Generation and Lead Generation. Yet they are two different marketing tools. However, they do work hand-in-hand.

Marketers are asked to demonstrate a Return-On-Investment and tracking where each dollar is spent. So, it is imperative to understand what demand generation is and what it can do for your organization and what lead generation is and what it can do for your organization.

Lets start with Demand Generation.

Demand Generation captures the umbrella of marketing programs that gets customers excited about your company’s product or services. It is where compelling messaging meets measurable results.

With demand generation it is important to target the correct audience you want to reach. The content provided doesn’t only focus on the offering but on the industry as well. While it’s brand awareness, it also creates interest and can change the prospects perspective by providing educational whitepapers, blog posts, and videos.

Now that your demand generation campaigns are in place, what happens next? This is where lead generation comes into play.

You’ve attracted these strangers through your demand generation programs, they have become visitors to your website and you have collected their information in order to build a marketing database for email, sales or telemarketing follow up. The direct outcome of lead generation is new contacts available for sales or continued nurturing programs. The best way to describe this is through a funnel diagram:

As you can see, Demand Generation sits on top of Lead Generation (and feeds into the funnel).

In the Demand Generation phase you’ve positioned yourself on websites such as YouTube, Technorati, Facebook, Instagram, and hundreds, or thousands, more.

Interest has been created and the stranger you attracted has now reached your marketing database. Through forms, call-to-actions and landing pages you have gathered their information in order to properly interact with them and convert them into a lead. Track and manage the leads to find out which ones are the right ones that can be handed over to the Sales team. Now it’s the sales teams turn to close the lead. Don’t think this means the marketer is done with his or her work. The marketer should watch closely to see what Sales is doing with this lead. It might come back to marketing for more nurturing, it might get closed, it might be a lead that at this time or never will turn into a sale. Once a lead turns into a customer or client, retention is often times shared by customer support, sales and marketing. Delight the client / customer with ongoing education and attention for up-selling, re-selling and creating a champion for your product or services.

Lead generation and demand generation go together, find the right mix for your organization!