Demand generation examples and channels are the mediums you can use to convert a lead into a prospect.
From organic content to paid ads, every channel you use to convert a prospect into a buyer is a channel in the demand generation funnel.
This article goes over examples of demand generation and channels you can use to generate more leads.
TL;DR
- If you want your demand generation campaign to be a success, you need to take care of three key components: setting clear goals and metrics, identifying your audience, and crafting content that educates.
- Creating value-based content of any form that your audience can consume is the best way to get quality leads for your business.
Key Components of Successful Demand Generation Campaigns
Demand generation requires a strategic approach that focuses on attracting, engaging, and converting prospects.
Here are some key components of a successful demand-generation campaign:
1. Set Clear Goals and Metrics
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Defining clear goals is the first step for a successful demand generation campaign. These goals should be SMART:
- Specific.
- Measurable.
- Achievable.
- Relevant.
- Time-bound.
Once you've established your goals, shortlist key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your progress and measure success.
💡 Pro tip: Consider using the SMART framework to define your goals. For example, a SMART goal could be to increase the number of leads in your sales pipeline by 50% in the next quarter. Then, KPIs like the number of opportunities, sales-qualified leads, etc., will be analyzed.
2. Identify and Segment Your Audience
Before creating a demand generation funnel, understanding your target audience is a must.
You should know your audiences’ demographics, pain points, interests, and buying behaviors. This will help you tailor your campaigns and offerings to resonate with their demands.
To do so, use segmentation.
Segmentation allows you to refine your target audience further and deliver more personalized content.
💡 Pro tip: Use buyer personas to represent your ideal customer. Use demographic factors, like age, gender, and location, as well as psychographic factors – interests, values, and behaviors. Segment your audience based on these factors to deliver hyper-targeted content.
3. Build Content that Educates and Engages
Creating high-quality, valuable content is at the center of any demand-gen campaign.
Focus on creating content that educates your target audience, addresses their pain points, and provides solutions to their problems. This could include content like blog posts, articles, ebooks, webinars, videos, etc.
💡 Pro tip: Create a content calendar to plan and schedule your content. Research topics relevant to your target audience and address their needs. Use SEO best practices to improve your content's visibility in search engine results. Experiment with different content formats to find what resonates best with your audience over time.
12 Proven Demand Generation Tactics with Real-World Examples
1. Create Value-Based Content
Value-based content focuses on educating prospects via useful, actionable, and informational content without being overly promotional.
The content should be such that after reading it, your prospects must get answers to the problem they’re searching for and be guided to the right solution instead of being pushed to buy your product.
Why Is Value-Based Content Important?
Value-based content plays an important role in demand generation as it aligns closely with the buyer’s journey (especially in the awareness and consideration stages).
When you put forth value-driven content, you have the opportunity to build long-term relationships with your prospects.
What’s more, it also establishes credibility, attracts organic traffic, and nurtures leads.
For inspiration on how to create value-based content, you can look at HubSpot Academy – a place to learn all things marketing. HubSpot Academy has a series of courses you can take for free to become a HubSpot-certified marketer.
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Creating value-based content is great, but it’s better when you have a tool in your arsenal that can help you kick things up a notch by automating processes and tracking content-based metrics.
You can do so with Warmly. With our software, you can turn anonymous website visitors into revenue by proactively reaching out to them.
Warmly lets you:
- Integrate data sources and access them all in one place.
- Automate sales conversations with website visitors on your sales rep’s behalf.
- Automatically create or update records in your CRM with enrichment, engagement, and buyer intent data to power the rest of your inbound orchestration.
2. Interactive Tools and Calculators
Interactive tools and calculators offer a unique and effective way to engage website visitors and drive conversions. They provide interactive experiences that make your content more engaging.
These tools can range from simple quizzes to complex calculators, but regardless of their complexity, they offer a way to provide value to your audience.
For example, a product comparison tool can help visitors make informed decisions, while a pricing calculator can help with instant cost estimates.
Why are Interactive Tools and Calculators Important?
Interactive tools and calculators have several pros, the major one being that when visitors can actively interact with your page, they spend more time on your website, becoming more interested in your brand.
For example, the brand Xoxoday, an AI-powered reward and payment platform, has several interactive tools and calculations on its website.
These tools help users track and estimate metrics like leads generated, engagement on social media, customer acquisition cost, and more.
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3. Offer Free Trials
A free trial is a limited-time offer that allows quality prospects to explore a product before making a purchase.
It's one of the lowest-risk ways for customers to evaluate whether a product solves their pain points.
Why are Free Trials Important?
Free trials give leads a chance to test the waters of your product for free.
It’s the closest and most efficient way to convert a free customer into a paying customer. When customers have the opportunity to try a product for free, they are more likely to feel confident in their decision to purchase.
Here's an example to give you an idea of how effective free trials can be.
GetResponse, a leading email marketing platform, A/B tested the “Buy Now” and “Free Trial” buttons on its homepage side-by-side.
The free trial button generated 158% more account creation than the Buy Now button. Read all about this in a success story by VWO.
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4. Send Personalized Gifts
Personalized gifts are thoughtful gestures that can strengthen relationships with your prospects.
Gifts show that you value prospects, that you've taken the time to understand their needs, and that you will go the extra mile to meet them.
Why is Sending Personalized Gifts Important?
Sending personalized gifts works wonders not only in one's personal life but also in the corporate world.
They show that you care about your audience’s preferences and have made an effort to make them feel special.
At the end of the day, it’s humans that receive gifts, not robots. When they feel valued and appreciated, they are more likely to try your offering.
If they like it, it’s quite possible they’ll convert into paying customers. They might also recommend your products to others.
This creates a positive impression about your company through word of mouth.
According to Giftpack, when you send gifts to your prospects, you can see up to 70% reduction in their response time.
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5. Guest Blogging and Influencer Partnerships
Guest blogging and influencer partnerships involve collaborating with other businesses or individuals in your industry to create content.
This can involve writing guest posts for other blogs or partnering with influencers to promote your brand.
Why are Guest Blogging and Influencer Partnerships Important?
When you collaborate with influencers and thought leaders in your market sector, you have the potential to expand your brand's reach, improve your search engine rankings, and generate new leads.
It’s like hosting a party, and you invite all your friends and their friends. Suddenly, your party is buzzing with new people and opportunities. That's essentially what guest blogging and influencer partnerships do for your brand.
This strategy allows you to tap into new audiences, build relationships with other industry experts, and increase your brand's credibility.
ClickUp, a popular project management tool, often collaborates with productivity influencers and blogs to share tips and best practices for effective project management.
These partnerships help ClickUp reach a wider audience and establish itself as a leading authority in project management.
You can take a look at their latest influencer partnership in this LinkedIn post.
6. Host Webinars and Q&A Sessions
Webinars and Q&A sessions are online events that allow you to connect with your audience in real-time. They can be used to educate, inform, and engage existing customers and prospects.
These create an engaging and personalized experience for your audience since you’re interacting with them in real-time.
Why is Hosting Webinars and Q&A Sessions Important?
These online events help you attract new leads, nurture existing ones, and gather valuable feedback from them.
What’s more, such events provide a platform for you to share your expertise, answer their questions, and demonstrate the value of your product.
Clearscope regularly hosts webinars and Q&A sessions on topics related to content marketing and SEO.
These events attract a large audience of prospects and allow Clearscope to showcase its expertise in content marketing.
The Q&A sessions help Clearscope collect valuable feedback from its audience, which it can use to improve its products and services.
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7. Case Studies and Success Stories
Case studies and success stories show real-world examples of how your product has helped customers achieve their goals. They provide social proof and are a powerful tool for driving demand.
You can leverage case studies to attract new leads interested in learning more about your solution and how it can help them solve the problems they face.
Why are Case Studies and Success Stories Important?
Sharing real-world examples of how your product has helped customers achieve their goals helps build trust and credibility.
These stories provide tangible benefits of your solution, making it easier for prospects to understand how your product can help them.
If done correctly, case studies can shoot your “book a demo” CTR through the roof.
Salesforce often publishes case studies featuring customers who have used Salesforce to improve their sales processes and customer relationships.
They use these case studies to highlight specific use cases, such as salesforce automation, lead management, or customer service.
The real-world results achieved by Salesforce customers are able to attract new customers and build trust in their platform.
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8. Quizzes for Demand Generation
Quizzes are interactive content that can be used to engage potential customers and collect their information. They are a fun and effective way to generate leads.
Why are Case Studies and Success Stories Important?
Creating interactive and engaging content increases visitor engagement and collects valuable information from them.
When prospects take a quiz, they are more likely to provide their contact information in exchange for personalized recommendations and results. This is a highly effective way to generate leads and build relationships with your target audience.
Intercom uses quizzes and questionnaires to engage prospects and collect their information.
The brand often offers a quiz to help visitors identify their customer support challenges. Through this, visitors provide their contact information and receive personalized recommendations.
This is a creative and effective way for Intercom to generate leads and provide value to their audience.
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9. Run Email Campaigns
Almost all B2B SaaS companies leverage email campaigns to reach out to prospects. Once your lead opts in to receive emails, you can nurture them and then promote your product.
You can use email campaigns to share valuable content, such as blog posts, webinars, or case studies. This can create a strong brand recall down the road.
Why are Running Email Campaigns Important?
Sending targeted emails to warm leads allows you to build relationships with them, increase brand awareness, and drive conversions down the line.
According to email marketing benchmarks by Mailchimp, the Software and Web App industry has an average email open rate of 28%. So, email campaigns can be a highly effective way to reach out to your target market.
Pipedrive is known for its effective email marketing campaigns. Its platform allows it to send targeted emails and newsletters to its leads and existing customers, helping it nurture them and drive conversions.
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10. Run Ad-Campaigns for Look-alike Audience
Look-alike audiences are custom audiences created by identifying users who share similar characteristics with your existing customers. This type of targeted advertising helps you reach prospects who are more likely to convert.
Why are Running Ad-Campaigns for Look-alike Audience Important?
Targeting users who share similar characteristics with your existing customers:
- Increases the likelihood of conversions.
- Expand your reach.
- Improves the return on investment of your ad campaigns.
This strategy allows you to focus your marketing efforts on leads who are more likely to be interested in your product.
Like other B2B SaaS platforms, Freshworks uses look-alike audiences to target customers who are similar to its existing customers.
By analyzing the characteristics of its existing customer base, the brand is able to identify users who are more likely to be interested in its product.
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11. Creating Data-Driven Reports
Data-driven reports provide valuable insights into your demand-generation efforts. B2B brands commonly analyze key metrics and trends to identify areas for improvement and optimize their strategies.
Why is Creating Data-Driven Reports Important?
Analyzing key metrics helps you optimize your strategies and measure the return on investment of your activities.
These reports provide insights into the effectiveness of your demand generation efforts that further allow you to make decisions backed by data.
Here’s an interesting case study of how Responsify helped ScholarChip increase its sales through data analysis and content strategy. The case study shows Responsify's ability to generate high-quality leads through targeted content and calls to action.
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12. Run Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting campaigns allow you to show ads to users who have previously visited your website but didn't take any action. This is a powerful way to re-engage potential customers.
Why is Creating Data-Driven Reports Important?
Showing your ads to users who have previously visited your website can increase brand visibility, nurture leads, and improve conversion rates.
This allows you to stay top of mind with your prospects and remind them of your product.
Adobe creates compelling ads that resonate well with its audience. It has also effectively used retargeting campaigns to increase demand.
They use a variety of retargeting tactics, like remarketing ads on Google Display Network and social media platforms, to reach users who have visited their website but haven't taken any further action.
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Convert More Visitors into Buyers with Warmly
Expanding your demand generation to multiple channels as you grow bigger is a great way to scale demand generation and consistently generate high-quality leads.
Try to explore all the channels we mentioned above and find the ones that are right for your business and where your target audience hangs out the most.
When you explore and post content on multiple channels, you might need a tool that:
- Prioritizing leads to focus on.
- Engaging and nurturing leads with automated campaigns.
- Enable reps to reach out to hot leads straight from your website.
Our tool, Warmly, lets you do that, so sign up for Warmly’s free plan and see if you like it.
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Related reading:
How to Build a Demand Generation Strategy
Growth Marketing vs Demand Generation