Old concepts, but still pretty relevant today
Demand generation = Demand Creation + Demand capture
Demand creation = Raise problem awareness and create demand for a solution to the problem
Where the prospect says - “Here’s a problem that may affect me one day. Here is one way to solve it”
Tactics -thought leadership & education, brand campaigns, email newsletters, etc.
Demand capture = Capturing and converting the tiny % of market (usually 4-5% of market is ready to buy at any point of time) with your product/solution messaging
Where the prospect is thinking - I have a problem, now. I am looking for a solution to that problem
Tactics- paid search, retargeting, personalized offers, trials, demos , datasheets
Both demand-creation and demand-capture require you to sweat the same marketing channels
Your website could be used for hosting thought leadership blogs, or your product differentiators
Your webinars could be about industry best practices, or your customer stories
Your events could showcase where the market is headed, or how your solution solves for their pressing challenges today
You can’t work a marketing channel without being clear on what you want the channel to do? Create demand or capture demand
If you truly want to elevate demand-gen, you first have to be clear about what aspect of demand-gen are you optimizing for ?
Are you working to bring problem and brand awareness to the 95% of the market that’s not buying right now ?
Or effectively capture and close the 5% that is
Or both ?
Driving this clarity is really important to your marketing plan