What takes for a customer to choose one product/service over the other? Loyalty to any particular product is not a mental act, its an emotional one. In addition to that customers are more likely to buy the product they previously used and they might continue to ignore the one they previously did (Study by Journal of Consumer Research). I would like to discuss with you one more scenario. A few marketers invest in demand generation when the market hasn’t gained least maturity required and hence their efforts results into nothing much. If you don’t want to do that, you need to assess the following things before you start your demand generation activities.   As listed by MartechAdvisor,

1. Have decided on your marketing category or you are jumping between 2 different categories?
2. How much have influencers and analysts have covered your market? Is it future-talk, something nonexistent? Or have they come up with best practices?
3. Do you already have customers who actively participate in a press release, social media (LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook), videos, etc?
4. Have you already tailored your content for trigger moments after which your customers decide to choose your products?

Do you care to do the analysis first before you jump on the decision to invest in demand generation? If yes, you are doing right and if yes, what Demand Generation ideas will work for you best so that your prospects choose you over others?   Make them choose you.

We are listing below 4 easy steps to demand generation.

1. Produce stellar content

Whether its an Ebook, whitepapers, or blogs your content is going have greater impact as it addresses customers pain points. If you are posting blog posts regularly then think of making them more educational and valuable. Make sure to incorporate your research data into it rather than just the same things as others do. You also need to have a social media calendar, otherwise, you will randomly create articles. As we said earlier, sharing quality content is important. Social media calendars allow you to plan and schedule posts for months together. You can make out which posts resonates and then also decide about the frequency of your posts.   Below I am sharing guideline on the frequency of the posts per week   

• Facebook: 3-10 times
• Twitter: at least 5 times a day
• LinkedIn: 2-5 times
• Google+: 3-10 times
• Pinterest: 5-10 times a day

Always create original content and make your headlines strong because 80% of visitors only read your headlines and rest others only will read the content. In the end, whatever content you are providing, make sure that you are answering your prospects questions which they ask through search engines. If you are able to do this, it will generate more demand for you.

Must Read: Quick Guide: Retain Customers with Demand Generation Strategies

2. Feature testimonials

Trust is crucial to your customers and you can gain the trust of your customers through testimonials. Yes, trust cannot be brought but has to be earned. Your customer was once a potential buyer and was deciding which product to choose, comparing prices, etc and finally he becomes your customer. Now, the testimonials of such ones help the others to choose your product/services as they deepen their trust in you. Thus, it is very crucial for businesses to site testimonials on their websites.   You can use testimonials even in your AdWords and other places like landing pages, product and pricing pages, and marketing campaigns. How can you make your own testimonial pages?   You can use various types of testimonials.   One of them is social media interaction which is also very organic, giving a natural feel. These testimonials are captured by social media or reproduced as they are without any formatting or editing.   Industry Insider Testimonial  These testimonials are opinions from Industry thought leaders and they are ideal for any B2B company.  

3. Offer a Free Report

At first, giving away your stuff for free sounds counterproductive but in reality that is the key to creating more demand. It would be great if you could create a tool that creates reports as this will make the users want to see for themselves how to run all these reports. You can offer them a free social media report. So people will visit your page, fill the contact information, grant access to their Twitter page and this way you can generate a report. This was just an example for those in the B2B marketing industry. If you create any report and the visitors are downloading them, then they are considered to be qualified leads ( Sales qualified or Marketing qualified ). This is the way you can increase your leads using demand generation by creating free reports.

4. Make webinars part of your demand generation strategy

According to InsideSales.com, nearly 50% of marketers find it challenging to generate quality leads and next to that it is difficult to convert these leads into customers. One way you can generate more leads is to help prospects with webinars so that they come to the decision of buying. According to the Benchmark Email sales manager, with webinars, you can achieve more than a 50% conversion rate. Everyone might not get the same results but 70% of the sales & marketing leaders find it effective in generating more leads. So, why not think of webinars as they can be produced at a low cost?  

Must Read: MQL to SQL conversion rate

If you are going to make webinars as a part of your demand generation strategies, then you have to pair with your industry superstars. Doing so will increase your reputation in the society. In the beginning, though, you might not be able to do it with the speaker you want but slowly over time you will have your relationship established and when you get the chance do your best to give away best tips, strategies during the webinars themselves.  

Webinars can go for 30-60 minutes and that’s all you have time for building rapport and during this time you can explain difficult terminologies, Questions  answers, demos, and tutorials. If you get a very low response for the live event, you can invite them for on-demand webinars.   Make the webinar more personal by sending poll questions using tools. You can ask questions and answer them. Another way could be to make them raise hands digitally throughout the webinar so that they don’t feel like reading an eBook or a blog post but feel more involved.

Above were the ways to generate more demand during the initial stage of marketing where you focus on attracting customers to your website. Adding inbound marketing in addition to it in your marketing efforts will benefit you. Why not give it a try.        

Must Read: How to make your Demand Generation Plan Fool-proof

Vikas Bhatt

Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.