A B2B demand generation strategy is a marketing approach aimed at building brand awareness and nurturing relationships with prospects throughout the buyer's journey. It involves creating personalized and relevant content to engage potential customers and guide them toward making informed purchasing decisions.
Effective demand generation encompasses a variety of tactics:
To develop a successful demand generation plan:
Demand generation and lead generation are two distinct marketing approaches, each with its own set of goals and strategies. Demand generation focuses on building brand awareness and nurturing relationships with prospects throughout the buyer's journey, targeting a broader audience, including those not actively seeking a solution.
On the other hand, lead generation aims to convert interested prospects into tangible leads by collecting contact information and engaging potential customers through targeted follow-up campaigns.
To evaluate the success of your demand generation campaigns, focus on metrics that translate to commercial success, such as:
Pipeline management is the process of tracking and managing potential customers as they move through the different stages of your sales process.
Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.
Closed Lost is a sales term for a deal that didn't go through. The prospect decided not to buy, or the sales team disqualified them.
Marketing Operations (MOps) is the engine of a marketing team, managing the technology, processes, and people to run campaigns effectively.
Inventory management is the process of ordering, storing, and using a company's inventory, from raw materials to finished goods.
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A sales strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how a business will sell its products or services to achieve its revenue goals.
A sales call is a real-time conversation between a salesperson and a prospect, aiming to persuade them to purchase a product or service.
Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) is a business model where companies sell products directly to customers, bypassing traditional retail middlemen.
A sales methodology is the framework that guides how your sales team approaches the entire sales process, from prospecting to closing deals.
Phishing attacks are fraudulent attempts to trick you into revealing sensitive data like passwords or financial info by posing as a trusted source.
Day Sales Outstanding (DSO) is a financial ratio that shows the average number of days it takes for a company to receive payment for a sale.
A sales sequence is a series of automated touchpoints sent to prospects over time to guide them through the sales funnel.
Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) measures the revenue generated by a marketing campaign relative to the cost of that campaign.
A Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the page displayed by a search engine after a user enters a query, listing results ranked by relevance.
A headless CMS is a back-end content repository that delivers content via API to any front-end, decoupling the content from its presentation layer.
Sales training is the process of honing a salesperson's skills and knowledge to enhance their effectiveness and drive sales success.
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a business function that aligns a company's sales, marketing, and customer service teams to drive predictable revenue.
Lead generation software helps businesses automate finding and capturing potential customers' contact information to build sales pipelines.
The Challenger Sales Model is a sales approach where reps challenge a customer's thinking by teaching, tailoring, and taking control of the sale.
Key accounts are a company's most valuable customers, vital due to their significant revenue contribution and strategic importance for growth.
Direct sales involves selling products directly to consumers in a non-retail setting, such as at home, online, or person-to-person.
Microservices is an architecture where apps are built as a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other over APIs.
Virtual selling is the process of selling to customers remotely using technology like video calls, rather than meeting them in person.
No Forms is a method for capturing lead data directly from your website visitors' profiles without requiring them to fill out any forms.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is the standard language for managing and querying data within relational databases.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software is a sales tool for creating accurate, configurable quotes for complex products and services.
A hybrid sales model blends traditional and digital sales methods to engage customers across multiple channels and buying preferences.
MOFU, or Middle of the Funnel, is the crucial evaluation stage in the buyer's journey where leads compare solutions to their known problem.
A digital strategy outlines how your business will use online channels, data, and technology to achieve its goals and connect with customers.
Sales prospecting techniques are methods used by sales teams to identify, contact, and qualify potential customers, also known as prospects.
A persona map visually outlines a target customer, detailing their goals, behaviors, and pain points to help your team build genuine empathy.
A commission is a service charge paid to an agent for a transaction. It's typically a percentage of the sale, rewarding performance directly.
Sales productivity is the measure of a sales team's efficiency, focusing on maximizing revenue generation while minimizing the resources spent.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused B2B strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to target and convert high-value accounts.
The customer lifecycle is the journey a person takes from first becoming aware of your brand to becoming a loyal, repeat customer.
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Sales Operations, or Sales Ops, streamlines sales processes, manages tools, and analyzes data to help sales teams sell more effectively.
A Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a recurring meeting to assess performance against goals and align on strategy for the next quarter.
A freemium model offers a product's basic features for free, enticing users to upgrade to a paid version for more advanced capabilities.
A lead generation funnel is a systematic process that guides potential customers from initial awareness of your brand to becoming qualified leads.
A sales quota is a time-bound sales goal for a rep or team, measured in revenue or units sold, to be met within a specific period.
Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method where all expenses are re-evaluated and must be justified from scratch for each new budget period.
Personalization is the practice of using data to tailor products, services, or content to an individual's specific needs and preferences.
Deal flow refers to the stream of business proposals and investment opportunities that a company or investor receives.
Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) is the ideal order quantity a company should purchase to minimize its total inventory-related costs.
Sales operations analytics is the practice of analyzing sales data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire sales process.
Webhooks are automated messages sent by an app when a specific event occurs. They push real-time data to another app's unique URL.
Content syndication is the process of republishing your web content on third-party sites to reach a much wider audience.
Expansion revenue is the extra money a business makes from its current customers via upgrades, new products, or additional services.
Product-market fit is when a product meets the needs of a strong market, leading to high demand, customer satisfaction, and organic growth.
Sales territory management is the process of grouping accounts into territories and assigning them to reps to maximize sales and market coverage.
A Value-Added Reseller (VAR) is a company that adds features or services to an existing product, then resells it as an integrated solution.
CRM analytics is the process of analyzing data from your CRM to uncover insights that help you better understand and serve your customers.
Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.
Net 30 is a common payment term where a client has 30 calendar days from the invoice date to pay for goods or services in full.
A draw on commission is an advance payment a salesperson receives against future earnings, which is later repaid from earned commissions.
Data encryption translates data into another form, or code, so that only people with access to a secret key or password can read it.
Incident response is an organization's systematic approach to managing and mitigating the aftermath of a security breach or cyberattack.
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Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired goal, like a purchase or sign-up, out of the total number of visitors.
Learn about brand awareness, including understanding its importance, building an effective strategy, key metrics to track, & examples in the real world.
Learn about brand equity, including understanding its importance, building strong brand equity, measuring brand equity, & real-world applications.
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud-based model where users subscribe to an application and access it over the internet.
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.
A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.
Workflow automation uses rule-based logic to run a sequence of tasks that would otherwise require manual human effort to complete.
A follow-up is a communication sent after an initial interaction to continue the conversation, provide more value, or prompt a response.
Lead scraping is the process of automatically extracting contact information and other relevant data about potential customers from online sources.
Technographics is data that outlines a company’s technology stack, helping B2B teams identify prospects based on the software and hardware they use.
Sales velocity is a key metric measuring the speed at which your company makes money. It shows how fast deals move through your sales pipeline.
The buyer's journey maps the path a potential customer takes, from first becoming aware of a problem to making a final purchase decision.
An elevator pitch is a short, memorable summary of what you do, designed to be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
A value chain is the series of business activities required to create and deliver a product or service, from conception to the final customer.
Inbound sales attracts interested prospects who've engaged with your brand, letting sales reps connect with warm leads instead of cold outreach.
Process automation uses technology to execute recurring tasks or processes, replacing manual effort to cut costs and boost efficiency.
Learn about business intelligence in marketing, including the role of data in marketing BI, key components of marketing BI, & marketing BI vs. market research.
Lightning Components is a UI framework for building dynamic web apps for mobile and desktop devices on the Salesforce Lightning Platform.
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Multi-touch attribution is a marketing analytics method that credits multiple touchpoints on the customer journey for a conversion.
A data pipeline is a set of automated processes that move raw data from various sources to a destination for storage and analysis.
Sales funnel metrics are key data points that track how effectively you're moving potential customers from awareness to a final purchase.
Event marketing is a strategy where brands engage directly with target audiences through live events like trade shows, conferences, or webinars.
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A landing page is a standalone web page created for a marketing campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” after clicking an ad or email link.
A drip campaign is a series of automated messages sent to prospects or customers over time to nurture leads and drive engagement.
Warm outreach is contacting prospects with whom you have a pre-existing connection, like a mutual contact, making your message more personal and effective.
Performance monitoring involves collecting and analyzing data to track a system's operational health and efficiency, ensuring it meets set standards.
Agile methodology is an iterative approach to project management and software development, focusing on delivering value in small, incremental steps.
SFDC stands for Salesforce Dot Com, a popular cloud-based CRM platform that helps companies manage their customer interactions and data.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee has to their organization, motivating them to contribute to the company's success.
A persona is a semi-fictional profile of your ideal customer, based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.
Cloud storage is a service model where data is stored on remote servers and accessed from the internet, rather than on a local drive.
A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a concise statement that clearly communicates the unique benefit a customer gets from your product or service.
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Sales coaching is a process where managers help reps improve their skills and performance through personalized feedback, training, and guidance.
Data warehousing is the process of storing and managing large sets of data from various sources for business intelligence and reporting purposes.