Demand Generation VS. Lead Generation – What’s the difference?

Of late, B2B organizations have been struggling to generate quality leads due to the business catastrophe caused by the pandemic. As an organization, you have to revamp your process and tactics to overcome these hurdles.

It is challenging but not impossible!!!

With carefully putting the right effort, you can turn the tables in your favor.

So, how do you do it?

Instead, of being demotivated, find the root cause of the problem.  You would be surprised to know the solution is right there in front of you.

The most effective one is refining the demand generation and lead generation strategies to churn out the maximum number of qualified leads and converting them as paying customers.

The stray leads could have a drastic effect on your conversion rate. These are the leads who are not looking to purchase any service or product. So, eliminating them in the first stage itself could save much of your time and effort.

Let’s get into how both the generation process works.

Just as sales and marketing are equally important for an organization, both demand generation and lead generation are crucial for the process. They are the two sides of the same coin and have an equal contribution to the growth of the organization.

What is Demand Generation?

Demand generation is putting the best spotlight on your services for exposing it to a broader customer base. This marketing strategy is highly driven by data and executed with the help of technology. The well-thought process guides organizations to achieve the target at the right time. It creates awareness among the new customers so that they would purchase the offering of the organization.

Is data-driven marketing important for an organization?

Yes, data-driven marketing is very crucial for any organization. It helps to make logical decisions rather than making decisions based on emotions. Organizations can use the right data of the customers to promote their services and brand on the best platform via different channels.

Steps for Demand Generation process:

• A right understanding of what you want to achieve
• Developing a strong base of data
• Tracking the right touch points in the lifecycle
• Rightly integrating the systems
• Thoroughly testing and learning
• Finally visualizing the results

Benefits of Demand Generation:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Facilitating inbound marketing
• Positioning the relevance
• Customer retention

Examples of demand generation strategies:

• Giving away the real quality stuff
• Partnering with industry people for the webinars
• Leveraging the power of display remarketing
• Optimizing the email marketing
• More effort and time in content creation, promotion

The marketing team should rightly handle the demand generation process. A seamless process could help the sales team to close more deals.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is the next process after demand generation. It includes different tactics and approach that helps pull the prospect down into the sales funnel. The whole process revolves around nurturing the customer and convincing them to purchase your quality product or service.

It further improves the conversion process in an organization. While demand generation is more of subtle marketing, lead generation is more aggressive, where quality leads need to be generated in high numbers to move on to the next stage.

Find the below example:

As you see here, the image is one of the best examples of a Facebook lead generation process. You can also check the tagline, “Positive customer reviews on Facebook, Google…. attract new customers.”

The words such as new customers could hold the attention of any B2B organization. And beside it, there is the form to fill with the complete details such as company name, phone number, email, last name, first name, etc. Also, to motivate the audience for filling the form, the company has included a marketing line, “Grow your business on Facebook FREE.”

So, here you should understand the majority of the audience would reciprocate only if you have taken the pain of nurturing the relationship with them in the demand generation process.

Steps followed in the Lead Generation Process?

• Acquiring leads
• Nurturing existing leads
• Scoring each lead
• Moving on the lead to sales
• Evaluating the process
• Aligning the content

Benefits of Lead Generation:

• Contributing ROI
• Increasing sales and profit
• Targeting the right customers
• Increasing revenue

Examples of Lead Generation Strategies:

• Offering the discount or other gifts
• Optimizing the website
• Hosting a useful event
• Making full use of social media

How is the Lead Generation Process managed?

The lead management process requires systematic planning and approach. With the right process at the place, high-quality leads would be given top priority. When you know the strategy of prioritizing, it will make the process more manageable.

Fully utilizing the Marketing Automation and Content Creation

The marketing automation and content creation process can accelerate the lead generation process. In the case of email marketing, you can automate many of the processes, such as sending welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, and others. This way the right connection can be made with the prospects who are more likely to buy. B2B marketers have already stated that content marketing is one of the result-oriented approaches to improve ROI and the overall results. This tactic can be successful in the lead generation process.

So, you see, both the processes are working in tandem to generate good results. Demand generation is the beginning phase, while lead generation is the ending phase for the closure of sales. After earning the trust of the prospects, in the first phase, it becomes easier to turn these prospects into paying customers in the last phase.

Summarizing:

Leads not getting qualified to the next stage, could hurt any marketer. Revaluating the plan and modifying the approach to reach the right prospect is the best solution in this case.

So, implement the same to weather the storm and drive the process in the right direction.