Cross-functional synergy is a must if you want to create a seamless, effective demand generation strategy. Align sales, marketing, and customer success around shared goals, establish continuous feedback loops, and collaborate on campaigns, so you can create a unified approach that drives growth and enhances customer satisfaction.
Paid media is an essential tool for scaling your demand generation efforts and reaching your target audience quickly and effectively. By following these best practices—setting clear objectives, choosing the right platforms, crafting compelling ads, and optimizing for conversions—you can amplify your reach and accelerate lead generation.
Organic growth through owned media is a powerful, sustainable way to build long-term value for your brand. By optimizing your SEO, leveraging social media, and fine-tuning your conversion strategies, you’ll attract high-quality traffic that fuels your demand generation efforts.
Building a strong online community and fostering brand advocacy are crucial for modern demand generation. When your audience feels valued, engaged, and connected, they naturally become ambassadors for your brand, driving demand and elevating your reputation in the marketplace.
A s Chris Walker says, “Content is the engine that drives demand generation—it fuels engagement, nurtures relationships, and propels prospects through the buyer’s journey.” Content isn’t just a tactic; it’s the very foundation of any successful demand generation strategy. High-quality content doesn’t just attract attention—it educates, engages, and nurtures your audience, guiding them from curiosity to commitment.
In this section, we’ll break down how to build a content strategy that speaks directly to your audience’s needs and interests, using multiple formats and channels to create a powerful, multi-channel demand generation engine.
1. Start with Audience-Centric Content Planning
Your content strategy should always start with your audience in mind. If you’re not creating content that addresses the specific pain points, challenges, and goals of your Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) and Buyer Personas, you’re missing the mark. Your content needs to be valuable, actionable, and relevant—content that answers the questions your audience is asking.
Action: Map out your content plan by identifying key topics that resonate with your audience. Use your Buyer Personas to guide the tone, style, and depth of the content.
Example: If you’re a SaaS company targeting mid-sized tech firms, your content might include blog posts about optimizing IT infrastructure, webinars on cloud migration best practices, and case studies showcasing successful client implementations.
2. Diversify Your Content Formats
Different people consume content in different ways, so it’s essential to diversify your formats. Some people want in-depth whitepapers, while others prefer short, punchy videos. To maximize your impact, spread your content across various formats to reach more people and cater to different learning styles.
Action: Develop a content calendar that includes a mix of blogs, whitepapers, eBooks, webinars, podcasts, videos, and infographics. Make sure each format aligns with a specific stage of the buyer’s journey, from initial awareness to decision-making.
Examples of Content Formats:
3. Create a Content Distribution Plan
Creating great content is only half the battle. The real challenge is getting it in front of the right people at the right time. This is where a solid distribution strategy comes into play. You’ll need to leverage multiple channels—owned, earned, and paid—to ensure your content gets the visibility it deserves.
Action: Identify the primary channels your audience uses and develop a tailored distribution plan for each piece of content. This might include sharing blogs on social media, promoting webinars through email campaigns, and syndicating whitepapers on industry websites.
Example: Promote a new eBook on LinkedIn through targeted sponsored posts, while also distributing it via your email newsletter and gated landing pages to capture leads.
4. Incorporate SEO Best Practices
You want your content to be found, right? That’s where SEO comes in. Optimizing your content for search engines means your audience can discover it when they’re actively searching for the solutions you provide. It’s a long-term play, but the payoff is worth it.
Action: Conduct keyword research to identify the terms your audience is searching for. Optimize each piece of content with these keywords in mind, ensuring it matches the intent of the searcher.
Example: If your audience is searching for "best project management tools for tech companies," create a blog post that directly addresses this topic, incorporating the keyword naturally throughout and optimizing the meta title and description.
5. Nurture Your Audience with Content
Content isn’t just for attracting new prospects; it’s also key for nurturing existing leads. By offering relevant, personalized content, you can guide prospects through the buyer’s journey, building trust and keeping them engaged until they’re ready to make a decision.
Action: Develop a series of nurturing email campaigns that deliver targeted content based on a lead’s behavior and stage in the buyer’s journey. Use marketing automation tools to segment your audience and trigger content delivery based on specific actions, like downloading a whitepaper or attending a webinar.
Example: After a prospect downloads an introductory eBook, follow up with emails offering related content, like blog posts, case studies, and invites to upcoming webinars. Each email should progressively move the lead closer to a buying decision.
6. Measure and Optimize Content Performance
Your content strategy is only as good as the results it drives. That’s why tracking performance is critical. Regularly reviewing metrics like engagement rates, conversion rates, and lead quality will help you refine your approach, allowing you to focus on what works and tweak what doesn’t.
Action: Set up analytics dashboards to track key metrics like page views, time on page, bounce rate, and conversion rate. Use these insights to optimize your content, focusing on the formats, topics, and channels that deliver the best results.
Example: If your webinars are generating high-quality leads but attendance is low, consider tweaking the timing, promotion, or format to boost engagement.
1. Content as a Lead Magnet
Use high-value content, like eBooks and webinars, to attract and capture leads. Gated content—where prospects provide their contact information in exchange for access—can be especially effective in building your lead database.
2. Content for Sales Enablement
Equip your sales team with content that addresses common objections and questions. This might include case studies, demo videos, or one-pagers summarizing key benefits. By providing sales with the right content at the right time, you can help them close deals faster.
3. Repurpose Content for Maximum Impact
Don’t just create content once and forget about it. Repurpose your best content across different formats and channels. For example, a comprehensive whitepaper can become a series of blog posts, a webinar, and an infographic—extending its reach and maximizing its value.