Wouldn’t it be great if you could just create a product, launch a landing page and then watch the sales start rolling in? Well, unless you’re selling a revolutionary product with no competition, you’ll quickly find out that that’s not how things work.
You’ve got to create demand for your product before you can expect any sort of sales. And that requires a demand creation strategy that helps you build an audience of potential customers interested in and excited about your product or service.
So, how do you go about doing that? The short answer is creating and distributing high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. But that’s easier said than done!
In this blog post, we’ll share tips on creating demand for your product and services, collaborating with your content marketing team to ensure the best results and using AI technology to ensure you’re getting in front of the right people.
Sounds good? Let’s start with some demand creation basics.
What is demand creation?
Demand creation is the process of creating or fostering demand for a product or service. This process includes strategies like inbound marketing, advertising, email marketing and other marketing efforts to build brand awareness among potential buyers.
Effectively creating demand requires creativity, strategy and persistence. Ultimately, your goal will be to create a message or story so relevant to your target audience’s needs that it sticks with them until they’re ready to buy.
What’s the difference between demand creation and demand generation?
If you think demand creation and demand generation sound like the same things, you’re not alone. These marketing strategies are, of course, closely related. But there is a subtle difference.
Demand generation is the overarching strategy of building brand awareness and demand for a product or service. The goal of a demand generation strategy is to show a company knows how to solve a problem potential customers already know exists. Demand creation, on the other hand, is more specific and focuses on building demand for a solution to a problem that customers may not be fully aware of yet.
How to know what type of content will help create demand for your offer
What kind of content will help you create demand for your product or service depends on your buyer personas. In other words, who is your ideal customer? What are their defining characteristics? What type of content do they consume? Where do they spend time engaging with content online?
This information will give you valuable insight into what type of content will help create demand for your offer. You should tailor your content to appeal to this target audience and make them excited about your product or service.
For instance, if your business targets young professionals, creating content that resonates with them, like infographics, social media posts and YouTube videos, might be more effective than standard text-based blog posts.
On the other hand, if you’re a new business hoping to reach and influence decision-makers at B2B companies, you may want to try a different strategy. Content such as white papers, thought leadership social media posts and case studies may be more effective at guiding potential buyers through your demand generation funnel. According to a 2021 study, 62% of B2B decision makers relied on content like case studies and webinars when making purchase decisions.
How do you learn to understand your buyer personas or ideal customers so well that your content creates strong demand from high-quality leads? We share some of our favorite strategies in the section below. Tip #1 can be a game changer, especially if you want to expand into new markets!
How to produce high-quality demand creation content and build an audience excited to buy
Creating a quick infographic or blog post are easy ways for marketing teams to start the process of creating demand. But where do you go from there? Here are five tips you can use to ensure you create content that supports the success of a demand generation marketing campaign.
#1 Regularly update your ideal customer profile
Your ideal customer is not static. It evolves as markets, technology and customer needs change. Yet, many businesses fail to keep their ideal customer profile (ICP) up-to-date. Even worse, they rely on demographic or firmographic data that doesn’t tell you much about what influences potential customers to consider new solutions to their problems.
This is where exegraphic data comes in—data that gives you insights into what motivates, interests and drives potential customers. For example, looking at exegraphics can help you discover that your ideal customer isn’t as simple as FinTech companies in the Northeast with 50-100 employees but rather any software company currently undergoing a large-scale digital transformation project.
Using Rev, an AI-powered Sales Development Platform, you can discover the exegraphics of your best customers and use that data to build a living model of your ICP that updates as your customer base grows.
Knowing who you’re targeting, what factors influence decision-makers, and how their needs evolve over time will help you craft relevant, engaging, and compelling content that creates and sustains demand.
#2 Seek cross-departmental participation in the content creation process
Content creation should be a team effort. And when it comes to demand creation, you’ll want input from different departments. In particular, you’ll have the best results if you promote consistent collaboration across your customer service, marketing and sales teams.
For example, sales reps and customer success agents can provide valuable insights into the needs and common questions of your current customers and what information might help shorten the sales cycle.
With that information, your marketing team can brainstorm and execute ideas for demand creation content that will be engaging, informative and capable of grabbing the attention of potential buyers.
#3 Seek regular feedback from customers, prospects and leads
Most marketers don’t have regular direct contact with the customers using their products or services. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get customer feedback. You can solicit feedback from current customers and leads through surveys, interviews and other tactics.
This is also where cross-departmental collaboration comes in handy. You can tap into the experiences of your customer service team and sales team for information about what customers say about your offer and use that to inform content ideas.
#4 Regularly promote and distribute your best content
Once you have your demand creation content, promoting it to ensure it reaches your target audience is essential. You can promote it across multiple channels like social media, email, direct outreach and even paid advertising if you have the budget.
Exegraphic data can also be helpful here as it can potentially show you where your target audience is actively engaging with content and how they interact with it. This information can help you determine which channels to focus your promotion efforts.
Exegraphic data can also help you develop an effective content syndication campaign in which you repurpose the same content for multiple platforms. This type of marketing allows you to create demand for your products or services without using too much of your marketing spend to advertise your valuable content.
#5 Engage with your audience
Remember to engage with your audience! Engagement helps build relationships and shows that you care about their opinion. Social media platforms are great for this, as they allow you to interact with your existing customers and nurture prospects on a more personal level.
Engaging with your audience also helps you get feedback on what kind of content they want to see and on how your company can improve its products or services. This enables you to create a more tailored demand generation strategy for your target audience’s unique pain points and needs.
When engaging with your customers, don’t forget to be creative. You want your content to stand out and be memorable! So, try exploring different content formats like videos, podcasts, webinars, live streaming events, etc.
Demand creation example
So, what does an effective demand creation strategy look like? Let’s imagine you’re the head of a demand generation marketing team at a new B2B software startup that helps businesses with customer relationship management (CRM). Despite having A LOT of competition, you’re determined to create demand for your product, but how?
To start, you’ll want to determine who might be interested in and benefit from using your CRM. In other words, who is your ideal customer, and why? For the sake of our example, let’s say you’ve used Rev to analyze the exegraphic data of your best customers and found that your ideal customer has the following profile:
- SMEs in the finance industry
- Prefer personalized customer service
- Needs an all-in-one CRM solution that can be used centrally and with teams
- Currently hiring digital marketers with expertise in lead generation
Now that you know who you’re trying to target, it’s time to create demand for your product by creating content that will grab your ideal customer’s attention at the top of the funnel. Using a collaborative effort across all go-to-market teams, you can brainstorm content ideas that will capture the attention of the SME finance sector.
For example, you might decide it’s worth creating blog posts that discuss the challenges and opportunities of having an all-in-one CRM solution for the finance industry. Or you might make a video series about how financial enterprises can streamline lead generation efforts with an all-in-one CRM solution.
Next, you’ll want to make sure your ideal customer is likely to see your content. This might mean launching a content syndication campaign in which you partner with other companies to share and promote your content.
Final thoughts
Building awareness and demand for your products or services takes a lot of hard work and strategy—particularly if you’ve entered a new market. But with a bit of planning, you can develop a demand generation campaign tailored to your target customer and optimized to support revenue growth.
Producing effective demand creation content starts with understanding the characteristics that define your ideal customer. Using exegraphic data, you can identify the factors influencing your ideal customers’ purchasing decisions, what types of content will guide them through the customer journey, and where they’re most likely to consume content online.
Want to see the power of exegraphic data for your upcoming demand generation campaigns? Contact our team. We’ll give you a free demo of Rev and show you the characteristics behind the accounts most likely to buy from you.