What Is The Difference Between Lead Gen And Demand Gen?

Lead Generation

Lead generation is comparable to performance marketing. It’s focused on the top of the funnel and short-term transactions. Lead generation focuses on bringing in traffic that will become new leads. In its simplest form, lead generation is more focused on quantity over quality. 

Demand Generation

Demand generation focuses on full-funnel marketing. It focuses on generating more qualified leads to help grow your pipelines and revenue. Rather than quantity, it is focusing on the quality of lead to help convert buyers.  

Benefits Of Demand Generation

There are many benefits of using demand generation strategies as opposed to lead generation. Here’s a list of some of the major benefits you’ll see by using a demand generation strategy:

  • Better alignment across all teams
  • At least 4x better conversion rates
  • Better scalability with spend
  • Long-term brand building

Demand generation helps match the way you’re selling to how buyers want to buy. By switching the focus from top-of-the-funnel marketing to full-funnel marketing, you’ll be able to market to customers throughout the buying journey. Demand generation helps increase the pipeline and closes more revenue than having a lead generation focus.

Many marketers simply pump more money into what they are already doing, expecting it to improve the results. However, that strategy won’t work. You need to change what you’re doing to achieve better results. Remember that the buyer’s journey is not always a straight shot. You’ll need to be guiding your customers down the funnel by providing the information they need to see the full potential of your product and the pain points it will solve for.

Create Demand, Don’t Just Capture Demand

It’s important to understand that creating demand is different than just capturing demand. Many companies are only capturing demand through low-intent channels. Creating demand involves more strategy on your part. Study the data to understand the buying patterns of your customers and what people are looking for. In order to create demand, you need to leverage high-intent sources for your marketing, such as google search, lead aggregators, and review sites.

When creating demand, you need to be informing and educating people about your product. Help them understand the pain points it solves so that when they move into the buying cycle, they already know what features you have and how it helps increase their overall revenue.

Establish What A Lead Is

It’s important to note that marketing’s definition of a lead may very well be far different than the sales team’s definition. You should redefine what a lead is.

In an episode of Digital Conversations with Billy Bateman, Chris Walker shared amazing insights on this topic. Chris stated, “someone that downloaded a piece of content is not a lead, they’re a contact.” And that’s so true! We tend to think that every email we capture is a qualified lead, and that just isn’t the case. A lead should be defined as someone who has shown a little more interest than just downloading content.

Challenges Of Demand Generation Marketing

If you’re switching from a lead-generation strategy to a demand-generation strategy, or just starting to develop your demand-generation marketing strategy, you might face some challenges along the way.

If the executive team or senior leadership in your company is not aligned with your marketing goals, then you might face challenges while switching your marketing focus from lead generation to demand generation. This happens because most of the time people are used to focusing on the amount of marketing-qualified leads you are receiving. Instead, they should focus on sales-qualified opportunities (SQO).

When making the switch, the number of MQLs will go down, which causes executives to worry. However, they need to realize that although that number decreases, the amount of SQOs greatly increases.

Leads do not equal revenue. Qualified sales opportunities are what lead to more revenue. It’s all about your mindset. We are often too focused on the lead count, but what’s important is quality over quantity. Also, if you don’t have a comprehensive strategy with a solid framework, then switching to demand generation will fail.

Help Generate Demand With ChatFunnels

Chatfunnles helps you increase your sales pipeline with conversational marketing and demand generation. It allows you to engage with your ideal customer profile throughout the buying journey and engage with them in every stage of the funnel. Click here to learn how Chatfunnels can help you in your demand generation strategy!

READ MORE

Buyer Intent Data 101

July 24, 2024

Lead Enrichment: Enhanced Prospect Data for Deeper Insights

July 9, 2024

Advanced Lead Generation Strategies for 2024: Insights and Innovations

March 29, 2024

Using Data to Align Sales and Marketing

December 15, 2023

All You Need to Know About the Demand Gen Summit

October 18, 2023

September Webinar: Signals Product Update

September 28, 2023

The Danger of Relying on Crowdsourced Data: Why Accuracy Matters

September 21, 2023

Boost Visibility and Boost Conversion: Strategies for Networking in E-Commerce

September 21, 2023

Unveiling the Secrets of TikTok Marketing: Unlock Your Affiliate Success!

September 21, 2023

McKinsey Report: Digital Marketing Trends for 2023

September 21, 2023

Video Content: A Powerful Tool for Digital Marketing Success

September 21, 2023

Newsletter Platforms: Impacting Journalism & Revolutionizing Subscriptions

September 21, 2023

Corporate Water Diversion: Maui’s Agricultural Crisis & the Need for Improved Water Rights Regulations

September 21, 2023

Level up Your Earnings with Fiverr’s Affiliate Program in 2023

September 21, 2023

Importance of Digital Marketing and AI Tools in Shaping Future of Companies – Insights on Website Visitor Behavior and Conversion Strategies

September 21, 2023

Upselling and Cross-selling: Pathways to Higher Revenues

September 21, 2023

Navigating Customer Acquisition in a Post Cookies World: The Role of AI and Adaptability

September 21, 2023

The Future of Marketing and Sales: Harnessing the Power of Signals AI Tool

September 21, 2023

The Growth of Mobile Commerce: Implications for Marketers and Sales Strategies

September 21, 2023

Start seeing your Buyers' signals

Signals is helping companies automate, grow, and close sales pipeline with industry-leading predictive intent scoring, lead generation, and real-time engagement.

Untitled design (51)