Companies have begun to see a major change in the way marketing departments operate. Why is this? Because analytics are continually improving and have provided a way for companies to dissect and quantify the effect marketing is having on their bottom line. This also means that marketers are now being held accountable for their actions. It is important for companies, especially marketers, to recognize the role that demand generation is playing in this change.
Demand Generation Defined
The first step in realizing why you should care about demand
generation is knowing exactly what it is. We had a conversation with Mark
Emond, founder of Demand Spring. Bates Creative first met Mark when he was our
client, the director of North American marketing for Cognos, a $1.2 billion
maker of business analytics software. IBM acquired Cognos in 2008, and
Mark stayed with IBM until founding Demand Spring.
Mark defines demand generation as “the set of
practices, processes, and technologies that enable an organization to create
and progress pipeline.”According to Mark, this is critical for
organizations because “it creates a sales pipeline, and sales drives
revenue, which leads to creating new business. Demand generation drives all of
this.”
The term “demand generation” is sometimes used
interchangeably with “lead generation,” but Mark continued our conversation by
explaining that demand generation is more about creating demand and progressing
and nurturing it. Marketers are now being asked to step up their game. A great
example that Mark used to help us visualize this is the process of car buying.
“20 years ago the dealer was the first step. Now it’s the
last. People are getting their information online, reading reviews, checking
out multiple websites, etc. The whole dynamic has changed. Internet-driven
evaluations take out at least the first half of the buying process for
companies. So now companies need to figure out how to change their online
processes to make them a demand generation capture machine. They need to figure
out how to capture organic and paid search.”
As an entrepreneur who has been in the tech industry for
over 15 years, Mark saw the growing need of companies that need help with
demand generation. He was inspired to start Demand Spring, with the goal
of helping clients build their demand generation practices and processes.
Clients come to Mark for his expertise, and most of his business is optimizing
his clients’ direct to customer business. Clients need better
recruitment strategies, and are asking for help in optimizing their inbound,
website, and even Google Adwords processes. All of these things now have an
effect on a business’ pipeline.
The Evolution of Demand Generation & the Marketing
Department
Demand generation has been greatly effected by evolving
technologies. The internet has changed the buyer-seller relationship. Follow-up
with customers can now be accomplished through automatic emails. Demographics
can be analyzed and used as a tool for automation. Everything is much more
scalable, and analytics are enabling marketers to better understand the success
of their marketing campaigns. This in turn leaves them much more accountable
than they were before with traditional marketing practices.
This evolution has led inbound marketing to become a huge
source of demand generation. According to Mark,
“60% of B2B relationships are now being generated
through inbound channels like the web, Google, third-party sites, and online
sponsorships that a lot of vendors are using. For example, if you are trying to
target marketers, you would put your information on trusted marketing sites.
You now need to go to your audience’s community. Take advantage of the websites
they are going to.”
Complimentary to the evolution of demand generation is the
evolution of social media. Mark explains:
“Social media helps to amplify the awareness of a company
or their products. It helps to create and broaden relationships between
businesses and their audience. It can really authentically communicate the
brand with customers and prospects. It is a conversation that can generate or
negate demand. Companies must be aware of this because it can help or hurt
their overall demand.”
Now that every marketing action can be tracked and evaluated
and the role of the marketing department has shifted, it is clear that
marketers need to focus their attention on their demand generation processes.
It will help them understand how to attract and nurture potential client
relationships, which in turn will lead them to increase ROI and progress their
business’ overall success.
Bates Creative thanks Mark Emond for taking time to
chat and for sharing his extensive knowledge on demand generation with us. What
questions do you have for Mark? Is your business struggling with demand
generation? How have you specifically seen your role as a marketer change?
