Every brand’s demand generation campaign will look a little bit different. But there are certain elements you should include to kick your campaign off on the right foot and see the biggest return from your efforts.
Here are some key considerations if you want to create a winning demand generation campaign:
Define your goals
Raising awareness of your brand is an obvious win for your demand generation campaign, but that’s not the only goal you could aim for. You could also set targets to:
- Increase engagement with your online audience
- Generate more marketing-qualified leads
- Improve the quality of your leads
- Get more higher-value leads
- Speed up your conversion process
- Lay the groundwork
Before you invest any time, effort or budget into any marketing activity it’s important that you put in the groundwork. This means getting really clear on who you’re trying to reach, and understanding their pain points, the language they use and their buying behaviour.
Doing this work will give you a much clearer view of how to craft your messaging and approach your demand generation campaign in a way that speaks to your target audience and where they’re at.
Track everything
The goals that you’re aiming for with your campaign will determine what you track. There are lots of different metrics you can use to see whether you’re on track to reach your goals, such as:
- Volume of marketing leads
- Marketing-generated revenue
- Share of voice
- ROI by content type
- Visitor to lead time
- Lead to sales time
Be helpful over appealing
Demand generation is about helping the people you want to sell to by listening to what they need and creating value-driven, human-centric content that serves those needs.
In the marketing world we can get so caught up in ‘how can we get them to buy from us?’. While that might be the ultimate aim, let’s not forget that marketing is about connecting with people who need your help.
By helping people first, versus just focusing on selling to them, you’re inherently creating demand for your business that’s based on trust you can later nurture as you move those people down your funnel.
Create a seamless experience – omni-channel
While multi-channel marketing pushes the same message out across different channels, omni-channel connects the channels by sharing data and customer preferences, providing a seamless experience regardless of the channel.
Omni-channel marketing helps improve your lead quality, increase engagement and brand awareness, and ultimately increase sales.
So what does a winning demand generation campaign look like?
Here are some of our favourite examples of brands who have successfully implemented a stand out demand generation strategy:
IBM – Every Second Counts
IBM’s Every Second Counts campaign targeted Chief Information Officers and IT leaders with the aim of educating them on cyber disruption using real-life stories.
This immersive campaign included short films showcasing the importance of having a rapid cyber recovery plan in place, with accompanying content such as promotional video trailers, GIFs, infographics and social tiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
A great example of how a multi-channel campaign can bring to life real-life issues and processes in an engaging way.
Braintree ‘Speaking in Code’
Knowing how tricky developers can be to market to, Braintree (owned by PayPal) executed an ingenious campaign to get their attention.
They embedded hidden messages within the source code of popular technology websites, such as TechCrunch, and displayed cleverly designed billboards painted in black and white code. The billboards were strategically located in areas they knew they would reach developers in, such as San Francisco’s South of Market.
They also offered free lunches in hidden messages using computer code on Twitter and on signs outside coffee shops developers hang out in.
The aim was to get the attention of developers by talking their language – and they did exactly this! The campaign resulted in sign-ups increasing by 92 per cent.
MailChimp: Did you mean MailChimp?
Market-leading email marketing software provider, MailChimp, has a history of people commonly mispronouncing its name.
The mistake inspired a tongue-in-cheek campaign which saw the company create a series of fake brands that sounded very similar to MailChimp:
- MailShrimp – a short film about seafood sandwiches
- NailChamp – online nail art competition
- SnailPrimp – anti-aging beauty treatment
- WhaleSynth – musical app for creating compositions from whale song
They created promotional videos and websites for the fake brands, which were promoted through printed ads, billboards and social media. The fake brand websites then subtly redirected visitors to the official MailChimp site.
The campaign was considered a huge success, resulting in 988 million earned media impressions and 67 million organic searches.
Lockheed Martin: ‘Generation beyond’
Let’s be honest. B2B technology and telecoms marketing can be seen as a little… serious or dry at times. But Lockheed Martin turned this on its head and demonstrated how B2B marketing CAN be innovative (and just as fun as B2C!).
Using immersive virtual reality (VR) they launched; ‘Generation beyond’ – an experiential campaign with the aim of inspiring the next generation of engineers, innovators and explorers.
They kitted out what looked like a pretty ordinary school bus from the outside with VR to create an awe-inspiring ‘Mars experience’. When you sat inside and looked out of the windows, it appeared as though the bus was driving on the planet’s surface.
To support this educational campaign, they created a ‘Hello Mars’ app and an interactive website with a whole host of additional resources, including hands-on learning tools, educators curriculum, engaging videos and fact sheets about Mars and Lockheed Martin.
The campaign was promoted using mobile billboards and Snapchat ads. They saw their social media engagement sky-rocket, with the campaign trending on Facebook and reaching audiences across more than 50 countries.
Want help creating a winning marketing campaign? Get in touch to have a chat with our team.
