4 demand generation strategies to help you boost sales

In today’s ever changing business world, each new opportunity that arises makes the difference between growing or scaling back your business.

Customers do their own research, spending almost 60% of the sales process cycle without engaging with sales representatives, which in turn, makes it harder for companies to be in control when it comes to identifying and nurturing leads.

On the other hand, customers do expect a personalized interaction with the company’s sales force.

      1.  Define your demand generation program’s goals and the KPIs:

A clear definition of the KPIs and metrics used in the demand generation process will help you to effectively measure achieving your goals and executing your marketing strategy. It is important to have clearly defined metrics, as the results’ analysis will determine whether a change in the overall strategy is required or just optimizing the demand generation process should suffice.

     2. Focus on the right content

Having the right content is a must in making sure that customers don’t lose interest in what your business has to offer. More and more business keep a special focus on providing the right content to the right time, so that customers and prospects alike can have a good understanding of what value does a specific solution provide.

     3. Add a human intervention layer

In a best case scenario, businesses have an automated demand generation program which speeds up the whole sales cycle process. Although this may seem as an ideal solution for many businesses, from a marketing perspective it is also a big mistake. According to Tim Riesterer, the chief strategy and marketing officer at Corporate Visions, this procedure leads to too many under-qualified, dead, or recycled leads that get into the sales funnel, leading to wasted time for sales teams.

Adding a layer of human intervention to your demand generation process that is in charge of speaking and giving a final qualification to prospects is a way of effectively managing your sales team efforts and focus their attentions on closing more deals.

     4. Prepare for a digital conversation

Many businesses ask themselves: How can I effectively engage with and set prospects on the right track in the early stages of their buying process?

Stop selling the product and focus more on helping customers understand the value you can bring them. This is like when you go to buy a family car and the salesman tries to sell you a sports car, just because he sees this as a great deal you’re making. Although you may not have the perfect solution for each customer, work on gathering feedback, listen to what they have to say and focus on finding the best solution for your prospects.

The success of a demand generation strategy depends on knowing your customers and prospects and delivering highly relevant content to them. Another thing to be taken into consideration is learning when and how do they want to be engaged.

What other tips would you add to this list?