Demand Generation and Lead Generation are two important stages of the sales funnel, the first increases brand awareness while the latter tries to convert the brand-aware prospects into customers. The post discusses the main differences between the two and suggests ways to bring them together to make your effort a roaring success.

Top demand generation companies like The Global Associates focus on engaging with prospects who have shown interest in your products or services to increase your brand awareness in the year 2022. While demand generation companies create awareness and interest in your products/ services and adopt effective methods and techniques to penetrate new audiences, you just cannot undermine the importance of the role played by lead generation in an organization’s growth.

There is often a debate on the comparative strengths of Demand Generation and lead generation; one must understand that the basic difference is that demand generation is about making people who have visited your website or product pages more aware of what you offer, and lead generation performs the task of turning the prospect’s interest into qualified leads that can be taken over by the sales team to convert them into buyers. So, in a way, these two are different stages in the sales funnel, demand gen leading to lead gen.

B2b demand generation is less transactional than lead generation, it occupies the top of the sales funnels aiming to bring prospective buyers into your buying process. Your target audience is those who have shown some interest in your products by visiting your website home page or social media profiles. This stage is followed by the process of B2B lead generation as prospects with heightened interest in your brand or product are willing to share their personal information, like their names and emails, to know more about the product/ service they are interested in.

If you don’t generate enough quality leads, you have a problem with generating demand; which means that demand generation is higher up the sales funnel, and it initiates lead generation in a way. Yes, there are some differences between demand generation and lead generation but they don’t counter each other, in fact, one must combine them together to achieve great results. Let us first take a look at some main differences between the two processes.

Main differences between demand generation and lead generation:

1. The objective

Demand generation companies work with the objective of building awareness about your organization and the problems you can expertly solve. Some of these people who know about your solutions may not be interested at the moment, but they will remember you when they face similar kinds of problems in the future. This demand is transformed by lead generation into qualified leads. The audience would learn about your products/ services in due course of time during this journey. Having identified the pain points of the prospect, you can make an offer to help them solve their problems.

2. Mode of engagement

Demand generation performs the vital job of building trust with the prospects to establish your brand value. It helps project yourself as a thought leader in the industry with path-breaking ideas which make you popular among people and encourage them to engage more with you. It’s less transactional than lead generation. The lead generation team generates awareness about the value proposition, clearly differentiating your brand and offerings from those of your main competitors. All the benefits of using your product or services instead of that of other companies are conveyed in clear terms.

3. The impact

Demand generation focuses on educating your target audience about the products or services or solutions you are offering. This is done using strategies like creating free resources to clear the customers’ doubts and queries and also gauge their level of interest. Lead generation aims to take it to the next level using content that is more explicit in terms of promoting your brand and nurturing promising leads. It prompts the prospects to share their personal information in exchange for some attractive free stuff.

Bringing demand generation and lead generation together:

Having seen the main differences between the two processes, it’s important to know how these two can be brought together in order to help your business grow rapidly. The fact to realize here is that modern marketing has somewhat shifted to a more targeted approach. So, the main focus is now on generating demand instead of just creating as many leads as possible, quality is important. This is to acknowledge that buyers carefully evaluate their purchasing options taking their own time. It simply means that lead generation will be expensive and inefficient without solid B2B demand generation. In order to improve your conversion ratios, you must make sure the prospects are well aware of your solutions.

Experienced demand generation companies play a vital role in increasing demand and awareness of your brand and solutions to provide a solid platform for the lead generation team. Demand gen and lead gen combined together strategically can do your business a world of good by pumping good quality leads into the sales funnel.

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