Drive Revenue with Top Demand Generation Examples and Strategies

Everyone knows that leads that don’t convert into customers are a waste of time and money, but can demand generation really increase return on investment (ROI) for your marketing and sales departments? 

In short, yes. Demand generation activities are a great way to accelerate B2B lead generation and increase conversions. We’ll guide you through demand generation campaign examples to show you how. 

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a marketing approach that creates customer demand before bringing in leads and converting them into sales. 

In comparison to lead generation, demand generation focuses on quality, not quantity, delivering high-quality leads that are more likely to become a closed deal.

Here’s an example: 

Suppose you’re googling exercises or tricks to step up your basketball game. You stumble upon an article that, among other things, mentions the importance of the right sneakers. Now you’re thinking, “Are my sneakers good? What makes good basketball sneakers anyway?” 

So, you click on the link in the article, which leads you to another article—the one with a comparison table and guidelines for picking the shoes that are right for you.

Just ten minutes ago, you had no idea a) how important the right shoes are, b) that you need these specific sneakers, and c) that you need them right now. That makes you a perfect lead for the sales department. 

So what happened? The combination of guest posting and carefully crafted, audience-centered content generated demand by providing a solution for a problem you hadn’t previously considered. 

This example shows how to build business-to-client (B2C) relations, but many demand generation activities and tactics are also ideal for creating long-lasting business-to-business (B2B) relations.

The most important thing is knowing which B2B demand generation tactics to use— as well as when and how to use them. The best place to start is with an effective demand generation strategy. 

What is a demand generation strategy?

A demand generation strategy is like a treasure map for your business with the treasure marked by ‘X’ being your ideal customers. 

A good demand generation strategy is a comprehensive plan that combines marketing magic with sales sorcery to create brand awareness, spark interest, and drive demand for your products or services. 

It’s your spellbook of techniques for turning strangers into curious prospects and then advancing those prospects into paying, loyal customers who can't get enough of what you're offering.

The five core components of a demand generation strategy

A killer demand generation strategy has five core components. Let's break this down into bite-sized pieces and dive into the first one.

Set goals

Setting goals for your demand generation campaign is like punching your destination into the GPS before setting off on a road trip.

First things first, you need to figure out what success looks like for your business. Ask yourself key questions about your aims:

• Do you want to boost website traffic by 50%? 

• Do you want to increase qualified leads by 30%? 

• Do you want to reach even higher and double your revenue in the next year? 

Whatever it is, make sure your goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Don't just pull numbers out of thin air like a magician with a rabbit either. Dive into your data. Look at your past performance, industry benchmarks, and available resources. 

Be ambitious, but keep it real. Setting a goal to become a billion-dollar company overnight will be unrealistic without some serious magic, but you can still aim high.

Once you've set your main goal, break it down into smaller, more bite-size targets. Think of these as pit stops on your road trip. They'll help you stay on track and give you those small wins to celebrate along the way. 

Those objectives will be the compass points guiding all your demand generation efforts. So, take the time to get them right before diving into the methods and action points. 

Research your customer 

An essential part of demand generation is knowing who you are targeting. 

Start by imagining your ideal client profile (ICP) or buyer persona. Remember that you may have several ICPs if your product is multifunctional or covers a vast audience. Use data to determine the optimal size of companies your product is useful for, their business area, average budget, and goals. 

While you may never encounter your exact ICP, this image will help you understand the desires, pain points, and actions of the companies you want to sell to.

If you can narrow the buyer persona down to an actual imagined person, that’s even better. Some companies create names and backstories for their buyer personas, but remember that you don’t need to get creative—always base your personas on data.

When you know your buyer personas inside and out, start thinking about their customer journey. This is the path of a company's interaction with your brand. 

It usually consists of the following five stages:

• Awareness

• Consideration/Search

• Purchase

• Retention

• Advocacy

You want to make this journey as smooth as possible for your customers, which requires understanding, preparation, and support. The best way to do this is to provide clients with relevant ads, helpful articles, videos, and other content at every stage of their journey.

Create high-quality content

With your ICP and buyer journey map ready, it’s time to decide what content will best serve your potential clients at each stage.

For example, video reviews, podcasts, posts, and infographics work better for people at the top of the sales funnel who are looking for a solution to their pain points. 

At the same time, customers who’ve decided they want to try out particular solutions or products for their business prefer landing pages, case studies, white papers, reports, and detailed guidelines.

Meanwhile, competitive product comparison articles, customer experience reviews, and free trials will encourage customers to take the plunge at the final decision-making stage.

In any case, regardless of the type of content, it should be:

• Suitable for the stage of the journey customers are at

• Informative and easy-to-understand

• SEO-optimized

When your content meets these requirements, the person interacting with it will enjoy every step of the customer journey and become a qualified lead ready to buy your product, even without persuasion from the sales department.

Use multi-channel marketing

Even if you've created all kinds of great content, you can't just leave it lying around on your website and expect it to generate leads. You need to find and use the most efficient distribution channels to deliver the right content to your target audience at the right time.

For example, social media is better suited for news, short descriptions, or videos, while a blog works best for longer articles packed with practical advice. 

You can also offer free content through partner channels—this will benefit your shared audience and get you more exposure and attention from potential clients.

Don't forget about personalized emails; according to Litmus personalization and dynamic content is the best way to improve email performance.

By collecting data through questionnaires, interactive elements, or special tools (shoutout to Leadfeeder), you’ll know what your leads need and offer them exactly that. 

Just don't forget about your overall strategy or customer journey map; sending a super personalized email to someone who has only visited your website once will probably come off as aggressive.

Ensure sales and marketing departments work together

Successful demand gen activities also require your sales and marketing teams to work in sync. They need to know the details of each other's work to avoid repeating work and complement each other instead. 

When your sales and marketing departments are misaligned, it can have many disadvantages for the business, including missed chances and decreased revenue.

Ensuring that sales and marketing teams work in tandem will improve demand generation campaigns and, in turn, make selling easier and increase revenue. 

To achieve this, schedule joint meetings, set common goals, and use software and tools that work across departments.

Track and analyze your progress

Last but not least, collect and analyze data. Without tracking, you cannot understand if your strategy or individual demand gen activities are working.

Of course, your primary indicator will be higher conversion rates and more sales. However, there are a dozen other metrics, such as engagement rate or rate per channel, that can help you build an effective data-driven demand generation strategy.

So, track everything that can be tracked and compare the results with the goals of your marketing and sales departments. This way, you can adjust and improve your strategy to avoid wasting money on ineffective tactics.

Top demand generation examples 

It’s easy to find dozens of suggestions for successful demand generation activities online. While all of them will have their place somewhere, not all will be the best choice for your company.

It’s a good idea to use the same approach as you would in creative or content marketing—use the strategies that your audience likes best.

This list of activities is a great starting point for finding out what works best to generating demand for your product from high-quality leads: 

Create content that is valuable for your ICP

The internet (and the world) is full of content—everywhere you look there is something vying for your attention. So, you need to make content that is valuable to your audience.

B2B audiences are looking for content that upgrades their knowledge, shows an understanding of their pain points, and demonstrates that vendors are experts in their fields.

In fact, research from Conductor shows that educational content increases the likelihood of a prospect buying from a brand by 131%. Use keyword research to discover what your ICP is searching for and create blog posts, white papers, e-books, and case studies to build interest in your brand.

Using Leadfeeder, you can then track which pieces of content your high-value targets are viewing and optimize your content strategy using this information.

Make use of account-based marketing

Rather than casting a wide net and hoping to catch a few fish, account-based marketing (ABM) aims to locate a few of the exact fish you're after. It is the most precise, targeted, and highly effective of the B2B marketing strategies.

With ABM, you're not just shouting into the void and hoping someone responds. You're carefully selecting your dream accounts and tailoring your approach to each one. 

In 2024 alone, companies have reported a wealth of benefits associated with ABM marketing, including improved alignment between sales and marketing, increased sales velocity, and better visibility of ROI. 

So, if you're not using ABM yet, you might be leaving money on the table. And, let's face it, in this economy, who can afford to do that?

Host webinars and events

While online content is a straightforward and effective strategy, don’t forget that events can form an important part of demand generation campaigns. 

Workshops or conferences are great for engaging with and collecting the information of people who are already interested in your services. Webinars also work well for this purpose, connecting you to prospects who may be farther afield. 

And, while events give you a chance to tell prospects more about your product, the one the participants might not know about or didn't think they needed, they also give you a chance to increase trust with face-to-face communication. 

Lastly, events are perfect for networking and meeting new people; you can even partner up with other industry players to increase your position as an expert in your field.

Offer free trials or demos

No matter how much you praise a dish, people can only understand how good it is once they’ve tasted it. That's why you need to give your potential customers freemiums, trials, or samples to encourage them to buy your product.

If the product is actually good, the sales team will hardly need to make any effort—the lead themselves will want to become a regular customer after the trial period is over.

Other free things also work this way; if people like something they’ve been using for free, they’re likely to buy it later. You may offer e-books, templates, access to extended functions, or other freebies that might be useful to your customers and not very expensive for you.

That’s actually an important specification; before handing out free stuff, make sure this will actually help your business and not drain your budget.

Personalize email marketing

We all have that one friend who always seems to know exactly what gift to get us for our birthday. They remember our favorite color, that obscure band we mentioned liking once, and that we're allergic to peanuts. Using personalized email marketing means you become that kind of friend for your entire customer base.

Gone are the days of "Dear Valued Customer" (yawn). Today, it's all about "Hey Sarah, we noticed you've been eyeing that red dress..." Now, that's the kind of email that’ll make Sarah sit up and take notice.

But personalization goes way beyond using someone's name. It's about tailoring the content, timing, and offers to each recipient's preferences and behavior. It's like being a mind reader, except instead of a crystal ball, you're using data and analytics. 

The result? Higher open rates, more clicks, and ultimately, more conversions. Because, let's be honest, we all like to feel special. And, if your emails can make your customers feel like VIPs, you're already halfway to the sale.

Cooperate with partners 

Partnerships and collaborations are great for generating demand. For example, if your company has complementary products or services, partners can generate demand for your product with a simple recommendation or additional discount.

Partners can also explain to their clients why your product is what they’ve been looking for, send them useful links, and, in general, lead them through almost the entire buyer journey without your participation. Just don’t forget to return the favor!

You can also organize events with partners or run joint demand generation campaign. Collaboration gives you access to more resources, which means more opportunities to try out the less popular marketing strategies or big demand generation ideas.

Interact with prospects on social media

You wouldn’t go to a party and just stand in a corner shouting about how great you are, would you? (If you would, we need to talk about your party etiquette.) Social media is the same deal. It's all about having a two-way conversation.

This makes interacting with prospects on social media a delicate dance. You're not just there to promote your products; you're there to engage, entertain, and add value. 

Share interesting content, respond to comments, and join in relevant discussions. You might even throw in a meme or two if that's your brand's style.

And, don’t neglect social listening. Tune into what people are saying about your industry, your competitors, and (drumroll, please) your brand to help tailor your approach. This goldmine of information will allow you to address concerns before they become problems and spot new opportunities before they become trending hashtags.

Involve existing customers with referral programs

Let's talk about your existing customers for a moment. When it comes to referral programs, you might not put as much thought into them as you do with your prospects, but they can make or break your demand generation game. 

Existing customers who are happy with your product can become your own personal army of brand ambassadors. All they need is a little nudge—and perhaps a nice incentive via a referral program—to spread the good word about your amazing product or service. 

Referral schemes are your way of saying to existing customers, "Hey, tell your friends about us, and we'll make it worth your while." 

Rewards could be a discount, a freebie, or even cold, hard cash. The point is, you're turning your satisfied customers into active participants in your growth.

And, here's the best part—referrals are one of the best conversion tools you can use for your brand. 

People trust recommendations from friends and family way more than they trust ads. Think about it. How often have you tried something new simply because a close friend recommended it? 

Plus, referred customers often have higher lifetime value and lower churn rates. It's a win-win-win situation. You win, your existing customer wins, and your new customer wins too.

How do demand generation activities help you drive revenue?

By testing and combining all these activities, you can create a demand generation strategy to increase your profits. Let's look at what can happen across your business when you use demand generation activities.

Increases conversions

Demand generation creates high-quality leads that are very likely to buy your product or service. 

These aren't just any leads; they're the cream of the crop, they’re VIPs of your sales funnel. They've been nurtured and educated and are practically chomping at the bit to throw their money at you.

Accelerates B2B prospecting

When your employees spend time on B2B demand generation, it’s time well spent.

Leads from demand generation usually know what your product gives them and how you're better than competitors, so you don't need to convince them. It's like they've already done their homework before showing up to class.

Consequently, your sales department doesn't waste time on uninterested leads and only helps prospective buyers finalize their decision. 

That means you need fewer people in the department, and the ones you have can focus on closing deals instead of chasing shadows. 

Improves brand recognition

Your content might not lead to sales for every person who interacts with it, but they could find it helpful anyway and recommend it to others. Small seeds of brand awareness might well grow into mighty oaks of customer loyalty in the future.

So, better content = more shares = more brand awareness = more trust from potential customers = more sales. 

It's a domino effect, but instead of falling down, these dominoes are stacking up to build business success. 

Boosts ROI

And, here's where everything comes together. First off, by targeting the right audience with laser precision, you're not wasting money on shots in the dark. 

By nurturing leads with valuable content, you're building a relationship before you even try to make a sale. And, let's not forget the power of word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.

All of this adds up to more bang for your buck. Your marketing money isn’t just working hard; it’s working smart. And, in the end, that means a healthier bottom line and better ROI.

As you might have calculated already (If you haven't, don't worry, I've got you), fewer personnel expenses, more sales, and a turbocharged ROI drive your revenue to new heights. And, that, in a nutshell, is the true power of demand generation.

Jump-start your demand generation strategy with Leadfeeder

The principle "The more leads, the better" isn’t strictly true for B2B marketing. The quality of these leads is a critical parameter, so the current motto of successful companies should be "The more high-quality leads, the better."

An effective demand generation campaign is a surefire way to achieve this—creating demand before collecting and processing leads.

It’s important to test and measure the demand generation examples you choose to use to find which ones work best for your business. Keep checking your data and adapt your demand generation campaign to your ICP to ensure your demand gen efforts bear the sweetest fruit.

Note: Leadfeeder is a sales and marketing tool that knows what companies visit your website and you can try it for free for 14 days.