The rise of digital transformation has undoubtedly taken over conventional marketing techniques. Since the majority of customers are now active online, many businesses are shifting to digital forums to get more traffic and generate long-term profits. Whether you’ve recently launched your e-commerce business or aim to improve brand awareness through high web and social media traffic, you need to understand digital marketing basics.

Novice marketers often confuse lead generation with demand generation because the two overlap in certain areas, however, their goals are entirely different.

Confused about these two terms? Don’t worry! This breakdown will help you figure out the basic difference so you can effectively implement these techniques in your digital strategy as you outgrow competition and grow your business.

What Is Demand Generation?

Demand generation is a process through which you can spread awareness about your business by identifying the audience and its needs through inbound marketing and high-quality content. It’s a branding technique that attracts a pool of customers and clients towards your product and service. Once you gain recognition, you are more likely to generate PR and influence your customers’ purchasing pattern by creating a buzz.

Demand generation is all about reaching new markets and promoting your product and services in the most effective manner to drive intended results. Unlike other marketing techniques, demand generation will help you maintain your customer base by building a long-term relationship with them. The focus on the customers’ needs is essential and can be quite effective if you want to keep them interested in your business.

One of the tried and tested ways to achieve this is through an assessment from Assessment Generator that helps collect relevant data about your customers. With this technique, you can digitize your strategy to learn what your audience desires the most.

Demand Generation Content

• Online Assessments
• Blogs
• Infographics
• Slideshares
• Free Tools
• Video Marketing
• Social Media Posts
• Interviews
• Podcasts
• Case studies
• E-books
• Email Campaigns

What Is Lead Generation?

Lead Generation is all about converting your visitors into qualified leads by getting their attention. Once you get them interested in your products, they become a lead. In simple words, it’s a way to use the Call-To-Action (CTA) feature to funnel in visitors through your online platforms. Creating unambiguous CTAs help direct them to your landing page(s), where they will find an online assessment or a contact information form.

You can use this assessment to offer valuable feedback to your customer.

For instance, you have a fitness product; you can use the assessment to help them learn how many calories they are supposed to consume to lose weight. This valuable offer will act as a two-way interaction between you and a potential consumer, giving you qualified leads for your business. Similarly, when they fill out their contact information, they permit you to reach out to them and provide them with the desired information or content.

Lead Generation is all about directing your visitors to your product so that they are looking forward to what you have to offer, ultimately influencing them to buy your product in the future.

Lead Generation Content

Want to capture leads and attract prospects? Try making use of the following lead generation content:

• Free Trials
• Grated Content such as white paper, checklist, PDFs, EBooks, Instructions, etc.
• Email Subscription
• Newsletter Subscription
• Product Demo
• Courses
• Webinars & Events
• Coupons
• Referral Marketing
• Online Assessments

What’s The Difference?

Demand Generation and Lead Generation may seem similar, but they have different goals. Here are some of the differences that you need to know about:

• Lead generation is about capturing leads and landing customers; demand generation is about attracting customers and building your brand awareness.
• While lead generation is a straightforward process that lands you a customer, demand generation requires lengthy and comprehensive procedures.
• Since demand generation is more than a branding technique, there’s more focus on maintaining the customer base and nurturing prospects. There’s a strong level of communication necessary between the sales and marketing teams to make this work.
• Usually, gated content such as a checklist, white paper, and PDF is used for lead marketing, but demand marketing makes use of videos, articles, and infographics.

Platforms to Use for Demand Marketing & Lead Marketing

You can use your lead generation and demand generation strategies on the following platforms:

• Your social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
• Product website
• Landing page
• Blogs
• Ads
• Email

For an effective marketing technique, we suggest that you incorporate both lead generation and demand generation into your digital strategy. Always remember that demand feeds lead and once you create brand awareness, you are more likely to succeed in the future as your business grows. 

Have any questions for us? Reach to Assessment Generator and we will guide you further.