Demand Generation Strategy

Demand Generation Strategy #1: Defining Conversion-Based Personas

Many marketing teams have embraced personas as a way of identifying potential buyers, segmenting audiences, and personalizing messaging and offers. But few marketing teams understand the power of conversion-based personas as a demand gen strategy.

Traditional audience personas are effective at early engagement. But these personas typically fail to account for the mindset and needs of the prospect once they have entered the sales funnel. The result is a misalignment between marketing messaging/offers and the expectations of prospects after they have decided to engage.

Regardless of what brought them into the funnel, prospects usually fall into one of three personas after they’ve raised their hand:

• The Researcher is a top-of-funnel prospect who wants to better understand a product or category but is not necessarily ready to buy or speak with someone. These prospects will typically respond more favorably to offers like infographics, Top-10 lists, tip sheets and categorical white papers.
• The Student is a mid-funnel prospect who is actively seeking to be educated about a product, category or solution and is likely considering multiple options. These prospects may be more interested in offers such as free trials, case studies, product demos and information on rates.
• The Buyer is a bottom-of-funnel prospect with a high level of interest and a desire to speak with the sales team. These prospects will prefer hard offers that are designed to drive immediate engagement, with CTAs such as “Get a Quote,” “Get Pricing,” or “Free Installation.”

By structuring your demand gen strategy with advertising, offers, content, landing pages, and nurture campaigns geared toward the mindset of conversion-based personas, you can more effectively accelerate prospects through your funnel.

Elements of Successful Demand Generation Strategies

After identifying your target audiences, segments, and personas, along with their needs, habits, and buying preferences, your demand gen strategy must lay out a plan for engaging targeted prospects at every stage of the customer journey.

• Driving interest – at the earliest stage, your demand gen strategy will likely engage prospects through:
  • Search engine marketing – paid search and SEO
  • Online media – banner campaigns, content syndication, email campaigns, product listings, native advertising
  • Social media – social networks, content channels and blogs
• Capturing contacts – when prospects decide to engage, you’ll need an ecommerce marketing strategy to nurture them, converting marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales qualified leads (SQLs). Effective tactics include:
  • Web sites and micro sites that present content and offers for each stage of the customer journey
  • Webinars that increase engagement and interest
  • Call centers that can engage interested prospects via telephone or chat
• CRM Metrics
  • Benchmarking: Is your tracking working?
  • Technology: Is everything else actually working? (Glitches can damage a brand, reputation or media investment)
  • Martech: Is your martech stack integrated? (Marketing automation and triggered events, tags installed, APIs connected, data fields aligned, etc.)
• Converting leads – here’s where your demand gen strategy must focus on highly personalized and targeted communication delivered through:
  • Sales materials
  • Sales team contacts
  • Automated nurture campaigns
  • Total Sales – total amount of revenue
  • CRO: Where are the high impact opportunities for conversion rate optimization
  • Branding: Are you building the brand?
• Optimizing efforts – by tracking performance and measuring results against goals and objectives, you can optimize execution of your demand gen strategy.