5 Reasons Why Your Demand Generation Strategy Is Not Performing and How to Fix It

Determine realistic, short-term goals that support your long-term vision for the demand generation strategy.

Examples

• Click-Through Rate (CTR)
• Conversion rate per sales funnel stage
• Sales meetings booked

Leveraging paid media, such as PPC and targeted display, generates a quick initial touchpoint with potential buyers, who can then be routed to dedicated lead nurturing cadences. This allows you to assess performance to inform follow-up and the next steps of the demand strategy.

Examples

• Promote a free tool or whitepaper via PPC, then follow up with prospects via social selling or email nurturing
• Launch a targeted display campaign via a content distribution partner to improve sales funnel velocity and encourage movement to the middle and bottom of the sales funnel

Salespeople can establish relationships with prospects and gauge their interest in the brand’s solutions quicker than a marketing-led campaign. Events are ideal for encouraging prospects to advance to later stages of the buyer’s journey, as their atmosphere allows salespeople to address pain points dynamically.

Examples

• Create a social media campaign with a valuable asset, which sales can share with their followers and prospects
• Transform a product demo into a fun game at an event to demonstrate key benefits in a memorable way

Both datasets can identify which prospects are the most qualified for your solutions, so you can prioritise nurturing and sales outreach accordingly.

Examples

• Score leads based on historical data of demand campaigns to filter them into separate nurturing cadences
• Utilise buyer intent data to assess which prospects are the most invested in your brand, and prioritise your budget to engage them with relevant touchpoints

Utilise your buyer personas and Ideal Client Profiles (ICPs) to determine key markets, as well as analyse prospects in your pipeline that are most likely to convert to prioritise your budget (more on this in item #3).

Examples

• Focus on 1-2 industries for targeting, and after lead generation, utilise ICP criteria to determine the key prospects/accounts to prioritise resources for personalised outreach
• Leverage influencers in your target market to assess brand reception and adjust messaging and offerings accordingly
• Launch an ABX campaign for select accounts to improve your conversion rate with high-value prospects

Engage salespeople and arm them with high-impact content to generate demand at a low cost, establishing relationships for the future. Lead magnets, which are high-value assets gated behind a form, can also be promoted organically to generate leads.

Examples

• Develop a free tool and gate it behind a form that salespeople can share with their followers
• Craft snackable content that encourages a conversation with sales, such as listicles on the latest trends or playbooks

Establish communication flows between departments at your organisation—primarily, marketing, sales, client success, and stakeholders. Aligning teams is key to demonstrating results and how budgets are being utilised.

Examples

• Establish a demand committee with leaders of each team involved with demand generation strategies
• Assign a team member to report on demand strategies monthly, and share results with stakeholders
• Create an internal communication channel for updating teams regularly on any new developments

Ensure that your buyer profiles are updated regularly (ideally by semester) so that strategies are aligned with current buyer preferences.

Keep track of KPIs (particularly those related to messaging) to determine what benefits, copy, and imagery are performing best with your audience. It is also key to survey clients and prospects to gain insights on their opinions and recommendations for your organisation.

Rather than spread resources thin by engaging your audience across mediums, determine those where your buyers conduct the majority of their research as a buying committee. Make sure to adopt an omnichannel approach with these key channels to ensure your audience has a rich brand experience.

Examples

• Launch an omnichannel demand campaign for a sales cycle (6-12+ months), and incentivise key prospects at its end to glean insights via a survey
• A/B test messaging via email nurturing to determine relevant copy and product benefits for audiences at a low cost

Determining when and how most prospects disengage from marketing efforts will allow you to action improvements to retain them. This can be done via UX research, surveys, or by asking sales to report on when most prospects stop engaging with outreach.

A common attrition point in buyer journeys is when a prospect needs to engage with sales to discover the unique benefits of an offering or fill in a lead form. According to 6sense’s 2023 Buyer Experience Report, 78% of buyers have already established their purchase requirements before contacting sales, which means that organisations must allow prospects to discover the brand at their own pace, with the fewest obstacles possible.

Leverage AI solutions to facilitate the creation of personalised content for different buyer personas, such as one-pagers, landing pages, and product pages. This makes messaging more precise and allows salespeople to engage prospects with the most pertinent information for their needs.

Nurturing allows you to engage prospects with educational content until they are ready to buy, which means that your cadences may be irrelevant if prospects are disengaging midway in their buyer’s journey. By tracking the performance of nurturing cadences and leveraging data from surveys and sales, it is possible to improve the efficiency of nurturing to encourage progression to the bottom of the sales funnel.

Examples

• Trial a UX-first product page for a key audience, which can then later evolve to an ABX campaign
• Develop landing pages per buyer persona, utilising heatmaps and sales feedback to determine attrition points and relevant messaging

A partner with a proprietary database and content distribution network can allow you to engage key prospects with timely data on their preferences.

Make sure your tech stack allows marketing, sales, and stakeholders to easily glean insights from demand programs, allowing parties to optimise strategies accordingly.

Establish a lead intelligence methodology at your organisation, where lead data is primed and refined according to its actionability for future campaigns.

Examples

• Launch a content campaign with a first-party data partner to obtain lead intelligence to inform future strategies
• Train your teams in analytics to ensure timely insights are gleaned from martech solutions

Long-term strategies might make progress and results unclear. Ensure that your strategy is benchmarked with short-term goals (monthly or quarterly) to guide it in the right direction.

Self-service, relevant content, and UX are all tactics to build a rich brand experience that is memorable and encourages further engagement. Always strive to design a buyer’s journey that is enjoyable and answers key objections intuitively.

As cookies phase out, it is paramount to access first-party data on buyers to inform your demand strategies with timely insights. Build your own database or contact a trustworthy partner.