Discover the key elements you need for effective demand strategy

It’s no longer about ‘leaky funnels’, marketers must now manage multiple demand lifecycles concurrently, based on segment and buyer role.

Generating and managing demand effectively has never been easy. With the current economic environment creating increasing downward pressure on marketers, it's even harder to get it right.

So, what are the key elements we need to consider when planning our demand lifecycle framework:

Different audience segments need different management. For example:

• Are you targeting an enterprise, mid mid-market, or SME audience?
• What lead quantity are you looking to generate – or is it all about lead quality?
• What are the current conversion ratios throughout the demand lifecycle, and where can we drive improvement?

Demand lifecycles differ when engaging net new prospects or driving expansion through existing customers. During planning, answer the following questions:

• Should we set qualification thresholds based on an individual’s level of interest, a rolled-up account level of interest – or both?
• Can we map newly captured leads to existing accounts to deliver the right experience?

Buyer groups are becoming increasingly complex; it is increasingly important to understand the ‘role’ an individual is playing at any time. Consider the following:

• Have you mapped distinct roles in your buyer groups?
• Do you know the key indicators to identify those roles (the answer is not always as simple as job role / function!)?
• Are you capturing the relevant data points (eg: demographic, behavioural, 3rd party data) to trigger the ‘next best action’ and deliver relevant content?

Whilst life becomes increasingly complex, the optimal approach stays the same:

• work closely with sales colleagues to define business objectives;
• align on target audience, clearly define their challenges that your solutions can resolve; and
• ALWAYS develop requirements that clearly articulate what our demand process needs to deliver.

It's too easy to cut short the planning and speed to execution, but in the increasingly complex world of demand management, that approach is neither efficient nor effective.

Drop us an email — we'd love to see how we could help.