What Is Demand Generation vs Lead Generation?

There are more than 26 million online stores worldwide, and more are being created daily.

Suppose you want to set up an online store. You must employ the right marketing strategies to stand out from the crowd.

Speaking of online marketing, you’re likely to come across two fundamental terms: demand generation and lead generation.

While they are often referred to interchangeably, they are two distinct processes.

In this article, we look into what is demand generation vs lead generation and how automatic data scraping tools can help boost your inbound sales.

What Is Demand Generation?

One of the challenges that businesses face today is creating demand for their products or services.

Demand generation is a process of driving customers’ interest and awareness of your brand.

It covers all your marketing and sales initiatives, from the customer’s journey to customer retention.

Demand generation aims to expand your audience and generate interest in your brand, which results in high-quality leads.

It leverages data to align your marketing and sales teams for successful revenue growth.

Let’s discuss in detail the different activities involved in demand generation:

Brand Awareness

Usually, the first step in demand generation is raising brand awareness.

To generate demand for your products or services, people have to know who you are.

There are several ways to develop brand awareness, which often begins with building your brand identity.

Brand identity is a collection of all the elements that portray the uniqueness of your business, such as your company logo, colors, and design.

Once you’ve determined your brand identity, the next step is to create your buyer persona.

The buyer persona is the representation of your potential customers.

Without properly identifying your target audience, it is tough to decide what marketing strategies will help generate more demand for your product or service.

The last step in raising brand awareness is establishing your authority.

You need to show people that you’re a brand they can trust by being a subject-matter expert in your industry.

You can do this by creating compelling content and driving engagement through social media.

Inbound Marketing

Another demand generation method is inbound marketing.

Unlike outbound marketing, where you reach out to potential customers, the inbound method focuses on providing relevant and valuable content to your prospects.

Such content nurtures them through the stages of the buyer’s journey.

Inbound marketing aims to make people aware of a problem or need and that you have the answer or solution.

Once you lay out all the solutions for your prospect, you want them to decide that your product or service is the best option.

Sales Enablement

Another demand generation strategy is sales enablement, which refers to the tactics that close the gap between marketing and sales.

These include product testimonials, case studies, fact sheets or FAQs, estimates, and discount calculators.

Customer Retention

While acquiring new customers is important, you also want to delight your existing customers so they will continue to patronize your brand.

As such, you want to go above and beyond by under-promising and over-delivering.

Customer retention methods include:

• providing discounts to loyal customers
• strengthening customer experience
• providing helpful product information through a knowledge base
• generating up-sells and renewals
• encouraging feedback

What Is Lead Generation?

After creating a demand for your products or services, it’s time to nurture your potential customers so they end up making a purchase.

That is what lead generation is all about.

A lead is any person who indicates interest in your brand but may not yet be qualified to buy.

The lead generation process consists of several steps:

1. A person learns about your business through one of your marketing channels, such as your social media page or website.
2. The person clicks your call-to-action (CTA) links or buttons.
3. The CTA takes them to a landing page where you capture lead information such as their contact details in exchange for an offer.

Based on this process, lead generation focuses on driving traffic to your landing page.

Now, what channels should you use to promote your landing page?

There are plenty, but some of the most effective include content, emails, ads, blogs, and product trials.

Content

High-quality content is a great way to guide potential customers to your landing page.

It can be in the form of a blog, a video, or an image that provides visitors with useful, free information.

The CTA can be placed anywhere in your content as long as it is visible and catchy.

When you create helpful, engaging, and shareable content, more people are likely to respond to your CTA.

Consider making varied content, such as blog posts, infographics, eBooks, video tutorials, and photos.

You can also employ gated content marketing through webinars or white papers that feature optimized landing pages.

Then, share it across your business channels and platforms where your customers are most active.

Emails

Email is a great place to connect with people who already know your brand.

It’s much easier to ask them to take action since they have already subscribed to your list.

Once a lead has signed up to your email list, it’s time to focus on building a long-term relationship with them.

Send customized emails encouraging them to make a purchase, download a product trial, or try a free sample.

Ads

Another way to get people to take action is through ads.

With ads, you can be clear about your offer and what you want your customers to do.

Blogs

Creating value-driven blog posts is an excellent way to promote an offer.

You can tailor the entire piece to your desired goal.

Product Trials

An enticing way to close a sale is by offering trials of your product or service.

Once your prospect uses your product or service, it’s easier to encourage them to buy.

You must know that some leads are more valuable than others.

Thus, after collecting information from your potential customers, your marketing and sales teams need to evaluate each lead.

Each evaluation determines who will benefit more from your product or service.

What Is Demand Generation vs Lead Generation: Key Differences

The most significant difference between demand generation and lead generation is that the former sits on top of the sales funnel.

Lead generation, on the other hand, is at the bottom.

In essence, demand generation assists in growing your audience, while lead generation allows you to turn prospects into sales.

You use demand generation to make people aware of your brand and get them interested in your product or service.

Meanwhile, you use lead generation to nurture prospects and turn them into paying customers.

That said, both these concepts work hand in hand to drive sales and grow your business.

Here’s a breakdown of how demand generation differs from lead generation:

• Demand generation grows your audience while lead generation converts them into qualified leads.
• Demand generation promotes brand awareness, educates your target audience, and establishes trust. On the other hand, lead generation captures audience contact information, directly nurtures qualified leads, and demonstrates brand value.
• Demand generation sparks interest, while lead generation converts your audience into customers.
• Lead generation marketing strategies are a lot more specific and targeted.

Let’s illustrate what is demand generation vs lead generation and how the two work together. 

For example, you use blogging as your demand generation strategy.

Through a blog post, you attract people with your content and let them know that you exist.

Then, the next time they search, they find another article or video from your business that has helped them with their needs or problems.

Since they want to learn more about what you can offer, they sign up to your mailing list and fill out the information about their contact details.

Alternatively, you can offer a free trial of your product or service wherein prospects provide information like their email address, phone number, and location.

At this point, you are ready to nurture your leads by sharing relevant content or offers that convert them into paying customers.

Following the example above, demand generation is based on marketing campaigns that make people interested in your business.

Meanwhile, lead generation is based on campaigns that capture leads by asking them to fill out landing page forms.

Obviously, your goal is to generate as many leads as possible.

After that, you can use targeted campaigns to nurture your leads.

Automated Scraping Tools for Generating Leads

Generating leads can be a tedious and time-consuming process.

Luckily, some automated data scraping tools can speed up the process and ensure you don’t miss any prospects.

Data extraction tools are designed to help you collect information of all sizes from varying channels.

You can collate data from your website to your social media pages like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram.

Such platforms allow you to schedule and automate actions to increase interaction with your prospects.

With automated data extraction software, you can gather information like email addresses and phone numbers 24/7 and export them into a simple spreadsheet.

Moreover, the platform lets you build automated outreach campaigns.

Bringing Demand Generation and Lead Generation Together

While they are entirely different concepts, both demand generation and lead generation work hand in hand to increase your revenues.

Once you’ve created a solid demand generation strategy, it becomes much easier to capture leads.

However, generating leads takes time and effort.

The good thing is that automated data extraction software makes gathering information easy and effective.

Qualified leads will then move onto the next stage, wherein they connect with your sales team to purchase your product.