Nebraska News Desk

Cowen Partners Explains How to Build a Successful Demand Generation Team

August 03
18:41 2021

Demand generation marketing strategies are tactics used to generate interest and demand for a company’s products or services. Cowen Partners, one of the nation’s best marketing executive search firms, has put together this helpful guide on building demand generation teams.

What Is Demand Generation?

Demand generation can include a variety of communication channels from blog posts and social media messaging to targeted promotions and list creation. When all is said and done, demand gen is typically involved in every aspect of a business’s sales funnel. Every marketing strategy should include some sort of demand generation process for attracting people to the brand and pushing them through the sales funnel. 

Demand generation is the focus of targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and/or services.

Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation

A lot of companies actually mistake demand gen for lead generation. These two terms, while related, are not the same thing. Lead generation refers to a specific subset of demand gen. Demand gen attracts people to business and piques interest in the overall brand, product, or service. Lead gen then comes in and turns the interested parties into more concrete sales leads by collecting contact information.

Marketing Leadership

Every company needs some form of lead generation if they want to continue growing and to see success. Without lead generation, targeted marketing efforts are much more difficult. Once the lead generation is complete, demand gen takes back over to continue pushing people down the sales cycle with more targeted content and value.

The problem with demand gen is that it takes a lot more work and manpower to accomplish than businesses realize. This is not a process that can be managed by a single employee. To properly run a demand gen strategy, a company needs a full team or department working on the process.

In marketing, lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into the products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as list building, e-newsletter list acquisition, or sales leads.

What a Demand Generation Department Does:

One main role of the demand gen team or department is to bridge the gap between marketing and sales. The overall demand gen campaign process includes multiple components that require a lot of work. A few aspects of demand gen are listed below:

Strategy

The demand gen team is constantly reviewing customer insights to ensure the sales funnel is working appropriately. By monitoring what works and what doesn’t, the team can tweak the marketing strategy as necessary to continue generating growth and sales.

Analytics

The sales funnel encompasses many key metrics, all of which should be tracked by a company. Detailing customer experiences, engagements, and decisions can lead to more efficient and accurate campaigns in the future.

Content

The demand generation team knows not only what to say to potential customers but also how to say it. Value and customer-relevant information are conveyed through a variety of content delivery systems. Each message must be carefully constructed and targeted to convey the most important information to customers.

Delivery

In today’s tech-heavy world, companies have several delivery systems they can use for reaching customers. Email, social media, blog content, and advertisements are all content delivery options available to a company. A demand gen team knows which delivery system is best for a company’s content and goals.

Revenue generation is one of the most important activities any business can engage in. It is defined as a process by which a company plans how to market and sell its products or services, to generate income.

How to Build a Demand Gen Team

There are two positions in the C-suite that facilitate the overall success of the demand generation team. These two positions are chief growth officer (CGO) and chief revenue officer (CRO). A CGO monitors all aspects of the business that help drive growth and the CRO is responsible for ensuring the company is leveraging all marketing opportunities to generate the most sales. Together, these two leadership roles help shape and drive the overall marketing strategy involved in demand generation.

Under these two important positions will usually be the VP sales and the VP marketing. The vice presidents of these two departments are responsible for overseeing the demand generation process, from strategy to revenue goals. These two positions help create the overall demand gen campaign funnel and monitor the progress to ensure metrics are being hit.

B2B Sales & Marketing

Finally, marketing managers and sales development representatives are responsible for executing the overall demand gen strategy and nurturing potential customers throughout the sales cycle.

These positions are just a few of the main roles needed for a successful demand generation team. Since demand generation touches on sales and marketing, a company needs people who can confidently handle every part of customer development. In addition to managing customer development and business growth, a company also needs leaders in these positions who can work well together throughout the sales cycle. Demand gen teams can struggle when sales representatives and marketing managers fail to communicate important data insights and value propositions.

A demand generation team is a must for the future success of a business. Determine which essential demand gen positions are missing from a company and fill those roles as soon as possible to improve growth.

Demand Generation Team: Roles & Average Salary

The demand generation recruiters at Cowen Partners have put together this helpful role and salary overview for demand gen teams. Salaries are averages and can vary by industry, region, and other factors.

Role Average Salary
VP Sales & Marketing $200,000
VP of Demand Generation $175,000
Director of Demand Generation $125,000
Demand Generation Marketing Manager $85,000
Demand Generation Specialist $55,000

 

Media Contact
Company Name: Cowen Partners Executive Search
Contact Person: Shawn Cole, President
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: https://cowenpartners.com/

Categories