demandgen

Demand generation (demand gen) is a strategic marketing approach aimed at creating awareness, interest, and demand for a company's products or services, with the goal of sustaining a predictable pipeline over time. It emphasizes broad market education and ongoing engagement rather than one-off lead captures, seeking to influence buyers through multiple touchpoints across the buyer’s journey.

Core objectives include building market awareness, educating potential buyers about problems and solutions, shortening sales cycles, and generating qualified pipeline. Demand gen programs typically integrate content, messaging, events, and digital channels to reach target accounts and buyer personas. Key components often include account-based marketing, content strategy, inbound and outbound tactics, webinars and events, paid media, SEO, email nurture, and social media, all coordinated through marketing automation and CRM systems.

Demand generation is related to but distinct from lead generation. Lead generation focuses on capturing contact information and initiating direct sales conversations, while demand generation aims to create demand signals and a healthy funnel that both marketing and sales can pursue. The former is frequently a result of the latter, not its sole objective.

Measurement centers on pipeline metrics and revenue impact. Common metrics include pipeline generated, opportunities created, win rate, marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), sales-qualified leads (SQLs), cost per pipeline, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and return on investment. Effective demand gen relies on alignment between marketing and sales, data-driven attribution, and ongoing optimization of content, channels, and messaging.