This article was updated 13th November 2024.
Read time: 8 minutes
Demand generation is a complex process for marketers. It covers multiple channels, involves multiple touchpoints, and relies on multiple datasets.
Yet while it's undoubtedly challenging, there's no denying its importance as a crucial part of a B2B marketing strategy.
In fact, 70% of marketers say their demand generation budgets are set to increase, and B2B marketing leaders are spending 20% of their entire marketing activity budget on demand generation.
If your demand generation strategy is giving you a headache, this article will dive into some of the most common challenges B2B marketers face, and tips on how to solve them.
1. Your leads aren’t turning into customers
The simple fact is that in demand generation, not every prospect will convert. However, if you're finding that sure things are slipping through your fingers, you might have a bigger problem.
There could be a few reasons for this:
You’re not following up with your leads at the right time
Timing in sales is about striking a balance. Leave it too late and your leads will move on, but move in too soon and you'll scare them off before they’re ready to speak to you.
80% of sales deals require five follow-up calls to close. This doesn’t mean you have to barrage a prospect into converting - instead, space out your outreach and diversify your communications. Beyond phone calls, try sending a personable email or LinkedIn message.
Varying your approach will help maintain interest and build a rapport without overwhelming your prospects, ultimately guiding them toward a successful conversion.
You’re not nurturing your leads effectively
In B2B marketing, the buyer’s journey isn't an overnight process - typically, a potential customer needs to move through several stages before they decide whether they actually want to work with you or not.
If you don’t provide tailored and relevant resources at each and every stage of this journey, you’re missing an opportunity to nurture your leads.
You also need to make sure you're targeting them with relevant messaging and communications that address their specific concerns.
Not all prospects will move through the sales funnel at the same speed, so make sure you're taking the time to nurture potential customers effectively.
They're not properly qualified
If you haven't specified the exact criteria for what makes a lead ‘qualified’, you'll find that most of the prospects you're generating won't be high quality.
This is dangerous, as it can lead to wasted time and resources for both you and your sales team. You could both end up pursuing prospects who are unlikely to convert, diverting your attention from those who are more likely to bring value to your business.
To mitigate these risks, establish clear, agreed-upon criteria for lead qualification with your sales team. This will help ensure that your demand generation efforts are targeted and effective.
Recommended reading: MQL to SQL: Easy lead qualification in just 4 steps
2. Your sales and marketing teams aren't in alignment
If your marketing and sales teams aren't singing from the same hymn sheet, the effectiveness of your demand and lead generation efforts will be significantly limited.
There are a few causes for this common dilemma:
Your goals aren't aligned
It might seem logical that, as a marketer, you'd have different specific objectives than your sales team. However, if they're not aligned towards common, overarching goals, you'll effectively cancel each other out.
For instance, if your sales team has a different idea of what makes a lead ‘qualified’, all your work generating prospects could be wasted as they won't think they're worth pursuing.
Before going any further with your demand generation strategy, sit down with your sales team and agree on exactly what it is you're trying to achieve. By having common goals you're both working towards, neither team will risk wasting resources.
You're not communicating effectively
If you want to get the most from your demand generation efforts, you and your sales team need to be in regular contact.
Breaking down the silos between your sales and marketing team is one of the keys to demand generation success. It can help you gain valuable insights, gather useful feedback, and make real-time changes that can improve your conversion rates.
To encourage better communication, try running face-to-face meetings between teams and hosting regular check-ins and workshops.
You're not measuring the same metrics
Without agreement on what success looks like and the key metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) both teams need to be monitoring, understanding the effectiveness of your demand generation strategy will be difficult.
Working with your sales team to identify and define the most important metrics you need to measure means everyone will be working towards the same goals.
This is a simple yet powerful way to keep both teams aligned, and means that your demand generation efforts are not only cohesive but also consistently driving results.
3. You’re targeting the wrong customers
Another common demand generation pitfall is targeting the wrong customers.
If you're not focusing on high-value prospects or customers that align with your ideal target audience, you'll waste valuable resources and fail to generate a worthwhile return.
To avoid this, you need to figure out exactly who your customers are. Conduct research so you can learn to think like them and understand their needs and desires. Then you can craft a solid, detailed ideal customer profile (ICP).
An ICP is a persona you create with specific business characteristics in mind. It should include the following:
- The person's role
- Skills required to do their job
- Typical responsibilities
- Who they report to
- Their company size, industry and location
- Their company’s annual revenue
Recommended reading: How to build an ideal customer profile for better lead generation results [+ free template]
Once you've got this information, ask yourself what their pain points are. Are they having issues with productivity? Are they spending too much on their current services? And crucially, how can you help them meet their goals?
Understanding all of this context is necessary for content marketing, lead nurturing, and ultimately, lead conversion.
4. You're getting poor results from content campaigns
Content is going to play an integral role in the success of your demand generation efforts.
But creating content to generate demand isn't as simple as writing a few blog articles, posting them on your social media accounts and sharing them via email marketing.
Firstly, it’s important to define what exactly you expect from your content campaigns. For instance, do you want to increase traffic to your website? Or are you looking to raise awareness about a certain topic and your brand's view on it?
Knowing what you're actually trying to achieve with your campaigns will help you identify when you’re failing.
Recommended reading: 8 content mistakes that are scaring away leads
It's also essential to consider the customer journey and the needs of your audience at each stage of the sales funnel. By understanding this, your content has a much better chance of making an impression on your audience and boosting awareness of your brand.
For example, if your focus is building awareness of your brand among your target audience, you'll want to focus on educational content like blog posts and infographics.
On the other hand, prospects that are already aware of your brand and the problems they're facing will want deeper and more valuable content, such as whitepapers and ebooks.
5. You're struggling to personalise interactions at scale
Today's customers don't just expect personalised experiences - they demand them. 76% of customers get frustrated when companies don't deliver personalised engagement and interactions, and the same percentage claim they're more likely to purchase from brands that use this tactic.
This is especially important in demand generation. With so many brands vying for your audience's attention, personal and relevant communications can help your business stick out from the crowd.
But implementing personalisation is far from straightforward. Managing and collating data from multiple sources can be a complex process, and personalising interactions across different audience segments adds another layer of complexity. Each audience segment may have unique preferences and behaviours, requiring tailored messaging and content strategies.
Additionally, ensuring data accuracy and consistency across platforms is crucial to maintaining the integrity of personalised campaigns.
With access to the right automation, data and analytics tools, you can more reliably and accurately implement personalised communications into your strategy. This will not only ensure your interactions are personal but also resonate more deeply with your audience, fostering stronger connections and engagement and helping you deliver the right message at the right time.
6. You're having data and compliance headaches
Customers may well expect personalisation, but delivering these sorts of experiences is getting tougher as laws around the management and use of data become more stringent.
Regulations such as GDPR and CCPA have imposed strict guidelines on how marketers collect, store, and utilise customer data, adding layers of compliance that all brands must navigate carefully.
These laws are designed to protect consumer privacy, which is crucial, but they also present challenges in accessing the data you'll need for effective personalisation.
To overcome this, you need to find ways to strike a balance between compliance and the delivery of personalised experiences.
By adopting privacy-first strategies and leveraging consent-based data collection, you can continue to meet customer expectations while respecting their privacy.
It'll also enhance your brand's trustworthiness in the eyes of your target audience, making them more inclined to share their personal information with you.
Solve your demand generation challenges with intent data
Effective demand generation means having good timing, accurate data, in-depth knowledge of your audience and the ability to target prospects with a personalised and relevant content strategy.
To do this well, you need strong data insights. But gaining these insights isn’t always easy. Nor is every dataset reliable. If you’re struggling to get accurate information to support your demand generation strategy, it might be time to consider first-party purchase intent data.
