Demand generation is where an organization uses marketing to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and/or services. Commonly used in business-to-business, business-to-government, or longer business-to-consumer sales cycles, demand generation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of marketing programs coupled with a structured sales process.
The components of demand generation include, among other things: building awareness, positioning relevance, supporting validation and mitigating customer evaluation.
A focused demand generation definition highlights the fact that demand generation varies from brand awareness and lead generation in that it seeks to actively create demand for a product, where no demand existed before. Rather than create awareness of a brand which provides a product for which demand already exists (Brand awareness) or generate leads for a brand which supplies a product for which demand already exists (lead generation). Demand generation is closely associated with ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, as it involves the creation of entirely new demand, rather than competing for a slice of existing demand.
