The 6 most common mistakes startups make in building demand generation
Read this article to learn some mistakes that should be avoided by early stage startups that want to build a solid demand gen strategy.
Demand generation is a broad term that refers to a variety of tactics, strategies, and programs to generate demand, but in a nutshell it means making sure you tell the right people the right thing at the right time, and that your product or service meets their needs.
Not investing time into detailed persona research
One area where some young companies fail is getting a detailed understanding of the buyer persona. It is essential to understand or at least build several hypotheses around who your target audience is.
A persona profile is crucial for effective demand generation in SaaS. The sooner you develop it, the better. Your demand gen strategy can be significantly improved by providing the right content at the right stage of the customer journey to the right persona.
Building persona profiles together with your sales team can be one of the most beneficial exercises in the early growth stages, as sales are your best guide to understanding how customers solve their biggest pain points, and how they look demographically.
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Not aligning efforts between marketing and sales
While some startups tend to run sales and marketing independently, the strongest ones foster cross functional collaboration between these functions from day one.
Among just a few benefits of getting your marketing and sales aligned is improved pipeline conversion rates, better understanding of customer pain points that reflects into improved sales collateral and content strategy.
Sales and marketing need to work together closely to build a strong demand generation program.
Not using automation and processes
Effective demand gen is all about the right tech stack and lead processes. Creating, capturing and nurturing demand requires a lot of effort from the whole team, so make sure they are supported by the right autonation tools and lead processes are in place.
Developing healthy, reliable demand requires a comprehensive lead nurturing strategy from the point of first contact through to the point of decision and purchase.
Of course marketing automation comes at cost, but there are tools for every stage of company growth - from inexpensive CRMs for small companies to complex solutions for enterprises.
By implementing the necessary tech stack early on, you will make sure that demand gen effort will not be wasted, leads will be captured and processed according to your sales process.
Not having the right process for content distribution
One of the most common pieces of advice that early stage founders get is “start building a content engine for your startup”.
Obviously, building a strong content engine requires time, investment and team effort, so how can you increase the ROI from your content creation activities?
Build a content distribution plan as early as possible. To build authority for your company, you need to be seen by the target market, and so your content has to be in the right place at the right time - to increase the demand gen effectiveness.
Content promotion involves targeting decision-makers, promotion with paid ads, and leveraging distribution platforms to reach a wider audience.
Not measuring results (KPIs) regularly
Measuring results is essential if you want to make sure your effort is going in the right direction. Even young companies can do it using a variety of data.
Here are some following metrics to get you started:
Close rate indicates how many sales have been made versus the number of leads generated.
Cost per acquisition will help figure out the cost effectiveness of your demand generation strategy.
Cost per lead is an essential metric that shows how much your business is spending to acquire a lead.
Conversion rate will help track the important conversion points in the buyer’s journey. You can measure it for your landing pages, forms, and calls to action in lead forms.
By analyzing these metrics, you will be able to tell whether you are targeting the right personas and which businesses you are addressing are a good match for your product. You can also identify any gaps in your process by closely monitoring these KPIs.
Not building a brand from the beginning
Developing a brand requires time and a decent budget that is not available in young companies, but your demand gen activities can help start the process.
Why is brand so important? Winning customer attention in today's competitive world of SaaS is not possible without brand awareness. Build your demand gen strategy with a focus on activities that will position your company as an industry expert.
Industry expertise means that your brand is seen as an authority in its field from the very first interaction with a potential customer.
This can be leveraged via a solid content marketing strategy that offers timely, helpful insights at each step of the purchase journey, participating or creating own events, thoughtfully crafting your SEO strategy, leveraging SMM to spread the word about your product, building personal brand for the founders.
This kind of expertise helps build customer trust, and lays the groundwork for important conversations about customer pain points and the solutions your business can offer.