3 Key Elements To An Effective Demand Generation Strategy Kick-Off

November 22, 2014

The time has finally come. You’ve convinced your key stakeholders your company needs a Demand Generation Transformation. It’s time to kick it off.
3 Key Elements To An Effective Demand Generation Strategy Kick Off image marketing and startegy image.jpg
Now the fun part begins, but if you don’t have the right line-up, it could delay or derail all your hard work up to this point. To set your program up for success, there are a few key must-haves to consider in kicking off the process:

  1. Who’s at the table? Do you really have all the right stakeholders in the room? To ensure you have a buyer-driven strategy, make sure those who have the most insights about your customers and prospects are there. Sales should be at the top of that list. Are there others who have key insights about your customer? Product management, customer experience? Invite them and listen to what they have to say. They may not know marketing like you do, but they do know your customers. Buyer insights are key to this process’ success.
  1. Keep the ultimate goal in mind. Don’t let inside-out views like organizational structure, pet projects and technology limitations determine the path you take. You virtually invited the customer into the room in #1 above, so don’t negate your good intentions by taking the path of least resistance now. Practical considerations will come into implementation, but keep the focus on the outcome, not the how-to’s at this point.
  1. Agree on what success looks like. Success doesn’t mean everything works perfectly right out of the gate. If you’re not surprised by some result, you probably aren’t pushing hard enough. You need a set of KPIs that everyone agrees is meaningful, both top-line results and metrics to help you steer the program. This doesn’t mean you can measure clicks and call it a day. It means you need to provide a measurement approach that provides predictable revenue as well as a way to know which parts of the process need tweaking. Build in waypoints that allow you to do that tweaking. You need to set the expectation for early and ongoing optimization. There is no “set it and forget it” in Demand Generation Strategy. Acknowledging this and accepting accountability for results builds your credibility as a business leader.

Keeping these key elements in mind will help you kick-off and guide your Demand Generation Strategy success. If through the process, things go astray, assess if one of these elements has gone off-track and outline the steps to realign.


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