7 Must Do Demand Gen Tactics

7 Must-Do Demand Generation Tactics
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Share this book: 2012 CallidusCloud. All Rights Reserved
Do Must
Demand Generation
Tactics
2012 CallidusCloud. All Rights Reserved
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Websites and Landing Pages
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Webinars
Email
Event Management

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Introduction

Demand generation requires a healthy mix of varied demand
generation tactics covering the ofine and online world. Here
we list seven indispensable demand generation tactics you
must try.
Websites and Landing Pages

A website is a fundamental starting point for all businesses.
Think of it like this: In the pre-Internet era, the predominant
way for consumers to fnd businesses was through the yellow
pages section of the local phone directory. Without a listing,
businesses would be highly dependent on expensive print
advertising or word-of-mouth recommendations. As a practical
matter, not listing your business in the yellow pages in those
times was unimaginable.

And so it goes nowadays for websites. Its the modern
equivalent of advertising in the phone directorys yellow
pages.

When you create a website, you need to enhance it in
particular ways to drive more trafc to your Internet
destination. You do that through search engine optimization
(SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) and social media
marketing (SMM), to name a few of the available techniques.
We explore them more thoroughly in subsequent sections.

Website landing pages are a special type of page that serves a
unique purpose in demand generation. Its an extension of a
link or an advertisement that displays verbiage optimized for
search engines and social media. Landing pages typically use
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lead forms that are designed to collect visitor details as part
of a CTA. There are two landing page favors:

Reference landing pages: This favor promotes
visitor interaction and can generate a lead. It
provides useful information about products and
services. A CTA will prompt them to leave
information about their companies and needs that
will help a site owner determine if the visitor is a
potential lead.

Transaction landing pages: This favor is more
direct. It has a strong CTA that prompts the
visitor to purchase something immediately or very
soon thereafter. A software upgrade ofer is a
typical example.

Here are some guidelines for building efective landing pages:

Use images frequently, especially for the CTA ofer
(e.g. the cover of a whitepaper) and for whatever
you are selling. If youre ofering a webinar, use the
presenters picture.
Use good design sense, and make the page
consistent with the rest of your web site.
Keep text short and succinct. Get right to the point
and dont waste words.
Optimize for search engines (keywords, etc.).
Display your privacy policy prominently.
Minimize the amount of data you need to collect on
forms.
If appropriate, use CTA buttons to bring visitors to
forms.

Finally, remember to send a thank you note following the
completion of a CTA. A little courtesy goes a long way.
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Youll want to understand more about the usage of your web
site. Although there is a multitude of free and paid analytics
tools available, your frst stop should be at the Google
Analytics home page (http://www.google.com/analytics);
or check out LeadFormixs online resources (http://www.
leadformix.com/pdf/efective-BPA.pdf ).

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Potential customers increasingly fnd vendors before
vendors fnd customers. The invention of Internet search has
dramatically altered the relationship between companies
and prospects. The reliance on search engines has spawned a
relatively new science: search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is, very simply, the process of improving the visibility
of web pages in a search engine by gaming the system to
display those pages higher in a list of search results than would
normally be expected using an engines default algorithm. This
assumes of course that people, on average, have a propensity
to explore or otherwise use links that are higher on a search
result list, all other things being equal.

The practice of SEO requires some knowledge about how
any given search engine works. However, a common set of
practices has emerged for all popular engines, along with a
dedicated industry of consultants who specialize in delivering
optimization services and measuring results.

The usual opportunities for optimization involve:

Better keyword usage
Page design alterations, including HTML
manipulation
Links from other locations (so-called backlinks)

This is by no means an exhaustive list; and SEO science is
always evolving. You should purchase this expertise from the
outside if you dont already have it in your company.

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To learn more, your frst stop should be this page:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.
py?hl=en&answer=35291

Best practices include:

Targeting the right keywords. Target groups of
keywords because one will be insufcient. Choose
long tail keywords.
Assigning proper meta tags. The title (<title> tag
is the most important place for one or more
keywords. If you can use keywords in the URL,
separate them with a hyphen (e.g., lead-generation.
html). Keeping URLs relatively short may also
make your brand stand out for long tail search
terms. The description is what users will see in
search results, so make sure to include primary and
secondary keywords in that tag. But exercise
caution stufng too many keywords into the
description will cause the search engine to ignore
the page entirely. Headings (<h1> and <h2> tags)
are also important search engines use them to
index the page properly.

Developing appropriate content. Think about how
you search for things on the Internet. If you are like the
average user, you scan a page quickly and probably read
only 25% of the content. You look for headings,
bullets, hyperlinks, keywords and other visual clues
to speed up the process of determining whether
or not this page is useful; and if it is, you want to
ferret out the needed information quickly. Textual
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content needs to be simple, clear and as brief as
possible. Less is more. In an era of instant
gratifcation, long narratives and excessive detail
will drive web trafc to your competitors.

Building links. You enhance a sites ranking by
building links to your pages from other Websites.
These are also known as backlinks. Typical ways of
doing this include:
Directory submissions
Blog and forum postings
Social bookmarking
Classifed advertisements
Article marketing
Link exchange with relevant sites
Link baits

Practices to avoid:

Flash without HTML. Web crawlers dont see Flash
content, so make sure you also provide an HTML
version.

JavaScript menus. Web crawlers dont see
JavaScript, so they cannot use such menus to
navigate the site. Build a sitemap to ensure a
crawler will get to all parts of your site.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is also known as pay per click
(PPC). Its the predominant form of paid Internet advertising.
There are three fundamental types:

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Fixed price: Advertisers pay web site owners a fxed
price each time a user clicks on advertisements on
those sites. Advertisements are links to the
advertisers pages.

Bids: Search engines require advertisers to bid on
keywords or phrases relevant to the advertisers
target audience. When searches using those
keywords return results, the advertisements appear.
Each advertisement is a link to an advertisers page.

Afliates: This model enables revenue sharing
between a web site that hosts advertisements
and the advertiser. If a click-through results in a
sale, the afliate receives a percentage of the
revenue.

Advertisements on a web page can take many forms. There are
too many to review in this document.

The three largest PPC services are Google Adwords, Yahoo!
Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter (Bing). All use bid-
based systems.

Social Media Marketing

Social media represents a set of relatively new channels to
reach people and enable conversations, unlike more traditional
forms of marketing. It feels more intimate than other types of
marketing communications because the messaging is
informal, shared, bidirectional and audience members choose
explicitly to afliate with a person or an entity.

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The big opportunity is viral marketing, which means that
enthusiastic prospects or customers tell other people about
your brand, product or service. The credibility of positive
recommendations from sources outside a company is
extremely high and difcult to replicate in other channels.

Creating a compelling stream of content is the key to success
with social media.

While the most-visited social media sites as of July, 2012 were
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, studies have shown that the
most efective social platform for B2B demand generation is
LinkedIn.

Source: The State of Social Media Marketing, Awareness Inc., January
2012

These are the key steps required to be successful with social
media.

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1. Map the target audience to optimal platforms. After
performing a classic marketing segmentation exercise,
determine which social media sites are used most often by
that target segment. Become familiar with how users at
those destinations interact with those platforms, and pay
particular attention to ofers and promotions from other
companies that appear successful. Dont forget to learn from
examples that dont seem to work. Try to understand,
overall, why participating companies seem successful.

2. Create platform-specifc strategies. Defne the objectives
for each platform and how you will measure your progress
for each objective. Each platform is diferent; therefore
generalized objectives will not be useful. Find the key
infuencers on each platform with tools such as Technorati,
Twitter Search or Google Blog Search. Build campaigns to
reach out to these people. Measure progress and results
objectively. Be prepared to shift resources to platforms which
yield better results over time.

3. Create compelling content. Compelling content is the
lifeblood of demand generation, and no more so than in
social media. It can take a variety of forms, including
articles, blogs, whitepapers, videos, webinars, slide shares,
newsletters and tutorials. Focus on providing information
thats useful for your target segment and refrain from
unabashed product advertising. Ensure that what you
provide is relevant and timely. Dont waste time on long
narratives that stray from the central message(s) you want
to communicate. You may need to alter your content to
match expectations of a particular platform. Be cautious
about mindlessly re-purposing identical content for all
venues.

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4. (Optional) Do sentiment analysis before you begin. You
may want to know more about prevailing sentiments before
you begin using social media. This means learning more
about what people are thinking and feeling by using tools
or services. Its impossible to make a general
recommendation about whether or not this step is
necessary, or to what extent to do such an analysis. If you
perceive that the use of social media for marketing has
substantial risk, this may be a prudent step.

5. Think dialog and engagement. The social in social media
means ongoing conversations that build trust and
relationships. If you commit to using this channel, do it well,
or not at all. If you want to begin on a small scale, focus on a
single platform while simultaneously ensuring the proper
allocation of resources and time to sustain the inevitable
conversations. Other hints:

Use schedules and a regular cadence to set
expectations and build a sense of predictability with
your audience.
When possible, be proactive with your communications
rather than reactive.
Use contests, games, quizzes and giveaways; but use
them judiciously. Consider the impact on your
brand as perceived by your target audience.
Respond to comments and questions frequently.

6. Monitor and measure. Social media campaigns require the
ongoing collection of subjective and objective data to
understand whats working, what isnt, and if the results
justify the investment of resources. The major platforms
provide tools that make monitoring more efcient. Use
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them. You should compile regular reports about activity,
sentiment, attitudes and so forth for your team, and
possibly for higher levels of management. They may be
subjective and imprecise, but they are essential. Metrics are
the objective side of monitoring. Some standard measures
include:

Blogs: Number of posts, responses, inbound links,
conversion rates.
LinkedIn: Number of followers, number of people
who follow the followers, number of afliated
groups, how often the company page shows in
search results, conversion rates.
Facebook: Number of likes, fans, member profles,
shared links, clicked links, conversion rates.
Twitter: Number of tweets, followers, inbound links,
conversion rates.
Video sites (e.g., YouTube): Number of views, times
viewed, subscribers, inbound links, search page
ranks, connections, interactions, referrals, group
members.

7. Make it personal. Always remember that social media is
much more than distributing one-to-many communications.
Its also a series of one-to-one interactions that enable
sustained relationships and promote trust. The people who
represent your company on these forums need to be aware
of rules and guidelines for appropriate tone, topics, ways of
responding to criticism, and so forth. Your brand is at stake,
and an inadvertent slip could turn into a big problem. You
may not want to leave these decisions to a social media
guru fresh out of college. To ensure better objectivity, create
a separate team (distinct from those who actually use social
media on your companys behalf ) to monitor and report on
interactions and attitudes on these platforms.

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Webinars

A webinar (web seminar) is a presentation or a discussion (or
both) using web conferencing technologies over the Internet.
The visual portion of the webinar (e.g., a PowerPoint
presentation) is always transmitted and received this way, but
the audio portion may use conventional phone lines or a VoIP
capability that is typically part of every web conferencing tool.

Companies that provide web conferencing services have
assembled an impressive list of features on their platforms:

Support for slide shows, including pointers and
drawing tools;
Support for streaming video;
Support for displaying any kind of content or PC
desktops;
Ability to transfer control of the meeting to or from
any participant;
Shared whiteboards;
Text messages between participants;
Voting and survey capabilities; and
Ability to record and replay the entire conference at
a later time.

Access to web conferencing tools is typically provided as a
service from third parties. Some larger companies may host
their own facilities for security or other reasons.

The considerations for a good webinar are essentially the same
as for an in-person seminar. The big diference is the degree of
control the organizer has over audience participation. That
power should be used judiciously because webinar
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participants may tune out or otherwise become bored if the
communication only goes in one direction for an extended
period of time.

On the other hand, if hundreds or thousands of people attend
a webinar, its difcult if not impossible to manage
interactions. One-way communication makes more sense with
very large audiences.

One challenge with webinars is the need for a certain
minimum network bandwidth between the host and any
participant, as well as a personal computer that functions well.
Over the years this has been mitigated somewhat by the
increasing availability of broadband connectivity, but
difculties remain when crossing international borders or
connecting with less-developed parts of the world.

That challenge notwithstanding, webinars are one of the most
important selling tools available to a company. Although they
do not replace face-to-face selling, they have become virtually
indispensable for linking businesses to potential and current
customers.

Email

Email is a cornerstone tactic in an online world. Its not without
problems, but there is no other communication medium
available today that is as common and accessible. We use it to
engage prospects initially and to sustain relationships. Its
often a communication vehicle that supports other online and
ofine marketing tactics. For example:

Webinar announcements
Tradeshow registrations
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Buy it now CTA (e.g., a disk drive on sale for the
next three days)

Thousands of excellent articles have been published about
email design and best practices. We will not duplicate that
content here. But there are a few critical things you must
always keep in mind.

Know the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. You have
legal obligations pertaining to the use of misleading
information, full transparency about the sender
and consumer choice pertaining to receiving future
communications. Ignoring any provisions of the law
can have severe consequences for your business.

Segment your audience. Understand your target
segments and their needs thoroughly. Customize
your content accordingly.

Keep your contact list clean. Too many bounced
messages waste your time and may label you as a
spammer by some ISPs.

Be succinct. Get to the point quickly and write
clearly. Most recipients have relatively little
patience with marketing messages because its
likely that they receive dozens or hundreds of them
each day. You have a relatively short opportunity to
capture and hold a readers attention.

Sell only when appropriate. Being genuinely
helpful to a prospect can work much better than a
hard sell, depending on the phase of the sales cycle.

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Test on a small scale frst. Experiment before
making big commitments.

Event Management

In spite of the dramatic increase in availability and use of web
conferencing tools and virtual meeting tools (including virtual
tradeshows), in-person events and conferences are far from
dead. In fact, just the opposite is true: Online services (for
example, email and social media) have melded nicely with the
ofine world and enabled some unexpected trends. Event
attendance, as well as event variety, is at an all-time high
notwithstanding a difcult economy during the last several
years.

Take, for example, IT industry conferences such as Oracle
OpenWorld and Dreamforce. For the most part, attendance
has been growing substantially each year. Some recent
attendance statistics for Openworld:

2009: 43,000
2010: 41,000
2011: 45,000
2012: 50,000 (expected)

Dreamforce has a similar trend:

2009: 19,000
2010: 30,000
2011: 45,000
2012: 72,000

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In a blended online/ofine world, keep these ideas in mind:

Human contact is still important. Not every
potential customer wants or needs face-to-face
contact, but the ROI for in-person events is generally
very positive. Its in our nature to trust people and
organizations more when we speak to them in
person.
An event is only one element in a relationship value
chain. Your goal is (or should be) to create and
sustain a long term relationship between your
company and a prospect. An event is a great way to
launch or reinforce that relationship, but never lose
sight of the work thats needed before and after the
event.

Virtual events are a relatively new marketing tactic that has
similar characteristics to events in the physical world. The big
diference is that the destination is somewhere on the Internet
and there are no lines at the bathrooms. Some try to replicate
the entire convention experience with platforms such as
Linden Labs Second Life, but most are less sophisticated and
take a pragmatic approach to engaging attendees.

Though the cost savings are compelling, it remains to be seen
if this way of convening is a long term trend.

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USA

6200 Stoneridge Mall Road
Suite 500
Pleasanton, CA 94588
Phone: +1 (925) 251-2283
UK

Callidus Software Ltd
Building 3, Chiswick Park
566 Chiswick High Road
London W4 5YA
Phone: + 44 (0)208 899 6444
INDIA
Diamond District, Tower AB
Lower Level -1
Old Airport Road, Kodihalli,
Bangalore-560008
Phone: +91-080-41636861
Email Contacts:
Sales Queries: sales@leadformix.com
Media: media.relations@leadformix.com
Support: support@leadformix.com
Careers: careers@leadformix.com www. l eadformi x. com

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