5 Marketing Tips To Generate Demand For your product

At its core, demand generation has three steps: 

1. Create demand for a product
2. Generate leads that are very qualified
3.  Pass them off to sales to become customers.

But how companies navigate this process takes many shapes depending on target audiences and products being offered.

Keep reading for 5 creative tactics of demand generation marketing tactics from startups.

1. Give something away
2. Schedule a webinar
3. Build a tool
4. Create a referral bonus
5. Borrow similar audience

1. Give something away

Never underestimate how much people love free stuff—even if it has your company’s logo on it.

Branded products can create demand when they’re used strategically. These low-cost, functional items are worth their weight in gold if you can get them on the right people.

New Relic and IFTTT are two companies that successfully leaned on corporate swag to generate product demand in their early days.

2. Schedule a webinar

Webinars are another fantastic example of demand generation at work. Often used to generate product demand, these videos are normally gated, requiring an email address to reserve a spot or access the content afterwards.

Webinars can be how-tos on products or Q&As on issues facing your target audience. Either format works as long as people learn something new and you can easily repurpose the content for other campaigns and platforms.

Another pro tip? Partner with a happy customer to do a deep dive into how they use your product or co-host with a relevant company so you can tap into their marketing list, too.

3. Build a tool

Demand generation obviously begins by creating demand for a product, meaning your audience might not even know that they have the problem that your product solves.

Free tools make it easy to start relationships with these audiences so you can begin nurturing them towards a sale. These tools work best when they solve a common pain point that’s related in some way to your product.

4. Create a referral bonus

Who are the most qualified people to refer new customers? Your current customers, of course.

Referral marketing is a great way to nurture leads who successfully made it through the demand generation funnel. In exchange for a small kickback, your current customers become a source of strong inbound leads who start with a higher level of trust for your product or service.

5. Borrow similar audiences

Borrowing similar audiences is an easy but underutilized example of demand generation. Brands spend a lot of time, money, and resources building audiences. Why not borrow a few minutes of their time while introducing them to your product?

Guest blogging lets companies tap into other brands’ audiences while still providing value. The key is picking a non-competing brand with an overlapping target audience, then pitching a topic that hits on their product, your product, and solves an issue facing your shared audience.