Demand Generation vs Lead Generation: A Definitive Guide

To understand the difference between demand gen and lead gen, you need to recall the difference between audience and customer. Audiences are a group of people who know about the existence of your brand and customers are those who pay for your product or service.

Demand generation is focused on increasing the audience for your brand whereas lead gen focuses on increasing the number of customers. Demand generation gets you people’s attention whereas lead generation gets you peoples money.

Demand generation tactics are employed for entering the right audience to the top of your marketing funnel. In contrast, lead generation tactics aim towards moving the audience through the funnel to the bottom, where they feel confident enough to give up their contact information.

Content is an important way to move the leads from top to bottom of the funnel. Typical demand gen content includes blogs, white papers, ebooks, cheatsheets, checklists, etc. Most commonly used content to generate leads is case studies, trials, product demo, free consultations, etc.

Note that the TOFU content is more general, casting a wider net, whereas BOFU content is more customized and focuses on 1:1 interaction.

Integrated Approach to Demand Generation and Lead Generation

Any well thought out marketing plan cannot keep their demand gen and lead gen strategies isolated. The two must integrate to form a single cohesive marketing strategy. It is from the pool of audiences educated by demand generation strategies that lead generation tactics generate leads and eventually acquire paying customers.

Demand generation brings people into the top of the marketing funnel which then progresses selectively to the bottom of the funnel through lead generation strategies.

Do You Find These Marketing Terms Confusing Too?

The confusion between marketing terms does not stop at demand generation and lead generation. There are multiple pairs of related terms that are often confusing for new disciples of marketing strategies. Let us look at them briefly.

Demand Generation vs Digital Marketing

Digital marketing uses the internet and electronic devices such as laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. to implement a marketing campaign. That is why it is also sometimes called online marketing. The aim of digital marketing may be brand promotion, brand awareness, lead generation and sales.

On the other hand, demand generation focuses completely on growing the audience for your product or service and bringing them into your marketing funnel.

Demand Generation vs Demand Creation

Creating demand for your service or product in the market when none exists is called demand creation. Creating demand for your particular product or service in a market full of competitors is called demand generation.

Demand Generation vs Inbound Marketing

Demand generation and inbound marketing are not the same things but different. In fact, the two concepts complement each other beautifully. You already understand that demand generation focuses completely on growing your audience so that they can be nurtured and converted to paying customers.

Inbound marketing strategy focuses on not just attracting prospects (demand gen) but also building trust and credibility. Thus inbound marketing is one of the strategies of the overall demand generation strategy.

Lead Generation vs Prospecting

Lead is a to understand the difference between prospecting lead generation, you first need to understand the difference between elite and a prospect.

A lead is a person who is engaged with your brand and may be a potential customer. A prospect is a highly engaged lead who has been qualified by your sales team as a highly relevant potential customer.

Strategies for generating leads is called lead generation whereas strategies to convert those leads into prospects is called prospecting.

Are You More Confident of Your Marketing Terms Now?

You now understand the nuances of various marketing terms such as demand generation vs lead generation, prospecting vs lead generation, demand generation vs digital marketing and more. They should equip you to create and execute strategies to implement these marketing concepts in your own campaigns.

If you need help generating highly qualified and relevant leads that can be nurtured into prospects and eventually customers quickly, reach out to the ThinkABM team.