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B2B Demand Gen Audiences vs. Lead Gen Audiences: A Strategic Guide
Written by Christian Holst
In B2B marketing, generating quality leads and creating demand for your product or service are both essential, yet distinct strategies.
As companies navigate these strategies, it's critical to understand the differences between demand generation (demand gen) audiences and lead generation (lead gen) audiences.
These two approaches require different tactics, mindsets, and measurements of success.
Here’s a closer look at the distinctions and how to tailor your marketing to meet these unique audience needs.
What are Demand Generation Audiences in B2B?
Demand generation (demand gen) is the process of creating awareness and interest in your product or service among a broader audience.
In other words, it means reaching people before they realize they need what you’re offering.
This contributes to building a foundation of trust and authority so your brand is top-of-mind when prospects are ready to buy.
Demand gen audiences are groups of potential customers or stakeholders within target businesses who are most likely to benefit from your products or services.
Key traits of Demand Gen Audiences:
Early-stage awareness: These audiences are just starting their journey. They might not even recognize the problem your product solves.
Broad reach: Demand generation audiences cast a wide net. The focus is on attracting a diverse range of individuals or companies who could eventually benefit from your offering.
Content driven engagement: Demand gen is heavily content-driven. Thought leadership articles, webinars, and case studies serve as tools to inform, educate, and build trust.
Long-Term Relationship Building: Conversion isn’t the immediate goal. Instead, the aim is to create a connection that will pay dividends in the future.
Examples of Demand Generation Tactics:
Promoting thought leadership through blogs or videos.
Hosting educational webinars.
Running paid social ads to raise awareness.
Tools like Dreamdata Audience Hub simplify demand gen by enabling marketers to instantly create broad-reaching, signal-based audiences from their CRM data without needing a technical background. With built-in Audience Sync, marketers can push these audiences directly to platforms like LinkedIn and Google Ads.
How Lead Gen Audiences Differ from Demand Gen Audiences
While demand gen focuses on sparking interest, lead gen zeroes in on capturing that interest and converting it into actionable steps. It’s a strategy for the decisive—those ready to take the next step.
Lead gen audiences are typically further down the sales funnel than demand gen audiences and exhibit clear buying intent.
Key traits of Lead Generation Audiences:
Decision-Ready Buyers: Lead gen audiences are already evaluating options. They’re problem-aware and looking for solutions.
Targeted and Specific: These audiences are narrower and more refined, consisting of individuals who have demonstrated a clear interest in your product or service.
Action-Oriented: The focus is on driving conversions through offers like demos, consultations, or free trials.
Shorter Sales Cycles: These prospects are closer to making a purchasing decision, so the timeline from engagement to sale is typically shorter.
Examples of Lead Gen Tactics:
Offering gated content like whitepapers or case studies in exchange for contact information.
Encouraging sign-ups for free trials.
Using targeted email campaigns with clear CTAs.
Best Practices for Targeting Lead Gen vs. Demand Gen Audiences
Targeting demand gen and lead gen audiences requires a nuanced strategy, as each audience type demands different tactics.
Here’s how to approach each effectively:
1. For Demand Gen Audiences:
Focus on Education, Not Selling: When targeting demand gen audiences, your content should focus on educating and raising awareness. Avoid overly sales-focused messaging. The goal is to offer value first—be it through educational articles, how-to guides, or industry insights.
Use Broad Targeting and Top-of-Funnel Content: Leverage broad targeting on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google Display Network to increase visibility among relevant industries or job titles. Your content should speak to challenges, pain points, and broader industry trends rather than offering direct solutions.
Be Patient and Nurture Relationships: Demand gen is a long-term strategy. Keep nurturing the relationship through consistent follow-ups, retargeting ads, and ongoing engagement with relevant content.
Test Different Channels and Messaging: Since demand gen campaigns are designed to attract a broad audience, it’s essential to test various channels (email, social media, search ads) and messaging to see what resonates best with your audience.
Dreamdata’s Audience Hub: allowing marketers to retarget demand gen audiences seamlessly through its sync functionality, ensuring fresh, updated data is always at hand for campaigns.
2. For Lead Gen Audiences:
Create Actionable Offers: Unlike demand gen, lead gen tactics should be focused on clear and compelling offers that move the audience toward conversion. Provide high-value offers like product demos, free trials, or consultations that are easy to access and promise immediate value.
Segment and Target Precisely: Lead gen requires more precise targeting. Use firmographic data (e.g., company size, revenue, industry) and behavioral signals (e.g., content downloads, email clicks) to hone in on individuals who are most likely to convert.
Use Shorter, Conversion-Oriented Content: Unlike the long-form educational content used in demand gen, lead gen content should be concise, action-oriented, and tailored to specific pain points. Examples include landing pages with clear calls to action, eBooks, case studies, or whitepapers designed to convert.
Lead Scoring and Nurturing: Not all leads are created equal. Use lead scoring systems to rank leads based on their level of interest and engagement. Nurture leads with follow-up emails, retargeting ads, or personalized outreach to keep them engaged until they are ready to convert.
Using Audience Insights for Better Results in Both Strategies
At the heart of both strategies lies data.
Understanding your audience, through their behaviors, preferences, and needs, allows you to tailor your efforts for maximum impact.
1. Gathering Audience Insights
CRM Data: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms like Salesforce can provide valuable insights into who your current customers are, which industries they belong to, and how they interact with your content.
Website Analytics: Tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar can help you understand the behaviors of website visitors—what pages they visit, what content they consume, and where they drop off.
Social Media Analytics: Social media platforms provide valuable data about how your audience engages with your content. Use this information to adjust your targeting strategy and messaging.
2. Applying Insights to Campaigns
For demand gen, insights help you identify which types of content and channels resonate with your audience. They also allow you to uncover broader industry trends, which can inform your thought leadership content and educational offers.
For lead gen, audience insights help you identify high-intent individuals, enabling more precise targeting and better lead scoring. Use behavioral data such as downloads, form submissions, or email engagement to determine which leads are ready for sales outreach.
Dreamdata’s comprehensive tracking infrastructure aggregates these insights, allowing marketers to visualize customer journeys and focus on signals from in-market accounts.
This enables campaigns to be tailored with precision and relevance.
3. Optimizing Campaigns Based on Results
Continuously analyze campaign performance.
Refine messaging, targeting, and offers based on what drives the most engagement and conversions.
Conclusion
Understanding the differences between B2B demand gen audiences and lead gen audiences is critical for designing successful marketing strategies.
By targeting these two audiences strategically with the right content and approaches, you can drive greater engagement, improve conversion rates, and ultimately increase revenue.
Use audience insights to fine-tune your tactics and ensure that both demand and lead gen strategies align with your business goals.