3 Creative Demand Gen Strategies To Cut Through The Noise

  Ross Palley

We invited three B2B tech startups in the Venture Lane community to participate in our Demand Generation Lab. Founders worked directly with a Mentor Committee of seasoned marketers in Boston tech to optimize demand gen motions for lead quantity & quality.

On the Mentor Committee, we welcomed Jen Reddy (CMO @ ConnectRN), Eric Keating (VP of Marketing @ Appcues), and Lauren Kersanske (Marketing Director @ Crayon). Check out their key takeaways below!

Take a community based approach…

• Tap into existing communities of end users. There's likely a few tools that most end users in your TAM use to do their job - e.g. HubSpot for marketers or Salesforce for sales folks. Tap into the communities that have formed around those tools, add something to the conversation, and then sprinkle in some information about your product.
  
  

• Build a new community around your product. Throw all of your current customers and/or prospects into a Slack channel or similar communication platform. Once this community gets going, you can launch a referral program through it - folks who know & trust your brand are much more likely to refer others. 

• Target folks who have a tough job to do. Professionals in uniquely challenging roles are more likely to seek out and engage with a community of peers - e.g. sales ops leaders trying to bridge the divide between BDRs and CROs. If any end users in your TAM fit that profile, they're likely great candidates for community based demand gen.

Put your account based marketing hat on for executive buyers…

• Executives value thought leadership & peer networking. If you're putting together any type of virtual or in-person event to attract executive buyers, those events should give a glimpse into "what's next" in their industry and provide opportunities to exchange with other executives.

• Go big for in-person events. You can't reach a more influential decision maker than someone in the C-suite, so the opportunity to engage is worth more budget spend. For in-person events, plan something like a retreat or formal dinner - i.e. something that busy executives would make time for in their jam-packed schedules.

• Don't underestimate the power of gifting. We're not talking about beer cuzzis & stress balls. Be thoughtful, personalize if you can, and give a gift that will improve an executive's 5pm-9am rather than their 9am-5pm.  

Out-maneuver the competition…

• Chip away at large incumbents. Don't challenge big competitors on their core value prop and messaging in your top-of-funnel marketing materials. Pick a more niche topic on the periphery that you know you can win in a content match.

• Highlight competitive replacements. Behemoth providers in your space are too big and spread thin to give every customer an amazing experience. If you win a disgruntled customer from a direct competitor, turn that anecdote into a case study and share it out.

• Broadcast a head-to-head competition. If your product is 10x better than the competition, show it off. Have an end user complete the same task in both your product and your competitor's product, and publish a side-by-side recording of the session.
  
  Want to take part in one of our upcoming Labs and get 1:1 time with Boston's best operators in B2B tech? Apply to join our live beta of Venture Lane | Connex, our newest virtual offering!