Published 23 August 2022

How To Partner With The Right Demand Generation Agency

Demand generation is a critical first step for lead generation, but it requires constant efforts, team collaboration, and an adequate budget to generate demand for your brand in the market. For small businesses with limited resources, outsourcing demand generation services to a reputable agency can save time, improve lead quality, and provide technical support. However, finding the right agency can be challenging, so it's essential to define your marketing goals, research potential agencies, check their references and portfolio, and have a clear understanding of their pricing and services before planning.

Introduction

Demand generation is the first step towards lead generation. So, if you don’t take the first step right, you cannot build a progressive lead generation strategy.

But, demand generation is not a single task. It includes several marketing and sales strategies. In addition, it requires constant efforts, team collaboration, and an adequate budget to generate demand for your brand in the market.

Unfortunately, demand gen is not something you can do on your own, especially for small companies. The reason?

It requires constant resources and a workforce that small businesses don’t have much. As you can see in this Salesforce infographic, companies need to allocate their resources to different marketing elements to receive good results.

Source : Marketing

So, is there no way to generate demand for your business on a limited budget?

Well, there is a solution. First, you can find the right demand generation agency to help you out. Outsourcing demand generation will not only reduce your expenditure. But offer you more result-driven strategies to grow your business.

However, the main point is to find the right demand generation agency, which is not an easy task. Today, where everyone is claiming to be master lead generators. But, in reality, not many agencies understand their clients’ pinpoint and brand before creating a demand generation strategy.

So, it is challenging to find the best demand generation partner, but it is possible.

This guide will walk you through some simple steps to find the right agency to create your brand awareness in the market. So, let’s get rolling.

Why Should You Outsource Demand Generation Services?

Outsourcing services to a demand generation agency might sound a bit challenging. But, when you want to achieve more results with limited funds, outsourcing services can help you greatly. According to Harvard Business Review, companies can save up to 20% to 30% if they outsource some services.

Now, it is not feasible to outsource all your business services. It is important to have a solid in-house team for services like marketing and sales. But, you can outsource demand generation services and improve your business presence within your budget.

Besides saving money, you can gain many benefits by outsourcing demand generation services from reputable agencies, such as:

Save time

Demand and >lead generation outsourcing can save you tremendous time. One of the important assets for small businesses is time.

They don’t have sufficient time to run their business operations while planning and implementing new demand generation strategies.

Now, imagine your sales agent spending all day finding the email addresses of potential buyers. But, only 2% of those emails respond back, and none of them actually purchase your services.

So, it is a complete waste of your sales agent’s day, for which you are paying them their salary.

In that case, when you outsource demand generation services, you don’t have to worry about building email lists, generating email content, or monitoring your email marketing campaign.

All this is a worry of your demand generation agency. You simply have to expect results.

That leaves you with ample time to focus on your core business operations and plan innovative strategies to grow your brand.

Improve lead quality

Are you chasing leads? But none of them are converting into your paying customers.

Then, you are not the problem here; it’s your lead quality. You simply don’t have sufficient time to determine market-qualified leads from the large pool.

You are aimlessly following all the leads, walking through your doors. This is only wasting your sales team’s time.

However, when you partner with the right demand generation agency, you can cut down all the chases of following useless leads.

Your demand generation partner will help you find highly qualified leads. For example, at UnboundB2B, we use a multi-touch lead qualification module to find well-vetted leads.

Now, imagine you achieving your sales target from your existing customer base. This will save you advertising money and help you build a loyal customer base.

And that’s only possible when you spend significant time with your leads to nurture them.

Technical support

Digital demand generation is impossible without the right technical support. Not only do your marketing teams need to come up with innovative ideas to generate demand. But, you also need the IT team’s support to implement those ideas.

For example, if your marketing team suggested adding exit-intent popups on your website to build an email list. In that case, you need an IT team to create that popup.

Besides that, you will need customer relationship management software to manage and store all your lead information. Moreover, you need monitoring and many other marketing tools to know the exact position of each lead in your sales pipeline.

All these tools are premium and expensive. It can increase your marketing budget if you start investing in all demand generation software.

But outsourcing can save you from this. All the leading demand generation agencies already have the right tools to run their operations.

So, you don’t have to invest in technical stuff when you hire an outsourcing partner. You simply have to pay for the services that you have outsourced.

How to Find the Right Demand Generation Agency?

According to a HubSpot report, 61% of marketers consider lead generation and traffic creation as their most challenging job.

Source : lead generation statistics

If you also find demand generation challenging, you can simply find the right demand generation angency and let them take over for you. Professionals have connections and technologies to generate demand for your business in no time.

But, the key here is to find the demand generation agency that can understand your business and come up with the right solution.

So, before searching for a demand gen agency, follow this procedure to connect with the best partner:

Define your marketing goals

Before anything else, you should first define why you are looking for a demand generation agency. What do you want to achieve with demand generation, and what are your end marketing goals?

You should ask yourself these basic questions before searching for the demand gen partner.

Once you know your requirements, you can better find the right partner to help you with them.

Suppose you want to use content marketing to generate demand for your business. In that case, you need a demand generation partner who has connections with different publications, writers, and SEO experts to produce and distribute your content.

Database management

Data is the backbone of your demand generation campaigns. Without data, you cannot understand where your targeted audience hangs out and which demand generation strategies will work best for your business.

Therefore, you should always hire a demand generation agency that has the capacity to manage and process large amounts of data.

Your agency must have resources to preserve, build, nurture, and manage data through advanced database management technology.

For instance, we are frequently growing our install-base data. We use artificial intelligence tools and a manual approach to create a result-driven database. Our vast database is what makes us stand out in the market.

Well documented reports

A good demand generation partner never hesitates to share statistics and results with their clients. In fact, they provide well-documented reports on different strategies that they have used to generate demand for your brand in the market.

This helps to build a transparent relationship between partners. You can better understand your marketing results when you get instant reports from your suppliers.

It will help you better plan your marketing budget and allocate your resources to result-driven strategies.

So, always ask your demand generation agency to share frequent reports. If a company hesitates to provide real-time performance statistics, this should be a warning sign for you.

Documented reports are something that we never hesitate to share with our clients. Whether client requests or not, our team up front shares real-time performance reports and conducts 1:1 sessions with the client to clear their doubts and help them better understand demand generation plans. We always aim to build open communication and transparent relationships with our clients.

Do they have a discovery process for their Demand Generation Agency?

If the demand generation agency doesn’t have a discovery process, don’t hire them.

The discovery process is the process that a company follows to understand its business, requirements, and competitors. When a company is unfamiliar with your business tone and culture, it cannot develop an effective marketing plan.

Thus, ask your demand generation company what process they follow to understand your business. Moreover, also ensure that the company has an audit process.

This way, they can repurpose your existing social media and content to produce more demand in the market. It can reduce your demand generation budget when a company can repurpose your existing resources.

We are famous for our content syndication strategy here. Our team first analyzes all the content that is already present on the client’s website. Afterward, we come up with innovative ideas to repurpose that content to generate more demand.

This will not only save money. But also generate results faster.

Can they scale up the operations?

Suppose you want to introduce a new product to market within a month. In that case, you need intensive resources to build awareness and demand for your products before the launch.

In this, if your demand generation partner doesn’t have the bandwidth to scale up operations, you cannot achieve your desired results.

Therefore, make it clear from the start that the company can handle the extra workload.

Do they have the right skills and tools?

Skills and tools are the two most important things to generate high-quality leads. In addition, it requires high-standard marketing skills and technologies to implement demand generation strategies.

So, you should ensure that you are selecting a company with skillful people and the right tools to implement your marketing solutions.

For this purpose, you can check out reviews and testimonials of their previous customers. This will help you understand whether a company has all the potential that they are claiming or not.

However, don’t trust testimonials mentioned on the company’s website. No one shares negative testimonials on their homepage.

You should check out third-party review sites like Clutch. You can also find honest reviews on social media platforms like LinkedIn.

Besides this, you can also request agencies to share their previous case studies with you. This will help you understand the tools and strategies that they use to generate demand for their other clients.

Communication approach

Communication is essential when you are outsourcing critical services like demand generation.

So, you should ask your selected partner what approach they follow to establish a smooth communication flow between your team and their team.

Also, ask if they offer timely communication, which channel they prefer to communicate with, and how long it takes to connect with them. All this is important to build a proper workflow between your in-house team and outsourcing partner.

Pricing structure

Finally, inquire about the pricing structure that your demand gen partner offers. Most companies offer pricing structures based on your selected services.

That means they charge for services that you purchase. So you should get quotations from different companies and compare their pricing options.

After a full comparison, you should select the demand generation partner that offers the best services at competitive rates. However, don’t fall for too low prices.

Some demand generation campaigns are expensive, like paid ads. If someone offers demand gen services for insanely low rates, there is definitely something fishy. So, you should hire companies with clear and straightforward billing processes.

Conclusion: The Right Demand Generation Agency

As you can see, finding the right demand generation agency is a full process. You should never hire a demand generation partner in a hurry.

Always follow the proper procedure because demand generation is the basic foundation of your entire marketing empire. If your foundation is not solid, you cannot generate high-quality leads to grow your business.

So, use your magnifying glass to find the right demand generation partner after considering all the essential factors.

However, if you want a good demand generation partner quickly, call us today.

We have a transparent work policy. Our team will walk you through the process and technologies we follow to build your market demand.

Besides this, we are just one call away from you. So, consult UnboundB2B today to know whether we are the right demand generation agency for you.