As a marketer, creating demand for your products and services is your top priority. Enter demand generation – the practice of nurturing prospective leads to conversion. The mission for any demand generation team is to tap into new markets, attract potential leads and keep them invested. It’s a complex, data-driven operation – one that requires a strong team of marketing professionals, all focused on various aspects of the demand generation process.
So, where do you start when it comes to building your demand generation team?
Consider the tasks at hand. You need team members who can identify your brand’s target audience, determine their preferences, and assess their behavior. Additionally, demand generation teams must determine how to advertise the products or services effectively, use marketing technology tools to track your brand’s success, and interpret customer data. It’s a lot of work, requiring different team members with different skills and specialties.
Let’s take a look at six common roles in the Demand Generation team:
1. VP of Demand Generation
In this strategic role, the leader of Demand Generation is responsible for driving growth and devising the overall demand generation strategy. As a member of the executive team, this person owns all aspects of demand generation. They must possess strong leadership skills and be able to work cross-functionally to determine how to best engage and educate a company’s target audience, all while driving revenue.
2. Director of Demand Generation
The Director of Demand Generation manages a team of sales and marketing professionals, and guides their efforts in creating demand for an organization’s products and services. They delegate tasks to the different team members and ensure every necessary role on the team is filled. The Director is responsible for managing all inbound and outbound channels and must therefore have an in-depth understanding of the tools and technology their team uses. They must also be able to collaborate effectively with various teams and business units throughout the organization as well as analyze, report and optimize all demand generation programs based on ROI and effectiveness.
3. SEO Specialist
The SEO Specialist’s job is to oversee, coordinate and manage search engine optimization (SEO) for content and campaigns. They assist content creators and copywriters in developing content that contains relevant keywords and phrases that the target persona may use to search for products and services. This role is crucial to the demand generation team, because the SEO Specialist is responsible for how the team’s projects rank across different search engines – helping to elevate the brand’s online presence and drive awareness.
4. Marketing Operations Manager
Given the data-driven nature of marketing today, this role is essential to the success of the demand generation team. Marketing Operations Managers oversee the technology and tools used to execute marketing and demand generation campaigns, assist with the campaign production process, analyze and report on campaign data, and ensure brand compliance. They focus on the strategy, design and execution of the lead management processes, manage marketing automation solutions, and track the performance of marketing outreach.
5. Content Strategist
The Content Strategist is responsible for developing content that represents the brand, along with the strategy for delivering that content at the right time and through the right channels for maximum impact. They typically manage internal or external copywriters, and are strong communicators themselves. They work closely with the Marketing Operations Manager and SEO Specialist as they create content, and provide insight on how to best communicate the benefits of products and services to the target audience. Their goal is to engage consumers with meaningful, impactful content and deliverables that drive interest and website traffic, and, ultimately, generate leads.
6. Copywriter
Copywriters are the voice of the demand generation team. They work closely with the Content Strategist, writing and editing marketing copy for the brand. Some of their deliverables include website copy, marketing emails, social ads and posts, blog posts, case studies and ebooks. They may also work with the Product Marketing team to write and edit product marketing deliverables such as whitepapers, presentations, datasheets and product briefs. Their language needs to be captivating and convincing, to ensure potential customers engage with the content and request to learn more about the brand’s products and services.
Regardless of the size of your demand generation team, if everyone plays their part to keep the ship sailing smoothly, your team will become heroes within your organization, driving greater brand awareness, increased sales and revenue, and a seamless customer experience.
Feeling like your team might be missing one or more of these common roles? Sometimes enlisting the help of an agency can help fill gaps or strengthen your team’s areas of expertise. Learn more about how BDO Digital can help bridge the gaps and level up your demand generation team.
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