In the ever-changing world of entrepreneurship, the core of a budding startup lies in its knack for creating demand. It serves as the foundation for success, the catalyst for growth, and the driving force behind bringing a fresh idea to enthusiastic consumers.
When to incorporate demand generation
Building a scalable demand generation program is a critical component of any go-to-market (GTM) strategy. But before you embark on your journey of creating interest to drive revenue, we suggest tackling two key areas:
- Ensure you have a GTM System in place. The ability to assess and iterate on your GTM motion relies on getting leading indicators in place early. We recommend starting with defining your Leading Indicators of Retention (LIR), Leading Indicators of Unit Economics (LIUE) and drafting a Bottoms Up Model to ground your growth plans in reality.
- Provide your team with a GTM Playbook. The center of every GTM Playbook is the customer. Focusing on the ideal customer profile (ICP), their relevant colleagues that might be included in the process, and the journey they all take is critical to aligning all GTM and product functions.
Resources to generate demand
You can begin the process captivating your target audience by first exploring how you are going to generate interest with your ICP. Identifying which demand channel you should lean into is a great place to start — Get your Demand Generation Channel Guide HERE and leverage this article while using the resource.
Next, you can begin building out your various demand generation strategies. If you choose to go down the content marketing path, we suggest further refining ICP, as well as your specific buying personas, and build a strategy around them — Get your Content Marketing Worksheet HERE.
If paid marketing is of interest, you should identify which platform / tool you're using for your targeted ads based on where your buyers are most active, and build your paid strategy around your specific buying personas — Get your Paid Marketing Worksheet HERE.
Last but not least, if you choose to pursue Product-Led Growth (PLG), you should define your business' north star metrics, growth funnel, the initial growth team, and outline your experimentation and learning cadence — Get your PLG Worksheet HERE and leverage this article while using the resource.
You can view all of Stage 2 Capital's tools and templates to generate demand in our Resource Center. If there's a new resource you'd like us to add, drop your ideas in the comments below!