For this purpose, the so-called AIDA model comes to our aid , a real “funnel before the funnel” that identifies the four cognitive phases that a user goes through during this phase:
1) Awareness , “ What do they do? ” – The public is coming into contact with your company for the first time.
2) Interest , “ I'm interested ” – The public shows interest in the benefits you offer or in the proposed content, gains trust and intends to do more in-depth research.
3) Desire , “ I want it ” – The audience demonstrates an emotional connection with your brand and expresses (without yet realizing) the need to own your product or service.
4) Action , “ Let’s try ” – Not to be confused with the actual purchase, the last step can be any type of conversion, from entering data into a form to signing up for the newsletter. It qualifies the user as a lead and starts the marketing funnel itself.
Demand generation vs Lead generation
Demand generation and lead generation are two strategies that france phone number library come into contac t with each other in digital marketing and inbound marketing practices, which is why both terms are often used interchangeably.
However, demand generation and lead generation are two separate and complementary practices , which intervene in different phases of the sales cycle. As HubSpot effectively condenses in a dedicated post, “ demand generation helps you grow, while lead generation helps you convert .”
Specifically, the goal of demand generation is to attract and generate interest in your target audience, while lead generation focuses on converting interested users into prospects, leads, and then customers.
If we consider the structure of the sales funnel , as already mentioned, demand generation is placed in the upper part ( TOFU ), with the last phase of the AIDA model, i.e. the action, which determines the beginning of the actual lead generation process.
A final, but fundamental difference is represented by the sharing method . In fact, content intended for lead generation requires the insertion of personal data to access confidential information or materials, while content intended for demand generation is freely accessible .
To give a concrete example, this article and the blog on which it is hosted are demand generation tools, while the Lead Generation Playbook , within which you can delve deeper into the features of Lead Champion for your B2B digital marketing thanks to exclusive insights , is a lead generation tool.
