
The main goal of every sales and marketing team is demand generation. According to the report of Hubspot, “61% of B2B Marketers find that their biggest challenge is demand and lead generation.” However, there are many ways of doing demand generation. B2B Marketers can use various ways, methods, and practices for carrying out demand generation strategies. But it is always recommended to have relevant demand generation metrics to measure the success of demand generation campaigns. Read the blog till the end to know the demand generation metrics to accelerate your sales in 2022.
Top 8 Demand Generation Metrics that B2B Marketers must Measure
Below we have listed the demand generation metrics that you should consider tracking. Hopefully, we think some of you might be measuring a few of them already. Check out the new demand generation funnel metrics that can help you to build a better data-driven demand generation strategy.
1. Marketing Qualified Leads: MQLs
Let’s start with the basics i.e. Marketing Qualified Leads. One of the most important metrics for the B2B demand generation funnel is Marketing Qualified Leads. It can help you to ensure if you are going to meet your company’s revenue goals.
A Marketing Qualified Lead is someone who has shown interest in your service and is most likely to convert into sales. However, there is no guarantee that they would close a deal with you. But you can increase the chances of conversion by nurturing them in the right manner.
For measuring the MQLs demand generation metric, you first need to identify the key indicators for qualifying leads. There are many factors that can help you to sort out the MQLs such as:
- Website visits
- Time spend on the website
- Sign up for emails and newsletters
- Downloaded content
- Clicked on the pages
2. Sales Qualified Leads: SQLs
Yes, you guessed it right. The next demand generation metric after MQL is Sales Qualified Leads. You know the fact that Marketing Qualified Leads are in the consideration phase but the SQLs are one step ahead in the buying journey. SQLs are the hot leads and take less time to get converted.
However, to identify the SQLs your sales and marketing teams should predetermine the factors. Here are some of the key indicators that you can use to identify the SQLs:
- Frequent visits to the price page
- Interaction with the chatbots
- Subscribed for free demo or trial
- Added items to the cart
Sales Qualified Leads are earlier the Marketing Qualified Leads only. You have to nurture the MQLs to convert them into SQLs and get a higher conversion rate. This can be done in some of the following ways:
- Interact with MQLs instantly.
- Personalize your marketing campaigns depending on the buying journey of the prospects.
- Share the case studies and customer testimonials with SQLs.
- Update your lead scoring system depending on the changing behavior of the customers.
3. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
If you want an entire outlook of your investment in the demand generation strategy. Then, Cost Per Acquisition is an important metric that you should include in your demand generation programs metrics.
You must be spending a lot of money on your digital and social media marketing campaigns. Isn’t it? Obviously, but how will you know that your efforts are going in the right direction? Well, you can do that by simply focusing on the Customer Per Acquisition metric. It will show you how much you are spending and how much you are earning back. This will help you to empower your future marketing campaigns and invest in the right sources.
Cost Per Acquisition Formula
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) =
(Total amount of money spent on marketing campaigns)
—–—————————————————————–
(Total number of conversions)
4. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Customer Lifetime Value is a vital demand generation metric that you should consider. You must be wondering how you can know if your demand generation strategy is working or not? Well, the easiest way to know that is by looking at the average Customer Lifetime Value.
Let me tell you that there’s absolutely no use in generating demand if it is not getting converted. Here, it is essential to understand that creating an educated demand is more important than just creating demand. If you are not seeing an increase in your customer lifetime value and other metrics mentioned above. Then, most probably you are not implying the best demand generation tactics and strategy.
Customer Lifetime Value metric is an important indicator and shows if actually, your customers are sticking around. It helps you to reassess your demand generation strategy.
5. Average Payback Period
Another important metric that shows if your marketing efforts and investment are paying off or not is the payback period. As you know cost per acquisition tells you how much you need to invest in order to get new customers. Similarly, the payback period tells you the time that you need to recover the cost of investment.
In easy terms, we can say that it is the time period in which the customer’s journey is completed in your B2B demand generation funnel. You can calculate the payback period using the following equation:
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) / Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA) = Payback Period
It is a vital metric as it will help you to know when you will generate revenue from your marketing campaigns. Using it you can priorly decide your budget for demand generation campaigns and marketing programs.
6. Customer Activations and Signups
One of the direct demand generation metrics for B2B is customer activations and signups. Looking at the signups and customer activations you can easily make out if your demand generation strategy is successful or not.
It necessarily doesn’t mean paid version sign-up, it can be for the free version as well. You should also see how many people are becoming active users of your products. These metrics let you know how your marketing and sales team are doing in terms of demand and lead generation.
7. Content performance
You must be already using different types of content like blogs, videos, and infographics to influence your target audience. According to a report, “47% of B2B buyers prefer to engage with 3-4 content items before they make a purchase.” Thus, it is very important to have robust content marketing strategies.
A person clicking on a blog or downloading a white paper shows their intent to purchase the product. Different content types get distinct user responses. You should use relevant keywords and a variety of content to get more leads in your sales funnel.
To analyze your content performance and demand generation strategy you must use marketing and SaaS tools. They will give you feedback on the reach and effectiveness of your content posts and then you can refine them accordingly.
Over to You
Gathering the data and measuring the success of your marketing and demand gen campaigns is necessary. Examining and setting the right KPIs for your marketing campaigns helps you to monitor your marketing success. Here, a crucial point to keep in mind is that you should set the right demand generation metrics for your demand generation strategy. Well, you don’t need to focus on all the metrics that we have given above. But you can choose only 2-3 demand generation metrics to provide you the standpoint of your strategy. This will help to keep your marketing process easy to measure and uncomplicated.