In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Gaetano DiNardi, Director of Demand Generation for VoIP phone service provider Nextiva. Gaetano discusses the shift from old-school lead generation into the kind of role he plays as a growth marketer and why this change is vital for brands. You’ll learn:

* Traditional lead generation isn’t as useful as it once was. In its place, growth marketing helps you cultivate a trusted brand to bring prospects to you.

* Because of modern buyer behavior, owning your brand in search is the most important marketing investment you can make.

* Despite its trending popularity, account-based marketing isn’t right for every brand or product.

 

 

The meaning of “demand generation” is shifting.

Old-school lead generation — capturing top-of-funnel contacts and taking a spray-and-pray approach to cold outreach — is out. Well, it still exists, but it’s not the best use of your time. It’s inefficient and ineffective.

“Nowadays, it’s much more than just pure lead gen,” says Gaetano DiNardi, Director of Demand Generation at Arizona-based cloud communications company Nextiva.

Generating demand for your product or service now is about cultivating your brand and nurturing prospects. In a big way, it’s about simply being ready when buyers come to you.

Gaetano joined the AMP Up Your Digital Marketing podcast to discuss this modern approach to demand generation and how you can focus your marketing efforts for the best results.

How Growth Marketing Differs From Lead Generation

Gaetano has become skeptical of the term “lead generation,” because it elicits an image of scraping together a pipeline of unqualified leads to bother with your sales pitch.

Now, he says, “There is a familiarity and voice that comes with successful lead gen, and I think brand and customer experience are two huge differentiating factors. And I don’t think you can be successful at lead gen in the future without brands.”

Using “growth marketing” in place of “lead generation” speaks to that holistic, brand-centered approach to marketing and sales.

Unlike a lead gen role of a few years ago, which focused on grabbing as many top-of-funnel contacts as possible, Gaetano says a growth marketer has “all areas of the funnel covered.”

Source: Callbox

Where the lead gen of old might have been about capturing leads with a single display ad or piece of content, growth marketing is multi-touch. To reach prospects throughout the funnel, it involves strategies including content, social engagement, events and co-branding campaigns with trusted brands.

These initiatives help you stay top of mind with buyers organically.

Gaetano explains why this works better with the buying process than pure lead generation:

“Eventually there will be a pain, and I’ll ignore it probably for some time until it becomes so much of a pain that I can no longer ignore it. And then the day has come, and I finally need something…I’m going to think of those brands that have done a good job of remaining top of mind, sharing helpful and educational content.”

Through that ongoing engagement, he says, these brands will “have planted that seed of familiarity in my brain of who they are, what they do. They’re a trusted, credible, reliable source.”

Why You Should Embrace Inbound Marketing

People don’t shop the way they used to — for anything,