The Acelera Group newsletter is back after a year's hiatus. As always, the goal of this newsletter is to spur thought and discussion on the issue of marketing and sales effectiveness.

We're starting this new round of newsletters by exploring what may be one of the three activities most important in growing a healthy company - demand generation. And at the end of this letter we're going to offer something to help you with your demand generation activities.

Demand generation is the fuel for company growth.

Done well, companies enjoy healthy sales pipelines and strong revenue growth. Done poorly, marketing and sales engage in the blame game rather than focusing on growing the business:

These leads stink!
Sales

You couldn't close a paper bag, let alone a qualified lead!
Marketing

We've found that a lead choreographer is critical to success in demand generation. This choreographer ensures that the activities undertaken by marketing and sales are both complementary and integrated - a true ballet in the office. He or she works with the marketing organization as it conducts the typical net-throwing and name gathering activities designed to put new names in the sales funnel - sponsoring trade shows, collecting leads, renting lists, placing advertisements, conducting webinars and seminars, etc.

The choreographer also ensures that the information gathered by individual sales people while cold-calling, networking and mapping out their accounts is captured and the names put into the marketing engine.

The choreographer works with the marketing organization to document the profile of the "ideal" prospect, to ensure that the leads are reliably delivered from marketing to sales, to insist that the sales people document what they learned about their accounts and that sales passes the additional names back to marketing. The choreographer puts the process in place and monitors it over time to ensure that all leads are properly cultivated and engaged, and that marketing and sales are dancing in harmony.

Pull all this together and you've got a healthy pipeline and growing revenue stream.

So what's it take to succeed in demand generation?

First, as mentioned before, a skilled choreographer can coordinate the activities of the marketing and sales organizations so that they are working together. Second, the choreographer can ensure that the appropriate marketing assets and sales force automation tools are available. And importantly, the choreographer can set the appropriate expectations on the part of senior management.

Effective demand generation takes time. New leads must be nurtured before they're ready to be handed off to the sales organization, no matter what the board says or whether the sales team is willing to take "raw" leads. Who's going to tell the CEO that it takes six, twelve or eighteen months to cultivate a lead for your complex product or service offering? Not the sales VP, he's got a quota to meet this month. And while marketing people have not been accountable for revenue in the past, now is not a good time for them to keep leads from a hungry sales organization.

Who owns demand generation in your business?

Does that person have the cooperation and support of the marketing organization? The sales organization?

If you'd like to know where your demand generation processes are strong and what could be improved, please contact us for a complimentary analysis of your demand generation processes.