Demand generation—from strategy creation to marketing program management—is a primary responsibility of product marketing. So how can you improve the demand-generation process to help sell even more products? The same way you would go about improving any process: apply Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA):
- Plan: Develop a plan with specific objectives
- Do: Execute the plan while measuring performance metrics against the plan
- Study: Analyze deviations, identifying causes or barriers to performance
- Act: Implement and standardize on the process improvements
When you apply PDSA to demand generation, focus on measuring metrics that reflect the quality, quantity, effectiveness, ROI and timeliness of marketing deliverables. In particular, keep your eye on product revenues (or orders). This is, after all, the intended end result of demand-generation activities. And the more you tie or correlate actual product sales to your marketing programs, the more you are able to define your required demand-generation budget, create and articulate strategies and gain management support of your strategies.
