What is – “Demand Generation for the Technical Sale”?

by Dale Smith, 15 April 2011

Welcome to – “DemandGen for the Technical Sale”.

This blog explores “demand generation” as a revenue growth strategy for high-technology companies.

Hello, I am Dale Smith, Founder & Managing Director at ICT Sector. We are a marketing management-consulting group specializing in demand generation services to improve leads pipelines and leads-to-sales conversions for high-technology companies.

The launch of this blog coincides with the launch of our new website – (www.ictsector.com) where we provide an overview of our approach to the art and science of – demand generation for the technical sale.

In this, our inaugural blog post, we pose these questions – what is “demand generation for the technical sale”? And, why is it necessary to treat the “technical sale” differently from any other kind of “sale”? What are the benefits of such an approach? And, how are these benefits to be realized?

Fully addressing each of these questions is what this blog is all about. This blog is where we look forward to conversations with entrepreneurs, executives, VCs, fellow marketing & sales professionals, consultants and thought leaders who have interest in the various moving parts of an effective demand generation capability, particularly as applied to technology solutions providers.

As a starting point, we approach “demand generation” as being a cyclical business process that aligns sales & marketing with the aim of producing higher quality leads pipelines and higher lead-to-sales conversion ratios by systematically developing buyer awareness and interest in a target product or service.

In applying this approach to B2B “technical sales” we leverage every tool in the modern marketer’s tool box due in part to the extensive interactions involved in the technical buyer’s solution decision process. This includes – search optimization, social media, content marketing, branding, lead management, automation platforms, process mappings and more.

Its all-inclusiveness makes us wonder whether demand generation might not be marketing’s “Unified Field Theory” due to its ability to consolidate so many marketing disciplines into a single conceptual framework.

However, readers of this blog needn’t worry that parallels between marketing and theoretical physics will be a frequent discussion topic. Going forward, we will do our best to confine mathematical equations to the minimum required for a discussion of marketing return-on-investment (ROI), which will be a frequent discussion topic here.

Although the topical scope may be broad and varied, the discussion common denominator here will consistently be topical “relevance” to the practical and strategic challenges that technology solutions providers face in seeking to achieve their revenue growth objectives.

Our ultimate goal with this blog is that it evolve to become a “best practice” point of reference for ideas, advice and discussion focused on helping technology companies to accelerate revenue growth, heighten agility and sustain competitiveness.

Accomplishing this lofty goal requires your participation. So, let us know what you think and feel free to share the experiences (good and not-so-good) that characterize your involvement with the “technical sale”.

And, please visit our website where we present our Demand Generation Framework (DGF) that we use in our work with clients and that we will discuss at length in future postings.

Again, welcome to – “DemandGen for the Technical Sale”.

Thanks for stopping by…and, let the conversation begin!