How to Use Search to Generate Demand for Your Product
Tanvi Mehta
Aug 9, 2023
Search is one of the most powerful and popular ways to reach your potential customers online. According to Statista, as of April 2023, there were 5.18 billion internet users worldwide, which amounted to 64.6 percent of the global population. Of this total, 4.8 billion, or 59.9 percent of the world's population, were social media users. The latest data shows that Google processes over 99,000 searches every single second (Internet Live Stats, 2022). This makes more than 8.5 billion searches a day (Internet Live Stats, 2022). That's a lot of people looking for information, solutions, and products.
But search isn't just for capturing demand. It can also be a great way to generate demand for your product, especially if your product is new, innovative, or niche. In this article, we will show you how to use search to create awareness, interest, and desire for your product among your target audience.
What is Demand Generation?
Demand generation is the process of creating and increasing the demand for your product or service. It involves attracting, engaging, and educating your prospects about the value and benefits of your product, and moving them along the buyer's journey until they are ready to buy.
Demand generation is different from lead generation, which is the process of capturing and qualifying the contact information of your prospects. Lead generation is a subset of demand generation, but not the only goal. The ultimate goal of demand generation is to create loyal and satisfied customers who will buy from you repeatedly and refer you to others.
Why Use Search for Demand Generation?
Search is a powerful tool for demand generation because it allows you to reach your prospects at different stages of their awareness and decision-making process. You can use search to:
- Educate your prospects about their problems and needs, and introduce them to your product as a possible solution.
- Engage your prospects with relevant and valuable content that showcases your product's features and benefits, and differentiates it from the competition.
- Persuade your prospects to take action, such as signing up for a free trial, requesting a demo, or making a purchase.
Search also allows you to target your prospects based on their search intent, which is the goal or purpose behind their search query. You can use different types of content and keywords to match their search intent, such as:
- Informational intent: The prospect is looking for information or answers to their questions. You can use content such as blog posts, ebooks, videos, podcasts, webinars, etc. You can use keywords such as "how to", "what is", "why", "guide", "tips", etc.
- Navigational intent: The prospect is looking for a specific website or page. You can use content such as landing pages, home pages, product pages, etc. You can use keywords such as your brand name, product name, domain name, etc.
- Transactional intent: The prospect is looking to buy something or take action. You can use content such as sales pages, checkout pages, thank you pages, etc. You can use keywords such as "buy", "order", "sign up", "download", etc.
How to Use Search for Demand Generation: A Step-by-Step Guide
Now that you know what demand generation is and why you should use search for it, let's see how you can use search for demand generation in practice. Here are the steps that you should follow:
- Step 1: Define your goals and objectives: You need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your search demand generation campaign. You need to set SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, your goal could be to acquire 25, 000 users in 6 months. Your objectives could be to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and convert prospects into customers.
- Step 2: Understand your target audience: You need to know who your ideal customers are, what they are looking for, and how they behave online. You need to create buyer personas that represent your ideal customers, such as their demographics, psychographics, pain points, needs, and goals. You also need to use tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot to collect data and insights about your existing or potential customers.
- Step 3: Conduct keyword research: You need to find out what keywords your target audience is using to search for information, solutions, and products related to your niche. You need to use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to research keywords, analyze competitors, and find keyword opportunities. You also need to categorize your keywords based on their search intent, such as informational, navigational, or transactional.
- Step 4: Create a content strategy: You need to plan and execute your content creation and distribution process. You need to use tools like CoSchedule or Airtable to create a content calendar that outlines your content topics, formats, channels, deadlines, etc. You also need to use tools like Jasper or Copy.ai to generate high-quality content that attracts, educates, and persuades your audience.
- Step 5: Optimize your content for search engines: You need to make sure that your content is visible and relevant to your target audience and search engines. You need to use SEO techniques to optimize your content for search engines and increase your organic traffic. You need to use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to optimize your content for keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, headings, images, links, etc. You also need to use tools like Anyword or Wordtune to optimize your content for different platforms, audiences, and goals.
- Step 6: Promote your content across different channels and platforms: You need to spread the word about your content and drive more traffic and engagement to your website or landing page. You need to use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to schedule and post your content on your social media accounts. You also need to use tools like Mailchimp or ConvertKit to send email newsletters to your subscribers. You can also use tools like Google Ads or Facebook Ads to run paid campaigns to reach a wider and more targeted audience.
- Step 7: Engage and interact with your audience on your website and social media platforms: You need to build a relationship and trust with your audience and encourage them to take action. You need to use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to monitor and respond to comments, messages, mentions, and reviews. You also need to use tools like ChatGPT or HuggingChat to create chatbots that provide customer service, support, or feedback. You should also encourage your audience to share their opinions, questions, and suggestions with you and the community.
- Step 8: Measure and evaluate your campaign performance and impact: You need to track and analyze your campaign results and impact. You need to use tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot to measure your campaign KPIs, such as traffic, leads, conversions, revenue, etc. You also need to use feedback and data to improve your campaign quality and strategy.
How Stacks Can Help You with Your Search Demand Generation Campaign
If you are looking for a product that can help you with your search demand generation campaign, you should check out Stacks. Stacks is a search engine for your personal and shared knowledge. It allows you to save, search, organize, and share anything you find on the web with your team, friends, and family. Stacks is more than just a bookmark manager, it's your second brain that helps you remember everything you find online.
Stacks can help you with your search demand generation campaign in several ways, such as:
Saving time and effort: You can use Stacks to save and share bookmarks with one click, see smart recommendations while searching in Google, easily search for saved bookmarks, create a personal and shared repository of knowledge, and collaborate with team members and partners on shared spaces.
Generating high-quality content: Stacks can help you generate high-quality content by providing you with valuable and relevant information that you can use for your blog posts, ebooks, videos, podcasts, webinars, etc. You can use Stacks to find the most popular and relevant content in your niche, such as articles, images, videos, podcasts, etc. You can also use Stacks to generate summaries, insights, or visualizations from bookmarks by using natural language generation (NLG), text summarization, or data visualization.
Optimizing your content for search engines: Stacks can help you optimize your content for search engines by improving the search and retrieval of bookmarks by using natural language processing (NLP), semantic analysis, or image recognition. You can use Stacks to enhance the title tags, meta descriptions, headings, images, links, etc. of your bookmarks. You can also use Stacks to create personalized and contextual recommendations for bookmarks by using machine learning (ML), collaborative filtering, or content-based filtering.
Promoting your content across different channels and platforms: Stacks can help you promote your content across different channels and platforms by integrating with other tools and services that can complement or enhance Stacks. You can use Stacks to partner with search engines such as Google or Bing that can display your bookmarks as search results or recommendations. You can also use Stacks to partner with content platforms such as Medium or Quora that can allow users to save or share their bookmarks on their platforms. You can also use Stacks to partner with productivity tools such as Evernote or Trello that can allow users to sync or import their bookmarks with their tools.
Engaging and interacting with your audience on your website and social media platforms: Stacks can help you engage and interact with your audience on your website and social media platforms by adding a social feature that allows users to follow, like, comment, or share their bookmarks with other users or communities. You can use Stacks to build a loyal and engaged community of users who share your passion and interest in online information and knowledge. You can use Stacks to create and join groups, topics, or collections that match your niche or industry. You can also use Stacks to invite your friends, family, or colleagues to join your network and discover new bookmarks that you or others have saved. Stacks can help you create a social and collaborative experience for your audience on your website and social media platforms.