In the great big world of marketing, you’ll often hear people speak interchangeably about growth marketing and demand generation. Some folks say they’re basically the same thing just with different names. Others argue that they’re totally different strategies with unique approaches.
But here’s the thing—no matter which side you’re on, the most important takeaway is discovering how you can combine both into a holistic marketing strategy that works for you and the business. After all, if you’re going to invest your time and energy into building your career down a specific path… might as well understand what you’re getting yourself into, right?
So buckle in, because today, we’re going to break down both forms of marketing—what they really mean, how they compare, and tangible strategies you can use.
What is growth marketing and demand generation?
Before we get into the weeds, let’s start with the basics and define growth marketing and demand generation.
Growth marketing
Growth marketing is focused on leveraging data to identify growth opportunities across the funnel from acquisition to retention. Growth marketers are usually trying to define and increase things like product activation, and retention while driving monetization through experimentation.
Demand generation
Demand generation on the other hand is focused on, you guessed it: creating demand. It’s a comprehensive role that leverages top-of-funnel marketing activities (content marketing, events, webinars) to generate qualified leads and attract new customers.
“In summary, demand gen is top-funnel focused and growth marketing is full-funnel. There can be overlap, but the roles prioritize different marketing goals and responsibilities.”
- Parthi Loganathan, CEO of Letterdrop
How do growth marketing and demand generation differ?
In practice, growth marketing and demand generation share similar goals and techniques. They’re both concerned with customer acquisition, conversion rates, and defining ideal customer profiles. But there are subtle differences that make each unique, which can help you decide what’s relevant for your marketing strategy.
Goals and metrics
The ultimate goal of growth marketing is to grow the business, by identifying new expansion opportunities and ensuring that existing customers are realizing value quickly.
“Growth Marketing was first introduced to me when I was the only marketer working on a team of engineers that worked specifically with a freemium product and customer base. The metrics for our team weren't tied to traditional marketing KPIs nor were they tied to traditional product focused KPIs. We were trying to define activation, increase activation, increase retention, and eventually drive monetization through experimentation.”
- Sara Pion, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Samsara
Growth marketers tend to measure:
- North Star metric: A metric that looks at the unique value your business offers to your customers (ie. Facebook’s north star metric was “number of friends added within 7 days”)
- ARR/MRR: Annual and monthly recurring revenue based on the number of customers, contracts or subscriptions
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC): How much money it takes to bring in a new customer?
- Activation rate: How long does it take for a new user to gain value when using your product?
- Retention rate: What is the percentage of customers that continue to do business with your brand in a timeframe?
- Churn rate: How many customers have you lost in a specified period?
Just like its name, demand generation is all about creating demand. The core goal is to create authority and awareness for your brand. It’s not only about attracting leads—but more importantly, attracting high-quality leads, and informing them of how your product is the solution they’ve been searching for all along.
Some core KPIs you might measure as a demand generation marketer are:
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs): Number of leads that are likely to make a purchase
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): Number of leads that your sales team deems as ready to make a purchase
- Cost per lead (CPL): Your total marketing spend divided by the number of leads generated
- Cost per acquisition (CPA): The number of leads divided by the number of new customers acquired
- Close rate per channel: Percentage of viewers, readers, visitors, or users who complete a certain action in each of your marketing channels
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The amount you can expect a customer to spend on your business during their lifetime (average customer value x average customer lifespan)
It’s a lot of acronyms. 😅
Funnel focus
Marketers love funnels. And no, not the literal cone-shaped tube or the delicious cakes you grab at a fair. The marketing “funnel” refers to the journey a stranger takes on their path to becoming a customer. The funnel stages of the customer acquisition pipeline are:
- Awareness: From stranger to website visitor
- Acquisition: Becomes a marketing qualified lead (MQL)
- Activation: Becomes a sales-qualified lead (SQL)
- Revenue: Becomes a customer
- Retention: Becomes a repeat customer
- Referral: New customers referred by existing customers
To compare, growth marketing focuses on long-term, sustainable business growth by evaluating the entire marketing funnel. Demand generation is specifically focused on top-of-funnel activities: meaning generating new customers and new leads.
While it’s not a clear-cut line, a growth marketer might look at optimizing everything from acquisition to retention, through SEO strategies, onboarding optimization, and referral programs. A demand generation marketer would instead be invested in fueling the earlier stages of awareness to activation through tactics like social media, email marketing, and lead generation.
“I view Growth Marketing and Demand Generation as 2 functions that work parallel to each other within a holistic marketing team. Where Growth Marketers take the ethos of experimentation, and use it on channels that are "newer" to the world of marketing: SEO, CRO, Digital. All of these channels also historically focus just on acquisition, which is where I see Growth Marketers spending the most time - acquiring net new users for the business.
Then it's up to Demand Generation marketers to take the existing database and create offers and programs that move those leads down the funnel. Email nurtures, webinars, downloadables, "white papers", etc. Demand Generation also usually owns the sales handoff process versus Growth.”
- Sara Pion, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Samsara
Software and tools
Just as you wouldn’t use a butter knife to cut an apple, marketers must choose the right tools for their specific needs. After all, a good tech stack is the foundation of all your marketing efforts. While there’s no one-size-fits-all toolkit, here’s a helpful list to explore.
For demand generation, the right tools should build awareness of your product or service and easily help you identify potential customers that become sales opportunities. Common demand generation tools fit into five core categories:
Content marketing tools: From creation to distribution using the right tools can improve your brand authority and attract your target audience’s attention:
- CMS (content management systems): Webflow and Wordpress
- SEO: Ahrefs and Semrush
- Social media management platforms: Hootsuite and Buffer
- Email marketing: Hubspot and Mailchimp
Analytics and tracking tools: Carve a better picture of your customers so you can focus on more successful leads:
- Website analytics: Google Analytics and Hotjar
- Data enrichment tools: Clearbit
Lead generation tools: Attract and engage potential leads:
- Landing page builders: Unbounce and Leadpages
CRM systems: Store customer data and records of interactions:
- CRM softwares: Hubspot and Salesforce
Growth marketers share a similar tool stack but with additional product analytics and notification tools that can help identify new experiments and expansion opportunities:
Analytics and tracking tools:
- Product data tracking: Segment
- Product analytics: Mixpanel and Amplitude
- Revenue analytics: Profitwell, Stripe, and Chargebee
Content marketing tools:
- User onboarding software: Userflow and Userpilot
- Product notification tools: One signal and Beamer
Real-life examples of growth marketing strategies
There’s no better way to learn than by example. Here are four tried and true growth marketing strategies with examples of companies they’ve done them successfully.
1. Programmatic SEO
Anytime I have questions about anything, my mind goes straight to: Let me just Google it. Search is one of the most powerful ways for companies to match their product or service as the solution to the specific search intent of a user. But imagine spinning up landing pages for every single high-search volume keyword. Sounds like a lot of work…
Luckily with programmatic SEO you can actually templatize these landing pages and produce them at scale.
Zapier’s programmatic SEO strategy: 9 Million+ in traffic
Zapier is a tool that connects one application to another (ie. sending information between Slack and Google Drive). When they were just starting out—they faced the challenge of getting awareness, especially as a middleware tool.
With their programmatic SEO strategy, they created automatic keyword-targeted pages that included templates and instructions for users. Over time they created over 60,000 landing pages for each application and integration they offered.
The result?
They drove over 9 million in site traffic while attracting high-intent users already looking for a solution like Zapier. Genius move if you ask me.
2. Community building
When you grow your business for the user as a human rather than a number—something special happens. This is why companies are adopting community-led growth as a core strategy. Building a community around your business is all about nurturing an enthusiastic cohort of customers and using them as your growth vectors. If done right, an active community takes your existing momentum and propels you further forward.
Gymshark’s influencer community strategy
In the eCommerce world, Gymshark has nailed its community-led approach. It fosters its community through its brand ambassador program, which features sports and fitness influencers who align with its brand values.
Through sponsored events and affiliate discount links, they encourage their brand ambassadors to promote Gymshark clothing to their audiences, helping to grow brand trust and awareness exponentially.
3. Rewards Program
From airlines offering frequent flyer deals to almost every retail store asking if you want a points card at checkout—rewards programs are everywhere. If done right, it’s a great strategy to increase customer engagement and purchases in exchange for discounts and other benefits. They can accelerate the loyalty life cycle of your customers and even encourage them to try out new products.
Sephora Beauty’s Insider Loyalty Story
Sephora’s loyalty program is one to take notes on. It launched in 2007 and now has over 31 million members in the U.S alone. Their program is simple yet effective. They offer three tiers, each of which gives varying rewards and discounts depending on how much you spend. Regardless of your tier, they also gift birthday freebies to all of their members.
“We know that the thing that’s most important to our clients is value and convenience. With the loyalty program—depending on how much you spend, you get a little bit of additional benefit provided to you.”
— Emeline Berlind, Senior VP of Loyalty at Sephora
4. A/B testing
As a growth marketer, data is at the heart of making informed decisions. To have a strong understanding of which versions of your experiment maximize impact—A/B testing is an effective isolation process.
Uber’s data-informed decision-making
If you’ve used the Uber app, chances are you’ve already been a guinea pig in one of their A/B tests. Their sophisticated approach to testing is core to how they continue to improve their customer experience and pressure test new experiments.
Believe it or not, a whopping 1,000 experiments are running on the Uber platform at any given time. Using these tests, they’ve made decisions on everything from:
- Product features: Evaluating how the feature will impact the user experience
- Email: What kinds of messages are understood by drivers and riders
- Incentive spend: What kinds of discounts generate more supply
Real-life examples of demand generation strategies
It’s time to get inspired for your next demand generation campaign. Here are four proven demand generation strategies with examples from companies.
1. Content marketing—case study
Often companies think they face unique problems—that no one else could understand them. But most of the time, you should be able to point a prospect to a similar problem. That’s why writing customer case studies is a great tool for closing a deal. They prove your business solution with data and evidence that it worked for someone else. Who wouldn’t be sold?
Figma’s customer stories
Nestled in the corner of their website, Figma has a full roster of customer stories that show how “companies like yours are redesigning how they design”. From teams like Spotify, NBC Universal, and Decathlon—each case study highlights how a core Figma feature helped the team realize value. This is a strong way to capture prospects who are browsing your site, or even use it as assets in the sales process.
2. Account-based marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy that concentrates your resources on a set list of target accounts.
For example, let’s say that Company ABC visited your website’s pricing page: Using ABM you would design a personalized ad campaign that includes messaging on the specific attributes and needs of this account.
Especially for companies that are trying to sell into large enterprise accounts with long sales cycles and long deal sizes, ABM works because of its personalized approach.
PartnerStack’s video message ABM campaign
PartnerStack is a partnership platform built for B2B SaaS that supports affiliate, referral, and reseller channel partners to drive recurring revenue. Their demand generation and sales teams decided to collaborate on a hyper-personalized ABM video campaign.
Each salesperson recorded personalized video messages for their top 10 target accounts, with one rep even serenading their target account with a song!
The marketing team then took these videos and ran LinkedIn video ads to prospects at these accounts.
The results:
- A 33% response rate
- 12 meetings booked
- 7 open opportunities
- 3 converted customers
Impressive!
3. Affiliate partner marketing
Affiliate partner marketing is one of those win-win situations for both brands and content creators. Brands get access to motivated audiences of bloggers, podcasters, and social media influencers. In return, creators make a commission on sales or referrals, providing a stable way to monetize their content. It’s a low-risk way to spread brand awareness and build long-term partnerships with your community.
How Apollo.io earns 10% of revenue through their partner program
Apollo.io is a sales intelligence platform that helps you prospect, engage, and drive more revenue. Their partnership team has divided their partner program into four categories: Affiliates, agencies, technology, and startup ecosystem. Each partnership category was given affiliate links that partners could use to refer new customers to Apollo.io.
Within two years they’ve onboarded over 4000 partners. Using tools like PartnerStack, their partnership program now contributes to over 10% of their total revenue.
4. Event-based marketing
When done well, events can create buzz around your product or service, and lead to increased sales and brand awareness. Best of all, it’s a nice way to build a relationship with your customers and create loyalty.
Event-based marketing can take several forms, from product launches and trade shows to even more intimate meetups and workshops. The key to a winning event marketing strategy is aligning it with your marketing goals. For example, if you’re launching a new product—you might create a launch event and invite the press. Or if you’re trying to increase brand awareness, you might host a series of meetups or workshops to educate your audience.
Lululemon’s Proud and Present Campaign
Lululemon’s Proud & Present Campaign was centered around the LGBTQ2IA+ community during WorldPride 2019. Proud & Present was brought to life through social content, two real-life experiences, and in-store assets.
As part of this collaboration, Lululemon organized a unique outdoor yoga practice at Hudson River Park, specifically at Pier 64. Led by Jase Cannon, a yoga instructor with personal experiences within the LGBTQ2IA+ community, the yoga session aimed to create an inclusive and empowering experience for all attendees.
“The campaign sought to create a space where their employees, considered the brand’s most authentic spokespeople, could share their perspectives.”
- Johan Gerdin, Creative Direction for Lululemon’s Proud and Present Campaign
Growth marketing and demand generation: Two sides of the same coin
So there you have it, a deep dive into the Venn diagram of growth marketing and demand generation. While they may seem like two sides of the same coin, understanding how to leverage both can help you define your marketing strategy and build the best career path for yourself.
Whether you’re optimizing for growth or strategically generating demand, these approaches aren’t mutually exclusive—they’re complementary pieces of a larger marketing puzzle.
Hear it from Carina Rampelt, a content writer and strategist who found herself struggling to keep up with the intricacies of metrics and paid promotion strategies. Working alongside growth teams, she often felt out of her depth. But that changed when she joined Growclass:
"Growclass gave me the common language I needed to confidently navigate conversations about metrics and paid promotions. It enabled me to become a true strategic advisor to my clients.”
If you’re looking to deepen your expertise, gain actionable insights, and join a community of driven marketers, Growclass’s Growth Marketing Course might just be what you’re looking for. Together, we’ll help you refine your strategy, sharpen your marketing skills, and achieve your career goals.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is all about attracting your target prospects to your business, and increasing their interest through nurturing with the ultimate goal of turning them into a customer. Common ways to generate leads include hosting events, writing blogs, or social posts.
What's the difference between lead generation and growth marketing?
The main difference is that lead generation is all about identifying and attracting potential “leads” to a product or service. The best way to describe it is through an example. Suppose that you run a local gym that offers a one-week free trial that attracts tons of new sign-ups. You now have their data that you can use for future marketing efforts. This is an example of lead generation.
On the flip side, growth marketing is all about running data-driven experiments across the funnel to drive overall business growth. Now that you have the data from the gym membership, you analyze the demographics and try to fire a personalized A/B email sequence to those who used the free pass. This is growth marketing.
What's the difference between demand generation and lead generation?
Demand generation marketing is focused on increasing brand awareness to net new prospects. Lead generation aims at converting brand-aware prospects into customers.
What's the difference between demand generation and lifecycle marketing?
While both demand generation and lifecycle marketing aim to nurture leads and increase conversions, lifecycle marketing takes a more targeted approach. It focuses on managing each stage of the customer journey and using the right marketing activities to transition users between them.
Ultimately lifecycle marketing is all about driving value at each stage of the customer journey. Whereas demand generation focuses more holistically on the earlier stages of the customer lifecycles, such as creating awareness and generating leads.
What's Product Led Growth (PLG) vs. Sales Led Growth (SLG)
Product-led growth is a business strategy where the product itself is the primary driver for user acquisition, engagement, retention, and expansion. The idea is that you create a product that’s so compelling that users try it, immediately understand the value, are encouraged to stay, and will recommend it to others. Successful PLG companies are deeply invested in understanding customers and improving the product experience to minimize the Time to First Value.
Sales-led growth is where the primary driver of growth is a structured sales process. This involves building personal relationships with potential customers and a dedicated sales team with business development representatives and account executives. Typically SLG is effective for complex high-value products that need more customer hand holding.
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