10 Years Later: How Demand Generation Has Evolved Over the Years

I was recently onsite with a client when someone said, “I was hired to do demand gen. How did you get that name?”

DemandGen was founded more than 10 years ago by our CEO, David Lewis. Back then, though, demand generation was a nascent term that not many people used.

It got me thinking: what did demand generation actually mean to people 10 years ago when the term started to gain traction?

After unsuccessfully attempting a Wayne’s World flashback sequence, I thought back to what my organization’s demand generation efforts looked like back in 2007 and identified the following differences:

The concept of manufacturing demand is not new. Ten years ago, it was talked about ad nauseum in many marketing conference rooms. The ability to do it — and do it well — has evolved in more ways than most would have expected (with more to come!)

How have you seen demand generation evolve over the years?

Will Waugh is a consultant for DemandGen focused on helping clients with demand generation, lead management and leveraging marketing technology. He genuinely believes that data can change the world. Follow him on on Twitter. Other articles by Will Waugh: Consuming Too Much MarTech? 3 Steps to a Successful Stack