How do you achieve consistent demand gen as a B2C and B2B startup with little marketing budget and self-funded from the revenue it currently generates? How do we make do with the resources we have now to reach more people who need our products?

This is the million dollar question... literally!

I've found that there are two types of Demand Generation professionals, and finding one who has both skills is more difficult:

1. Those who know how to spend money

2. Those who can operate without any money

When you're working for an early stage start-up, or when you have limited budget, you have to get scrappy and spend time rather than money. What do I mean by that?

• Find communities that your buyers participate in. Get really active on these communities by sharing resources, best practices, and answering questions. Get your product or technical team involved too.

• Go to events without a booth. Send a sales rep, or go yourself, and walk the floor. Start conversations with others nearby. Eyeball badges to find a potential prospect to engage. Print out flyers and hand them out as you walk around.

• Utilize event apps and AI. Many events don't provide full event attendee lists, but everyone is in the event app to be messaged. Pull the names out of the app, run them through AI to fill in missing info, and add them to your database to be emailed and engaged.

• Submit for awards and free speaking opportunities. There are many non-paid opportunities out there that can help to build your visibility as an organization. Find those events calling for speakers, those industry podcasts, those awards in your space, and the media outlets that cover news in your industry. Pitch them on a new topic and get some coverage.

Of course, these activities all support building your inbound leads and overall awareness. These take time and won't be a hot ticket item today, but after continued effort will show results.