Growth Marketing vs. Demand Generation - How are they different?

Growth marketing, growth hacking, and demand generation are essentially the same thing.

Disagree? Expecting a bit more? No problem. ;)

Demand generation is currently the more popular term. Growth marketing is the trendier term that is on the rise. It's also sometimes called growth hacking. See a view from Google Trends below.

I've reviewed every article I could find talking about the definitions and differences of the two phrases. Some have said demand generation is different from growth marketing because demand generation only focuses on top of funnel and growth marketing or growth hacking covers the entire funnel including their time as a customer. Essentially, growth marketing is often defined as marketing for customer acquisition + customer retention. And demand generation is often tied to creating a new customer only.

I would argue that good (and great) demand generation thinks about driving demand beyond pipeline alone and optimizes through the life of a customer, and that the two titles are synonymous. This can be proven, as many demand generation roles include customer up-sell and cross-sell (I checked out the descriptions of a bunch of open demand generation roles). And even beyond that, most CMOs I know are obsessed with customer life-cycle and ensuring customer value, and consider demand generation a subset of this so it's smart for them to look for talent to drive demand across the life of a customer, not just to the point of acquisition, when they are hiring for a role with any of these titles.

I would also argue that many growth marketers are only working on top of funnel campaigns, simply based on my knowledge of those with the title (regardless of some saying that it implies focus on customers and retention). So it seems the opposite argument can be made for the titles as well.

So, whether you're in demand generation, lead generation, a program manager, a growth hacker, or simply have the title of marketer think about how to increase the value of your company by developing interest, acquiring customers, and then make them successful.

Oh, and if your title is demand generation, lead gen, or program manager and you want to leverage the cool and upcoming title of growth marketer or growth hacker, go ahead and update your LinkedIn profile. You can tell your boss I said it's okay since they mean the same thing.

Happy marketing!