Demand Generation Insights

Demand generation ≠ lead generation. Not knowing the difference is killing your business: One is about visibility and interest in your business.  The other is about actual conversions that generate revenue. You need both to feasibly grow a business. Putting the mechanisms in place early will help a lot down the line. Here's a clear breakdown of each: 🫴 Demand Generation ↳ Build awareness and interest before buyers are ready to purchase. Role: Create trust and visibility across your entire market. Where it sits: Top of funnel—before people are ready to buy. Who it targets: ~95% of your total addressable market, many of whom are unaware. Tactics: - Ungated content - Thought leadership - Educational videos - Newsletters - Communities Mindset: Provide value up front so buyers trust and remember you. Difficulty: - Hard to measure with traditional metrics - Requires consistent, value-led content - Takes time before it shows pipeline impact - Must work with sales alignment - Needs strategic distribution channels How success is defined: - Brand recall and recognition - Trust and expertise established - Increase in high-intent inbound over time - Higher conversion when buyers are ready - More efficient pipeline overall 🤝 Lead Generation ↳ Capture contact information and convert people showing buying intent. Role: Move ready buyers quickly through validation to a sale. Where it sits: Mid/bottom of funnel—when people are ready to talk to sales. Who it targets: ~5% of your market that is meaningfully ready. Tactics: - Landing pages with forms - Gated eBooks - Demos - Free trials - Direct-response ads Mindset: Capture and move them through validation to a sale. Difficulty: - Easier to count leads and MQLs - Shorter feedback loops - Conversion optimisation is measurable - Risk of low-quality leads - Can feel productive without creating demand How success is defined: - Number of leads captured - MQL and SQL counts - Short-term conversion from form fills - Immediate pipeline contribution - Optimisation of capture mechanisms Lead gen might be more measurable and feel productive. But the pipeline will dry up if you never build demand. ✅ Demand generation fills the top of the funnel with buyers who trust you. ✅ Lead generation converts that trust into sales when buyers are ready. But be warned, AI is shifting demand generation as we speak.  You need to think beyond Google to the new places customers search... Namely ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and other AI platforms. Not to worry - we built Searchable to help you prepare for this.  It ensures your business gets cited where it needs to be for demand gen. So you can convert that awareness into warm leads and customers. Start your 14-day free trial and see how you get on:  https://lnkd.in/epgXyFmi ♻️ Repost to help other founders increase their revenue.  And follow Chris Donnelly for more on building and scaling businesses. 

Demand gen is utterly broken. It's overly complicated & lacks the soul and creativity that consumers deserve. I promise there's a better way. Here's the 3-pronged content engine we're building for companies at storyarb: Principles: - Treat your content as the product, not as marketing for another product - Unique insights + Unique voice + Unique packaging = Unique content - Pick topics that make your Market of 1 better at their job Channels: 1) Deeply researched long-form content Purpose: create data-driven OR interview-based website content that is deep enough & insightful enough such that a reader feels the need to bookmark & reference later. Good examples: Lenny Rachitsky: "How the biggest consumer apps got first 1,000 users" - Lenny interviewed hundreds of founders, identified patterns, and broke down the seven strategies consumer apps used to grow. Carta: "State of Private Markets: Q3 2024" Report - Using tons of internal funding data by Carta customers to pull together trends in startup funding for the quarter. HubSpot: "My First Million's Business Idea Database" - Aggregating & organizing 57 startup ideas shared by past MFM podcast guests into an e-mail gated database 2) Editorial email newsletter Purpose: create the best industry read for your market of 1 that allows you to build an owned audience of current/future customers. Good examples: - Content Examined by Alex Garcia: the best read for consumer content marketers, which acts as a perfect nurturing tool for his community, course, and agency - Big Desk Energy by Tyler Denk 🐝: a window into building a high-growth startup as it's happening by the founder of beehiiv - Exploding Topics: a snapshot of 4 emerging trends (based on google search data) that founders & investors should be aware of. 3) Personal brand social content Purpose: allow your market of 1 to build a parasocial relationship with your company through 1-4 personalities (execs, founders, etc) who enable connection with your faceless brand. Good examples: - Adam Robinson: fully transparent monthly breakdowns of his companies' (Retention.com & RB2B) performance with lessons learned & plans to fix key issues - Peter Walker: Head of Insights at Carta uses first party data from the company to share unique startup ecosystem trends + his own POV - Kieran Flanagan: AI & GTM expert who shares deep marketing insights, playbooks, and predictions that help build his & HubSpot's brand If you want help building this 3-pronged engine at your company, shoot me a DM or email at alex@storyarb[.]com.

90% of demand gen teams start at step 3. That’s why step 1 never works. They jump straight to: • Ads • Content • Tools • “Pipeline targets” But skip the uncomfortable work. Who exactly are we selling to? What problem do they actually care about? How does the buying decision really happen? So when things don’t convert, the team zooms into noise: “Maybe the CTA is wrong.” “Let’s gate this.” “Let’s try one more channel.” None of that fixes broken foundations. Real demand gen is layered: 1️⃣ Demand Strategy ICP clarity. Positioning. Messaging. Value proposition. Buying group mapping. 2️⃣ Demand Plan Intent Signals Budget, Timelines, Channels Metrics & KPI, Sales alignment, And the distribution plan. 3️⃣ Demand Execution Content, ads, SEO, community, CRM. Creation + capture working together. Execution matters. But only after steps 1 and 2 are clear. This is something I see every day working at Content Path. We work with B2B leaders who already have deep expertise, but struggle to turn that thinking into consistent demand on LinkedIn. The teams that win aren’t louder. They’re clearer. Clear strategy → clear messaging → content that actually compounds. If your demand gen feels busy but fragile, you’re probably starting at step 3 too early. If this made you pause, you’re not alone.

For marketers and sales professionals, lead generation is often seen as the key to success—a continuous effort to attract potential customers. However, in an ever-changing landscape where new consumers engage with your brand daily and competitors are always on the rise, is lead generation alone enough? The real value lies in pairing lead generation with demand generation. While lead generation focuses on capturing interest, demand generation is about shaping that interest into genuine market demand for your product or service. It goes beyond just numbers—it’s about establishing a strong brand presence, educating the audience, and creating a compelling reason for them to choose you over others. This is where deeper audience intelligence becomes essential. At Bloomberg Media, we believe that understanding your audience is more than just data points; it's about uncovering insights that can drive meaningful engagement. By leveraging our proprietary audience intelligence, we help brands craft content that resonates on a deeper level, establishing them as thought leaders in their industry. Incorporating these insights into your demand generation strategy can help you move beyond the transactional and into the transformational. It’s not just about reaching people; it’s about reaching the right people with the right message at the right time—building trust, credibility, and a strong foundation for customer loyalty. For sales teams, it’s not just about accumulating leads; it’s about engaging with well-informed prospects who understand the unique value your brand brings to the table. When demand generation and lead generation work together, they create a powerful synergy that not only drives sales but also fosters long-term loyalty and advocacy. In a market filled with choices, combining robust audience insights with a well-rounded demand generation strategy could be the key to not just surviving, but thriving. #leadgeneration #demandgeneration #customerloyalty #consumer

You cannot deposit impressions into your bank account. I was on a call with a Founder whose growth was stuck. The culprit? They had sent 15,000 emails, tried blogging, and ran ads... but got back zero real responses. Crickets. The reality is that 95% of your ideal customers are not actively buying right now. If your only move is "Buy Now," you are fighting over a tiny 5% of the market that is incredibly expensive to reach. Real growth comes from Demand Generation: the art and science of getting your ideal customers to come to you. I first learned these principles at my last company, ToutApp (backed by a16z). We started the Sales Engagement category and eventually sold the business to Marketo. I then served as SVP of Strategy at Marketo through our $4.75B exit to Adobe. Since then, I’ve coached hundreds of B2B, SaaS, and AI founders to implement these exact strategies to accelerate their path to the next stage of growth. On this Unstoppable episode, I’m breaking down the 3 Demand Generation strategies that actually move the needle in 2026: 1. The Microsite Strategy: How to own the "problem space" in search and LLM results so you are the first authority buyers meet. 2. Middle of Funnel Organic: Why you should stop posting "top of funnel" fluff and start sharing the specific lessons that build buyer trust. 3. The Paid Scale Trigger: How to stop manual posting and turn your best insights into a 24/7 lead printing machine. I know many Founders worry about becoming a "broke influencer" who gets a ton of likes but no leads. Or are stuck having to post "COMMENT 'YES' and I'll.." and feeling like you just sold your soul. You don't have to. These strategies aren't about vanity; they are about building a repeatable machine that converts attention into revenue. If you are ready to stop chasing impressions and start building a real B2B demand engine using principles that work today in 2026, this episode is for you. Watch the full breakdown here (Link in comments!) 👇

My favorite way to explain B2B marketing for long sales cycles is by showing demand generation from the buyer perspective: I. I WANT TO LEARN. Individual buyers are exploring topics, upskilling themselves, and discovering best practices and industry trends. They're not actively looking for solutions yet—they're in learning mode. At this stage, buyers might: - Discover good content from a brand and start following them - Share good content with colleagues - Consume educational materials like podcasts, webinars, or articles - Build awareness of different approaches and vendors This is the foundation stage where you get noticed, build trust, and awareness before a specific business need emerges. II. WE WANT A SOLUTION. The buying group has agreed on the top-priority challenge and the consequences of not solving it now. They start looking for different solutions. The vendor that was able to clearly articulate that their solution (not a product) is the best fit for this type of challenge, wins an opportunity to be considered during the next round. Here is an example. Our enterprise pipeline declined in 2025 by 27%. Despite multiple attempts and efforts, neither marketing nor sales knows how to fix it. We need a solution. At this point, Champions might consider multiple solutions: - Invest in sales training - Hire SDRs and AEs with a proven track record of selling to enterprise - Launch an account-based marketing program - Invest in outreach scripts... The list is endless. III. WE WANT A SOLUTION LIKE YOURS. After evaluating multiple solutions by fit, resources and budget, the buying group makes a decision to select one of them. At this point, they start looking at different vendors and book discovery calls to learn more. Example: We want to start an account-based marketing program. Alternatives: - Buy an ABM platform and launch a program based on the playbooks provided by that vendor - Hire an ABM agency - Buy an ABM course or workshop - Hire an experienced consulting company Guess what you should do as a vendor? IV. WE WANT YOUR SOLUTION. After selecting the best-fit solution, the buying committee presents it to stakeholders to get consensus and support for the vendor evaluation. This is where you start seeing high-intent signals and generate opportunities. Example: We want to hire you as our consultant partner to implement a pilot ABM program. What is the scope, budget, and resources needed? You need to invest in fully personalized buyer enablement. V. WE ARE READY TO BUY FROM YOU. The buying committee has approved the budget and the resources, you're moving to the procurement and POC phase. --- These stages represent a typical buyer journey. The first three stages could take 9-12 months and often define if you're getting into the consideration set. Most B2B companies ignore it and try to capture the demand from in-market accounts, and this is the exact reason why the pipeline dries up.

Last week, I spoke with the Head of Marketing at a $20M+ ARR B2B who's planning her 2025 paid media demand generation strategy. She's looking to build a repeatable lead gen engine that allows them to close more deals faster—without a huge SDR team. Here's the exact strategy I recommended: — Paid Social: 1️⃣ Select a market segment you can afford to fully saturate 2️⃣ Double down on and scale ads for the most popular product 3️⃣ Run 60% budget to cold audiences, 40% to retargeting 4️⃣ Optimize cold campaigns for engagement, reach, frequency 5️⃣ Optimize retargeting campaigns for pipeline and revenue 6️⃣ Use a third-party audience tool for tighter targeting and lower ad costs 7️⃣ Cold campaign ads focused on features, benefits, and pain points 8️⃣ Retargeting campaign ads focused on objection handling, cost of inaction, trust-building, and outcomes Paid Search: 1️⃣ Implement offline conversion tracking to measure pipeline 2️⃣ Scale slowly into new regions by replicating campaigns that are already driving pipeline to maintain efficiency 3️⃣ Cut Demand Gen and Pmax campaigns and double down on exact match keyword strategy and experiment more with broad as it seems to work for them 4️⃣ Keep a low budget display ad campaign on and measure incremental uplift on performance Measurement: 1️⃣ Leading Indicators: reach & frequency, engagement rate, # of ICP companies visiting social pages + website, share of search (brand name), pipeline (leads, MQLs, SQLs) 2️⃣ Lagging Indicators: sales cycle length, revenue, close rate, CAC, ADV, upsells 3️⃣ Use a blend of data-driven attribution, conversion lift analysis, and holistic incremental growth 4️⃣ Avoid first and last touch as they don't show a complete picture — The 2025 strategy I'm most bullish on? Audience saturation. Paid ads fails when you "try a small budget and then scale if results are there." If you're not consistently reaching in and out-market prospects to build mental availability and get shortlisted, you might as well throw the ad budget in the bin. 🤘 — P.S. Struggling to make Paid Ads work? Have a KlientBoost - The Performance Marketing Agency Growth Strategist build your custom free marketing plan based on proven playbooks like this one. Hit the link to get yours: https://lnkd.in/eMpcnvQX

If I were hired as the VP of Marketing at a B2B company with long sales cycles, here’s how I’d build a killer demand gen engine from scratch: 1. Interview your 10 best customers and analyze 20 recent sales call recordings to uncover the pain points and challenges your buyers are currently facing. 2. Use these insights to develop content pillars and topics. 3. Identify 3-5 internal subject matter experts (SMEs) who are comfortable on camera and willing to build their LinkedIn presence. Preferably include 1-2 people from the executive team. 4. Conduct bi-weekly interviews with each SME on the topics identified in step 2. 5. Turn each interview recording into 1 long-form article, 5 video clips and 10 LinkedIn posts. 6. Publish this content on the personal LinkedIn profiles of your SMEs (3-5 times per week). 7. Publish the article and video clips on the website, repurpose the interview recording for YouTube, and create a weekly newsletter with the best insights from the interviews. 8. After 3 months, start running LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads to promote your SMEs' top-performing posts to target accounts. 9. Launch a LinkedIn employee advocacy program to turn your employees into a powerful organic marketing channel. We can reuse the content we created in step 6 to fuel this program. _____ This approach has a few key principles: ✅ Customer research should be the foundation of any content strategy—it’s the only way to create content that actually resonates with your buyers. ✅ Your buyers are looking for expert insights to help solve their challenges, so interviewing your SMEs is a crucial step to create highly effective content. ✅ Your buyers spend most of their time on LinkedIn, not on your website. Your distribution strategy should reflect this. ✅ Paid social should mainly be used for content distribution, not lead generation. Would you rather pay $150 for 30 decision makers in your target accounts to read your case study, or $150 for just one person to download your ebook? _____ 💡 Want ideas & recommendations for your 2025 content strategy? For March, we have 2 spots left for a 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁—specifically designed for B2B tech & consulting firms with long sales cycles. Here's what you'll get: • 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 + 𝗚𝗮𝗽 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀: Our analysis of your content & distribution strategy—uncovering gaps, blind spots, and opportunities for improvement. • 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Actionable ideas to build a top-performing content strategy for 2025, based on what’s driving success for 50+ B2B tech & consulting firms we’ve worked with. No strings attached, just valuable insights :) Book your session here: https://lnkd.in/eSEMsnb9

A lot of marketers ask themselves: “How much should I invest in demand gen?” Here’s the framework I use 👇 First, let’s agree on the basics: Lead Gen = capturing existing demand Eg. Events, PPC, outbound, affiliates, sponsored communities → Short-term. Trackable. Immediate results. → You’re marketing the solution. Demand Gen = creating demand and trust Eg. Podcasts, LinkedIn, webinars, influencer marketing, employee advocacy, original studies → Long-term. Harder to track. Delayed results. → You’re marketing the problem… and building your credibility. So, what’s the right mix? It depends on two things: 1️⃣ Market maturity → how much of your TAM is actively looking 2️⃣ Marketing Budget → operational spends + people (wages or fees) [Mature market + strong budget] 💙 Double Down → Run lead gen for short-term wins. Invest in demand gen to lower CAC and build momentum. → You’re compounding while you grow. [Mature market + limited budget] ⚡️ Capture Demand → Prioritize the hottest leads in your most efficient channels. → Win fast. Prove value. Earn space for long-term plays next year. [Immature market + strong budget] 🌱 Create Demand → Invest in trust-building: thought leadership, education, social proof. → You’re a visionary… but also a cost center until revenue shows up. Look for impact down the funnel (with sales enablement for instance). [Immature market + no budget] 🛑 Abort Mission → No awareness. No demand. No fuel. → Don’t waste your time—or your team. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. Only the one that fits your market, your moment, and your means. And if you’re in the bottom-right corner... ...speak up, and build your case. 💪

I've worked with 500+ early-stage B2B companies over the past 2.5 years. And there's one critical mistake that wrecks their GTM engine: not understanding the difference between demand generation and demand capture.   Here’s the difference:   • Demand generation plays create awareness and interest. (Founder-led content, thought leadership, ads, partnerships, events—anything that makes people aware of the pain point you solve and of your brand.)   • Demand capture plays harvest and convert existing interest. (Enriching person-level website visitors, identifying ICP fits from people who engage with your LinkedIn posts, prioritizing high-intent sign-ups or inbound leads—converting people who are displaying signals that they are in-market.)   For GTM to work as a holistic engine, both need to be functioning and in sync. The failure mode many teams run into is trying to capture demand that doesn't exist yet.   I see this issue constantly with data orchestration and enrichment tools. Companies implement sophisticated Clay workflows (or pay agencies to build them) when they have:   • <1,000 monthly website visitors • No consistent content engine • Zero brand recognition   But that's like trying to capture ghosts. If you're an early-stage founder or GTM leader, first assess the state of your demand gen.   • Do you have meaningful website traffic? • Are people talking about your category? • Do competitors create awareness you can build off of?   If so, then tools like Freckle (freckle.io) or Clay can help you systematically capture it. If not, don't worry about tooling yet. Go all in on building awareness first through demand generation initiatives.   Some of the folks I see really nailing this on LinkedIn are Michel and Alex at ColdIQ, Arnaud and Festus at Breakcold, and Adam at RB2B.   Truthfully, most companies I talk to are still facing a demand generation issue and are trying to fix it by leaning on demand capture.   Follow the right sequence (demand generation, THEN demand capture). That’s how you’ll get your GTM engine humming.