Are your leads coming in—but NOT turning into sales?
You’re not alone. It’s the number one complaint we hear from B2B marketers these days.
The problem is that you don’t have a process or technology in place to nurture those leads from lead to sale. The missing link is a well-structured demand generation framework.
Focus on educating your buyer BEFORE they’re ready to buy.
Be hyper-specific in your audience targeting (no more “wide nets”).
And optimize, optimize, optimize!
Easy enough, right? The problem for most B2B marketers these days is there’s just too much to do and too few resources to do it. They don’t know how to stay consistent and effective with these disciplines.
This guide breaks down the demand generation best practices that will help you build a pipeline that stays full with maturing sales opportunities—month after month, year after year. BONUS—it offers a free, downloadable tool to help you get started and stay consistent with your demand gen efforts.
Let's goooooo!
Demand generation is a proactive, data-driven strategy that builds interest and intent long before a prospect engages with sales.
According to Chet Holmes’ research cited in The Ultimate Sales Machine, at any given time, only 3% of your total addressable market (TAM) is ready to buy. So what do you do to stay relevant with the other 97% until they’re “in market?”
By creating awareness early in the buyer’s journey, demand gen primes potential customers and lays the groundwork for stronger, more consistent conversions.
Now it’s time to move from theory to execution.
Here’s how to structure your demand gen efforts from the ground up.
Many teams fall into the trap of launching tactics without a strategy, leading to wasted resources and inconsistent results.
Target Personas: Who are you trying to reach? What are their pain points?
Content Strategy: What content will guide them through the buyer journey?
Campaign Planning: What steps will you take to engage prospects at each stage of the funnel?
Think repeatable. Think scalable. And make sure it all ties back to your bigger marketing goals.
Strategy is important. But without the right tools? You’re flying blind.
To execute your demand gen process effectively, you’ll need a robust marketing technology stack.
The right tools will allow you to track, manage, and automate various parts of your demand generation strategy, making it easier to build a consistent pipeline.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Use platforms like HubSpot or Salesforce to track leads and manage relationships.
Marketing Automation: Tools like Mailchimp or Marketo help automate follow-ups and lead-nurturing sequences.
Analytics Tools: Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Tableau allow you to measure the performance of your campaigns and optimize over time.
PRO TIP: At Digitopia, we’re big fans of HubSpot—it puts marketing, sales, and service under one roof.
Remember - a fancy tech stack means nothing if it’s not connected.
Make sure your tools sync up so your data flows smoothly.
A demand gen program that works consistently needs to be laser-focused on targeting the right audience.
If you’re trying to reach everyone, you’ll convert no one.
Focus your efforts on high-value buyers who are actually a good fit and create campaigns specifically for them.
Create Buyer Personas: Build detailed profiles of your ideal customers, including demographics, pain points, and key decision-making factors.
Use Data for Targeting: Leverage first-party and third-party data to zero in on audiences that are most likely to convert.
Segment Campaigns: Tailor your messaging and content to different personas and stages of the funnel.
Being hyper-specific in your targeting not only reduces waste but also ensures that the leads you attract are more likely to convert into customers.
Good content pulls people in. Great content moves them down the funnel. You need both.
To build a consistent pipeline, you need a content strategy that speaks to your prospects at every stage of the buyer journey. This means creating content that not only educates and engages but also moves prospects closer to making a decision.
Top-of-Funnel (Awareness): Blog posts, infographics, and videos that highlight industry trends and address pain points.
Middle-of-Funnel (Consideration): Case studies, webinars, and white papers that showcase your solution and differentiate you from competitors.
Bottom-of-Funnel (Decision): Product demos, consultations, and free trials that provide a low-risk way for leads to engage directly with your brand.
By aligning your content with the buyer’s journey, you can consistently nurture leads until they’re ready to talk to sales.
Paid advertising is one of the most reliable ways to drive traffic and generate leads. However, not all paid ads are created equal.
Leveraging the right ads at the right times is a game-changer.
Top-of-Funnel Ads: Use Google Ads or Facebook Ads to target high-value keywords or interests that align with your personas.
Retargeting Ads: Use retargeting campaigns to engage visitors who have interacted with your content but haven’t yet converted.
Conversion-Focused Ads: Push middle-of-funnel leads toward a consultation, demo, or another high-value offer with Facebook Lead Ads or LinkedIn Ads.
A well-planned ad strategy ensures that you’re not only filling the top of your funnel but also pushing qualified leads further along in the journey.
Some leads need time. And a little TLC.
Email nurturing keeps you top of mind while they warm up.
Automated email sequences can keep your leads engaged, offering value and insights over time until they’re ready to buy.
Lead Magnet Follow-Ups: Send a thank-you email with the requested content, followed by additional resources that provide deeper value.
Webinar Follow-Ups: For those who attend webinars or download high-value content, offer personalized next steps such as consultations or case studies.
Long-Term Nurturing: For leads that aren’t quite ready to buy, send valuable content every 2-3 weeks to stay top of mind.
By keeping your leads engaged over time, email nurturing helps ensure that you maintain a warm pipeline and convert more leads into customers.
It’s all about staying helpful, not pushy.
Getting traffic is great. But don’t forget to convert it.
Many teams focus too heavily on driving traffic to the top of the funnel but neglect conversion optimization further down.
For a consistent pipeline, you need to optimize every single step in the funnel—from MQL to closed deals.
Middle of the Funnel: Focus on improving the transition from leads to marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) by offering more personalized content.
Bottom of the Funnel: Increase the number of opportunities that turn into sales by refining your sales process and providing relevant, timely offers.
Post-Sale: Don’t stop once you’ve converted a lead into a customer. Create a process to upsell, cross-sell, and turn satisfied customers into advocates.
Optimizing each stage ensures that every lead has the best chance of converting, maximizing the efficiency of your demand generation efforts.
You can’t fix what you don’t measure.
Track your performance and let the data guide your next move.
Regularly reviewing your performance metrics helps you identify areas for improvement and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate: How well is your content attracting and converting visitors into leads?
Lead to MQL Conversion Rate: Are your leads progressing through the funnel and becoming marketing-qualified leads?
MQL to SQL Conversion Rate: How effectively are MQLs turning into sales-qualified leads?
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): How much are you spending to acquire each customer, and is it sustainable for your business?
By tracking these metrics, you can continually optimize your demand generation program, ensuring that it consistently fills your pipeline with high-quality leads.
Demand gen isn’t a one-and-done thing. It’s a long game.
Stay focused on your strategy, continually optimize, and keep nurturing your leads. Over time, your efforts will compound, creating a steady, reliable pipeline of sales opportunities.
Monthly Reviews: Set aside time each month to review performance and make adjustments to your campaigns.
Regular Content Creation: Stay on a content schedule that keeps your audience engaged at every stage of the buyer journey.
Optimize Regularly: Test different approaches to see what works best and optimize based on results.
You’ve got the blueprint—now it’s time to build.
When you define your process, stack your tools, create killer content, launch targeted ads, and keep nurturing leads, you don’t just generate leads—you generate momentum.
Stick with it. Keep showing up. And you’ll create a demand gen strategy that keeps your sales team smiling.
Ready to launch your demand gen strategy?
👉 [Schedule a free strategy session] with our team— and we’ll help you kickstart a demand gen engine that actually drives results.