Demand generation

How do you get the right people to notice you without burning budget?

Demand generation

Introduction

Demand generation drives the top of your funnel. It's about getting the right people to notice you, click through, and engage. Three metrics tell you if it's working: impressions (reach), click-through rate (relevance), and engagement rate (interest).

Most companies throw money at channels without structure. They target demographics instead of intent. They test creative randomly. They send traffic to generic pages.

We use a who/where/what/conversion framework:

  1. Who – Segment audiences by awareness stage and job-to-be-done, not demographics
  2. Where – Allocate budget to channels that reach those segments efficiently
  3. What – Test ad creative that speaks to each segment's specific context
  4. Conversion – Send traffic to landing pages designed for that audience and offer

These four playbooks work together to systematically improve all three metrics by 10% each.

Foundation

The theoretical foundation you need to understand to make this work. Also includes the tools setup that is essential.

Demand generation tools

Demand generation tools

Pipeline doesn't fill itself. These tools help you identify who to target, reach them at scale, and create content that earns attention in crowded markets.

Stages of awareness

Stages of awareness

Demographics don't determine what message resonates. Belief stage does. Map what people need to believe at each stage and your campaigns will resonate instead of falling flat.

Organic search

Organic search

Learn how to create search-optimised content that ranks, drives compounding traffic, and attracts buyers actively looking for what you offer.

LinkedIn thought leadership

LinkedIn thought leadership

Turn your LinkedIn profile and content into a demand generation channel that builds authority, attracts ideal buyers, and starts conversations at scale.

Paid advertising

Paid advertising

Master the fundamentals of paid media — targeting, bidding, creative, and measurement — so every euro spent moves qualified buyers closer to a conversation.

LinkedIn advertising

LinkedIn advertising

Learn how to reach decision-makers on LinkedIn efficiently with the right campaign types, audience targeting, and creative formats for B2B.

Build

The core playbooks that drive results. Each one targets a specific outcome and builds on the foundations.

Grow impressions

Grow impressions

Identify the channels where your buyers actually spend time, allocate budget with confidence, and build a distribution plan that compounds reach over time.

Improve click rate

Improve click rate

Set up a structured creative testing process that compounds your learnings so every new ad performs better than the last.

Improve engagement rate

Improve engagement rate

Design landing pages that continue the conversation from your ads and content, matching visitor intent with the right message, proof, and call to action.

Demand generation

resources

Tactical playbooks

Useful additional, not core to the methodology. This is also where I document what I am learning myself.

Grow impressions

Grow impressions

Expand your reach systematically by scaling what works, testing new formats, and increasing share of voice in your target market.

Improve click rate

Improve click rate

Refine ad copy, creative, and targeting to earn more clicks from the same impressions, lowering your cost per visitor with each iteration.

Improve engagement rate

Improve engagement rate

Optimise page content, layout, and user experience so more visitors take meaningful action instead of bouncing.

Recommended tools

SurferSEO

SurferSEO

SurferSEO analyses top-ranking content to provide data-driven recommendations for on-page optimisation and content structure for target keywords.

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99

per month

SEMrush

SEMrush

SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO platform covering keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink tracking, and content optimisation for organic growth.

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140

per month

Kanbox

Kanbox

Kanbox automates contract and document signature workflows with routing, approvals, and integrations built for European B2B companies.

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25

per month

Taplio

Taplio

Taplio provides LinkedIn content scheduling, analytics, and engagement features with AI-powered post ideas for building personal brands.

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39

per month

Surfe

Surfe

Surfe syncs LinkedIn profiles directly into your CRM with one click, capturing contact details, notes, and activities without manual data entry.

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29

per month

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Instapage

Instapage

Instapage builds post-click landing pages with A/B testing, personalisation, and collaboration features for paid advertising campaigns.

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99

per month

Leadpages

Leadpages

Leadpages builds landing pages, pop-ups, and alert bars quickly with templates and basic A/B testing for lead generation campaigns.

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49

per month

Unbounce

Unbounce

Unbounce creates landing pages with drag-and-drop building, A/B testing, and dynamic text replacement optimised for paid advertising conversion.

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79

per month

Demand generation

metrics

Impressions

The total number of times your brand appears in front of potential customers across all channels.

Click-through-rate

The percentage of impressions that result in a click to your website or landing page.

Engagement rate

The percentage of visitors who meaningfully engage with your landing page instead of bouncing.

Demand generation

books

Founder brand

Founder brand

Dave Gerhardt

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A guide to purposeful visibility. Choose topics, set a cadence and turn posts, talks and interviews into warm conversations.

Traction (channels)

Traction (channels)

Gabriel Weinberg

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A method to discover your best channel. Prioritise, test and focus resources where traction is most likely.

Traffic secrets

Traffic secrets

Russel Brunson

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A broad look at audience building. Useful ideas for content, partnerships and email that compound over time.

Expert secrets

Expert secrets

Russel Brunson

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Position your expertise, tell stories that teach, and build simple offers that move buyers from interest to action.

Breakthrough Advertising

Breakthrough Advertising

Eugene M. Schwartz

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A field guide to message market fit. Use stages of awareness to pick angles, craft offers and brief ads that speak to real pains and jobs.

Demand generation

wiki

Landing page

Create focused standalone pages for paid campaigns that remove distractions and guide visitors toward one specific action to improve conversion rates.

Cost-per-X

Master the economics of customer acquisition by tracking what you pay for each meaningful action across channels.

Email deliverability

Ensure emails reach inboxes rather than spam folders by maintaining sender reputation, authenticating properly, and following anti-spam best practices consistently.

Domain reputation

Maintain a positive sending history to ensure emails reach inboxes rather than spam folders by following best practices and monitoring feedback signals.

Backlinks

Earn links from other websites to your content to signal authority to search engines and improve rankings for target keywords over time.

Reply rate

Measure what percentage of cold emails get responses to evaluate message quality and list targeting rather than sending more emails to poor prospects.

Engagement rate

The percentage of visitors who meaningfully engage with your landing page instead of bouncing.

Warm-up

Gradually increase sending volume from new domains to build reputation with inbox providers and avoid being marked as spam when scaling outreach quickly.

Paid social advertising

Target prospects based on demographic, firmographic, and behavioural data, interrupting their social feeds with relevant offers and content.

Bounce rate

Track emails that fail delivery to maintain sender reputation and avoid being marked as spam by continuing to email invalid addresses that hurt deliverability.

SEO

Optimise your website and content to rank prominently in organic search results, capturing traffic without ongoing advertising spend.

Cold email

Reach prospects who don't know you by sending personalised outreach that offers value and starts conversations rather than pitching products immediately.

Technical SEO

Fix site infrastructure issues that prevent search engines from crawling and indexing pages properly to ensure content can rank regardless of quality.

Impressions

The total number of times your brand appears in front of potential customers across all channels.

Cost per click (CPC)

Calculate what you pay each time someone clicks your ad to evaluate channel efficiency and determine if paid traffic costs justify the leads generated.

Domain authority

Build cumulative site-wide ranking power through quality backlinks and strong content so new pages rank faster than competitors starting from scratch.

Spam score

Evaluate email content and sending practices to identify elements that trigger spam filters before sending campaigns that might damage deliverability.

Content pillar

Create comprehensive hub pages on core topics that link to related subtopic content to establish topical authority and improve rankings across topic clusters.

Social selling

Build relationships and demonstrate expertise on social platforms to generate inbound interest rather than interrupting buyers with cold outreach.

Click-through-rate

The percentage of impressions that result in a click to your website or landing page.

Engagement

Measure likes, comments, and shares to evaluate content resonance and algorithmic distribution on social platforms that reward interactions with reach.

On-page SEO

Optimise individual pages for target keywords by improving titles, headings, content, and internal links to help search engines understand topic relevance.

Keyword research

Identify search terms your customers use to create content that ranks organically and bid on paid terms that drive qualified traffic at profitable costs.

Paid search

Capture high-intent prospects actively searching for solutions by bidding on relevant keywords and appearing in search engine results.

Internal linking

Connect related pages through contextual links to help search engines understand site structure and spread authority whilst improving user navigation.

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