In this guide, I’ll share what it takes to generate demand and win enterprise customers with long and complex sales cycles: 

• The step-by-step framework we used to build an 8-figure pipeline and 7-figure revenue, starting as an unknown brand 
• How many touchpoints (and how much time) does it take to generate an enterprise sales opportunity
• Why you may be making sales cycles even longer, and what to do about it
• The three levels of buyer demand, and how to adapt your process to it 
• Allbound playbooks—or how marketing and sales generate and capture demand

Let’s dive in. 

Bonus material: Demand generation calendar

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Biggest complaints of B2B companies with long sales cycles

These are the top demand generation challenges that B2B companies with long and complex sales cycles share with us: 

• Declining paid and organic pipeline, while cost of acquisition increases 
• Inbound pipeline is unpredictable. Most inbound leads have low revenue potential
• Marketing leads that don’t convert to sales, and a miserable marketing-sourced pipeline
• Lack of brand awareness and recognition in target accounts, so sales can’t get even a reply to sales outreach

Something is clearly not working. 

Let’s see why. 

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What does it take to generate demand and win an enterprise customer?

1. How many touchpoints does it actually take to close a deal?

When we ask people how many touchpoints are needed to create a real sales opportunity with an enterprise account, the guesses are all over the place—15, 50, maybe 80. 

But nobody guesses anywhere close to the actual number.

According to a study by HockeyStack, for deals $50K+ deals, it takes more than 300 touchpoints from generating an SQL to a closed-won deal. I think it’s safe to assume that it will take many more touchpoints from the first impression, until the closed won.

And that’s just the visible ones—there are many more interactions happening behind the scenes that no tracking tool can capture.

Think about that. Over 300 touchpoints. That’s not just clicking a LinkedIn ad and booking a demo. It’s a long-term process of continuous engagement, education, and trust-building before a deal is even on the table.

2. Not all touchpoints are created equal

Let’s clarify something: when we talk about 300+ touchpoints, we’re not talking about the typical sales and marketing sequences and campaigns companies run today.

• Not the “Hey, just checking in” follow-up emails.
• Not the automated nurturing sequences that scream “Book a demo now.”
• Not the cold InMail messages asking for 15 minutes of time.

Those aren’t real touchpoints. That’s just noise.

Instead, what actually matters?

• Educational content that genuinely adds value (not a product pitch disguised as a webinar).
• Meaningful retargeting ads—case studies, real insights, and thought leadership that resonate.
• 1:1 conversations between sales and prospects that don’t start with a sales ask.
• In-person events and small-group networking where buyers get to learn from their peers.

3. How long does this take?

Let’s take a real case study from our own business.

• March 2023: A prospect, completely unaware of us, first hears about FullFunnel through a network recommendation 
• No immediate action—they didn’t click a link or download a whitepaper.
• July 2023: They visited our website for the first time. Still no direct engagement, but they checked out a few case studies.
• September 2023: As their team started planning for next year, they engaged more. Signed up for a newsletter, attended a webinar.
• March 2024: After a full year of educational engagement, content consumption, and trust-building, they reached out to us—on their own—because they were finally ready to prioritize account-based marketing.

87 meaningful touchpoints over a year. No outbound sales. No aggressive follow-ups. No retargeting ads pushing demos. Just consistent, high-value engagement until the timing was right for them.

How do most companies try to generate demand? 

When we asked B2B companies how they’re tackling pipeline generation, demand gen, and marketing-sourced revenue, most of them pointed to paid demand generation as their primary strategy. 

And yet, most of them are struggling to get revenue results. What’s going on? 

Let’s dive deeper.

How Companies Are (Ineffectively) Creating Awareness

Since we know that most buyers purchase a product they discovered before they started researching, the big question is: how are companies creating that awareness?

For most, it looks something like this:

• SEO-driven content – blogs and landing pages based on keyword research, optimized for search intent.
• Self-promotional social media posts – company news, awards, funding announcements, and press releases.
• Content distribution = dropping links & running lead gen ads – taking blog posts and simply posting the link on LinkedIn, and reserving paid promotion for gated content, to generate leads. 

The problem? None of this is actually building meaningful awareness. If your content is all about keywords and company updates, it’s unlikely to position you as a go-to resource in your space. And simply posting links to external content doesn’t generate real engagement—buyers don’t want to leave their platform to jump through hoops just to access information.

The Demand Gen Tactics That Aren’t Working

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Paid ads push people to a landing page– But most of these pages lack real product information and just tell visitors to “book a demo.”
2. Cold outbound & LinkedIn ads try to force conversations – Messages and in-mails push people straight to sales calls, assuming they’re already looking for a product.
3. Gated content (eBooks, whitepapers, webinars) tries to generate leads – The assumption is that downloading an eBook or attending a webinar means someone is sales-ready.
4. Automated email sequences follow up aggressively – A webinar registrant is automatically thrown into a nurture sequence that quickly turns into a sales pitch.
5. Sales starts chasing people who aren’t ready to buy – A B2B buyer downloads a whitepaper to learn something, and suddenly they’re getting cold-called as if they’re actively evaluating vendors.

The problem here is everything is transactional. The entire process is designed to assume interest instead of build interest.

Why this playbook is broken 

At the core of the challenges B2B companies face with demand generation and pipeline growth is a fundamental shift in how buyers behave. We’ve all heard this before—buyers have changed—but let’s get specific about how they’ve changed and why the way most companies are trying to respond just isn’t working.

1. Buyers already know who they want before they start researching

One of the most interesting findings comes from a recent Pavilion and TrustRadius study, which looked at how B2B buyers discover and buy complex products. 

Turns out, most buyers aren’t discovering new solutions when they start researching—they’re mainly narrowing down options they already know. In fact, 78% of all B2B buyers, and 86% of enterprise buyers, end up buying a product they had heard of before they even started their research.

Think about that. It means that by the time a buyer is actively looking for a solution, they already have a mental shortlist. And guess what? If your company isn’t on that shortlist, you’re already at a disadvantage. Buyers aren’t making long lists of 10–15 options. They’re picking two or three, and from there, they typically go with the vendor that was already their first choice.

So if your whole demand generation strategy is based on capturing buyers after they’ve started looking, you’re playing catch-up. The real game is won way before that, by building awareness and credibility long before buyers even realize they need you.

2. Buyers trust their peers more than your marketing

Another big takeaway? Buyers aren’t just relying on your website, landing pages, or ads to make decisions. Before they buy, they talk to people they trust—former colleagues, industry peers, or others in their network who have actually used your product.

That means they’re not just doing Google searches and reading review sites. They’re having conversations. They want validation from someone in their circle before they commit. And in a lot of cases, this is actually how they discover products in the first place—through recommendations from their network, not from ads or cold emails.

For companies, this changes the game. It’s not just about “driving engagement” or pushing out content. It’s about making sure that when those peer-to-peer conversations happen, your name comes up. If your buyers are hearing about your competitors from trusted peers and they’ve never heard of you, you’re already behind.

3. Buying committees are bigger, and sales cycles are longer

Another shift we’ve all seen: buying groups are getting larger. It’s no longer just one or two decision-makers—now you’ve got finance, IT, procurement, legal, and multiple department heads all weighing in.

This means sales cycles are getting longer, and decisions are taking more time. It’s not enough to engage just one person at an account. You have to influence an entire group. And different people care about different things. The CFO is thinking about cost and ROI. The IT team is thinking about integration and security. The end users care about usability.

If your demand generation strategy is only focused on engaging one champion and hoping they convince everyone else, that’s a problem. You need to be reaching multiple stakeholders across the company, planting the right messages that align with their specific concerns.

4. Buyers hate this approach  

Buyers don’t want to be forced into a funnel just because they downloaded a piece of content. And they certainly don’t want to sit through a webinar that’s disguised as an “educational” event but turns into a product pitch.

On top of that, gated content—one of the most common B2B tactics—is just a bad experience. Think about it:

1. A buyer sees an ad for a whitepaper.
2. They click the link and get sent to a landing page.
3. They have to fill out a long form.
4. They wait 10 minutes for the email with the PDF.
5. They open the PDF on their phone… and it’s unreadable.

Why would anyone go through that process when they could just consume content in-platform? Buyers want quick, accessible information where they already are—on LinkedIn, in Slack communities, in industry podcasts.

How you’re making long cycles even longer 

There’s a lot about the length of the sales cycle that are beyond your control:

• BUYERS’ PRIORITIES (high priority business objectives, current focus areas & strategic initiatives)

• NEEDS & PROBLEMS (their challenges and current perception of how severe or critical)
• EXTERNAL FACTORS (market changes, regulatory shifts, and competitive activity; M&As, changes in leadership or organizational structure)
• SOLUTION DISCOVERY (where and how they discover solutions, who they trust and who influences them, which competitors they know of and their perception, procurement requirements and limitations)
• BUDGET & RESOURCES (current budget and team allocation, timing of budget planning, resource allocation and review cycles)
• DECISION MAKING (who makes decisions, how decisions are prioritized, the pace of decision making, their procurement process, internal politics)

But to make things worse, a few outdated or  broken practices are making cycles even longer. 

1. Friction everywhere in the buying process

Once a company does decide to start exploring solutions, they quickly run into a mess of friction points—most of which are caused by vendors themselves.

Here’s how that usually looks:

• Confusing, vague websites. Buyers land on your site hoping to understand what you actually do, but instead, they get fluffy marketing copy that doesn’t give real details.
• Live chat that doesn’t actually help. They try the chatbot, but it’s just a lead capture tool that funnels them into a sales conversation instead of answering their real questions.
• Booking a meeting is a hassle. Instead of instantly scheduling with a rep, they have to fill out a form, wait for someone to follow up, and then schedule a call.
• Sales reps who can’t answer real questions. The first call is often with an SDR whose main goal is to qualify them—not to help them. If they ask about pricing, implementation, or integration details, they’re told, “You’ll have to wait for the next call with an AE.”

By the time they actually get to someone who can give them useful information, they’re already frustrated and exhausted—and that’s if they haven’t dropped off entirely.

2. Lack of brand awareness slows down everything

The number one complaint that I hear from sales teams?

There is a lack of awareness and recognition of our brand from our target accounts.

Why?

1) Buyers ignore their outreach, perceiving them as “yet another rep” trying to sell them something. 

We already know that 86% of enterprise buyers end up purchasing a product they discovered before they even started researching. That means if they don’t know who you are before they enter a buying cycle, you’re already playing from behind.

2) They “lose on brand”. Even if you do get into their evaluation process, you’ll be up against a competitor they already trust—making it way harder to move quickly through the deal.

Buyers (especially corporate ones) don’t want to risk their social capital on an unknown brand. 

All else being equal (and increasingly it is), they prefer going with a brand they know.

When there is not enough brand awareness early in the process, you’re fighting an uphill battle. 

If your company isn’t consistently present in the places your buyers pay attention to—through industry conversations, peer recommendations, and valuable content—you’ll be left scrambling to get the attention, and if you do, to prove credibility late in the game.

3. Internal buying committees drag things out (especially when you don’t enable champions)

Another factor slowing things down? The sheer number of people involved in making a decision.

Today, buying committees often have six, ten, sometimes even more stakeholders—each with different priorities and concerns.

That means your champion—the person who likes your solution—now has to sell your product internally to a whole group of people, many of whom will have objections. And if you’re not making it easier for them to do that, the deal stalls.

What’s missing in most demand gen strategies is buyer enablement—giving your champion the tools they need to build internal consensus and push the deal forward. This means:

• Working with champions to create business cases that that demonstrate the cost of inaction and  justify the investment
• Total cost of ownership (TCO) breakdowns that help CFOs and finance teams understand ROI
• Implementation roadmaps that show exactly what’s involved post-purchase
• Answers to the most common questions and objections of the buying committee members 
• Etc. 

If buyers don’t get these resources proactively, they’ll either stall out—or worse, they’ll go with a competitor who made it easier for them to say yes.

4.  Unqualified sales reps make it even harder

A lot of sales teams aren’t equipped to handle today’s complex buying journeys. In the rush to scale, many companies hire junior SDRs and AEs who:

• Don’t deeply understand the product or industry
• Follow scripts focused cursory qualification questions, instead of having real discovery conversations
• Default to pushing for a demo instead of helping the buyer
• Can’t answer in-depth technical or ROI-related questions

And the result? Buyers don’t trust them, leave with open questions, and focus on vendors whose teams genuinely help them move forward. 

What should you do instead?

The Full-funnel B2B Demand Generation Model

Now that we’ve covered how buyers actually move through their journey, it’s time to get to practical solutions. How do you structure a demand generation strategy that doesn’t just generate leads—but actually moves buyers through the process faster and increases the chances of ending up as the preferred vendor?

That’s where the Full-Funnel B2B Demand Generation Model comes in.

1. Three Levels of Demand

A full-funnel model works because it aligns marketing with each stage of demand—so that when buyers are finally ready, you’re already the obvious choice.

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NEW B2B DEMAND GENERATION PLAYBOOK COURSE

What’s included with the course access:

• 5 modules covering step-by-step demand generation strategy development: mapping out buyer journey and aligning your program with the three levels of demand, developing playbooks to create awareness and demand, creating allbound demand capturing playbooks, creating demand for buyers that are not active on social, setting up blended attribution, and many more. 
• Short explanation videos and “how to” examples. We believe it’s better one time to see a practical example then listen to the theory hundreds of times.
• 30/60/90 launch plan with step-by-step instructions and timeline to launch a pilot demand generation program.
• Report dashboard including: cohesive pipeline report, standalone program reports and weekly KPIs dashboard.
• Live case studies and examples of the campaigns we implemented with the clients of Fullfunnel.io in the past few years
• 10 ready-to-use templates including demand gen reports, budgeting, creating playbooks, a pilot demand generation program presentation, demand generation program examples, thought leadership and nurturing content production templates, and many more.
• Planning & Presenting Pilot Demand Gen Program to Execs and Sales framework
• Minimal viable stack recommendation and guidelines how to use it.

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1. DEMAND FOR CONTENT 

📅 Typical cycle: 6–24 months.

Buying intent: Low. “I want to learn”. 

• I want to up-skill myself, learn the best practices and industry trends
• I discover good content from a brand, and start following them
• I sometimes share good content with my colleagues

Demand gen goals at this stage

• Build an audience of engaged social followers, newsletter subscribers, and event attendees.
• Encourage repeat engagement so buyers see you as a go-to resource.
• Create trust so that when they do face a challenge, you’re top of mind.

Example journey

1️⃣ I want to stay ahead in my field, so I consume industry content, attend events, and follow experts.
2️⃣ I come across some really useful content from a brand and start following them.
3️⃣ I read something highly relevant to my company’s situation and start binging on their content.
4️⃣ Now I’m curious about their solution, so I check it out.
5️⃣ But I ignore their outreach and retargeting ads—I’m not in buying mode yet.

Example activities

✅ Industry newsletters
✅ LinkedIn posts from SMEs (not just the brand account)
✅ Engaging in relevant communities
✅ Hosting events that aren’t product pitches

How most companies get it wrong

Most B2B companies ignore this stage or try to force a sales conversation too soon. Instead of building an audience, they focus on short-term lead capture, assuming that just because someone downloaded an eBook, they’re ready for a demo.

For example, one enterprise buyer we analyzed followed our content for six months, engaging with industry insights and case studies, before they even visited our website for the first time. Trying to push them into a demo call right away would have just driven them away.

2. DEMAND FOR A SOLUTION

📅 Typical cycle: 3–6 months.

Buying intent: Low. “We need a solution to a high-priority problem.”

• The problem you help solve is a threat to a high priority business objective
• Cost of doing nothing’s big enough to care
• We cannot ignore or postpone it
• We cannot solve it internally

Demand gen goals at this stage

• Educate buyers on the different ways they can solve their problem (not just your product).
• Differentiate your approach so they see why your solution is worth considering.
• Engage multiple stakeholders in the buying committee before a vendor shortlist is even created.

Example journey

1️⃣ A business trigger (e.g. missed revenue targets, compliance audit failed), makes solving this problem urgent.
2️⃣ I start looking for solutions, searching online, asking peers, and engaging in niche communities.
3️⃣ A colleague or community member recommends your content or brand.
4️⃣ I explore multiple solutions—including yours—and have internal discussions with my team.
5️⃣ We decide to either solve it internally or go with a different type of solution altogether.
6️⃣ I ignore your outreach and retargeting ads—I’m not convinced yet.

Example activities

✅ Jobs-to-be-done, the “new way”, or “before & after” content & assets 
✅ Problem/solution content & assets
✅ Solution frameworks, playbooks & templates
✅ Behind-the-scenes, detailed client case studies 
✅ Deep-dive guides, webinars & workshops (featuring the product in action as examples)

How most companies get it wrong

At this stage, buyers are not looking for a vendor yet—they’re looking for insights on how to solve their problem and evaluating alternative approaches. But most companies still push product-heavy messaging instead of helping buyers explore different solutions.

3. VENDOR DEMAND

📅 Typical cycle: 1–3 months.

Buying intent: Low. “We want a solution like yours, and are considering you”

• We have done sufficient research to understand different options
• We believe that <your category> is the best option for our problem
• We believe that we have what it takes to implement it and get desired outcomes
• We’re evaluating different vendors 
• We’re trying to drive consensus between different stakeholders

Demand gen goals at this stage

• Generate sales opportunities by engaging buyers when they are actively evaluating vendors.
• Arm the champion with internal selling materials
• Help navigate procurement and objections to prevent deals from stalling.

Example journey

1️⃣ We’ve identified the problem and explored different ways to solve it.
2️⃣ We’re now actively evaluating solutions, comparing vendors, and narrowing our shortlist.
3️⃣ We look at your solution multiple times, review case studies, and engage in deeper discussions.
4️⃣ We internally evaluate the risks, cost, and feasibility of implementing your solution.
5️⃣ We build consensus with finance, procurement, and IT.
6️⃣ We either select (a) you or (b) a competitor.
7️⃣ Procurement and contract negotiations begin.

Example activities

✅ Product information, product tours, webinars, trials or sandbox accounts
✅ Frictionless demo booking
✅ Clear pricing information
✅ Business cases, implementation roadmaps, answers to common questions
✅ Procurement & security documentation to eliminate objections

How most companies get it wrong

Even when buyers reach this stage, many vendors still lose deals because they focus too much on selling and not enough on enabling the buyer.

At this point, the buyer’s main questions are:

• ROI: What impact can we expect by when?
• Implementation: What will the rollout look like? What will you do and what do you expect from us? 
• Internal buy-in: Will my boss/stakeholders consider this a priority? How do I address their concerns and questions? 
• Change management: How much will this impact the current processes? Will we be able to drive adoption and necessary changes? 
• Risk: What happens if this goes wrong? How do we minimaize the risk? 

If you don’t work with your champion to provide clear, detailed answers to these concerns, they’ll go with a competitor who does.

2. The Buying Committee at the Center

At the heart of the model is the buying committee—the group of people who ultimately decide whether your product gets bought. And here’s where most demand gen programs fall apart:

🚫 They focus on the ideal customer profile (ICP) as if it’s one person.
🚫 They treat all buyers the same, ignoring that different roles have different motivations.

A buying committee is not just one persona—it consists of multiple roles, each with different reasons for engaging:

• Champions – The ones pushing for your solution.
• Power Users – The people who will actually use the product and care about ease of use.
• Decision-Makers – The budget owners who need to justify ROI.
• Blockers – IT, compliance, or finance teams that can kill the deal.
• Influencers – Internal advisors or external consultants who shape opinions.

💡 Example: A company selling HR software had a highly successful demand gen program targeting HR leaders—but deals were getting blocked at IT. Why? Because IT preferred solutions that integrated with Microsoft, and they didn’t trust third-party software. The sales team had no strategy for IT, so deals stalled.

🔹 How to Get It Right:
✅ Identify your primary buyer persona (the role that will push for your solution).
✅ Map out who else in the buying committee influences the decision.
✅ Make sure you’re addressing each key role—because what resonates with HR won’t work for IT, finance, or procurement.

And make sure you’re distributing your content and assets to the right people. Which brings me to the next element of the model. 

3. Demand Generation is Only as Good as Its Distribution

A full-funnel demand gen model isn’t just about what you create—it’s about where and how you distribute it.

🚫 Posting a blog on your website and hoping for traffic? Not enough.
🚫 Running a few LinkedIn ads? Not enough.
🚫 Sending out gated content and waiting for inbound leads? Not enough.

Your buyers are not coming to you—you need to go to them.

Four Layers of Effective Distribution

1️⃣ Organic Distribution (Content that spreads naturally)

• LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube (where your buyers consume content).
• Engaging in industry communities, Reddit, and Slack groups.
• SEO for long-term discoverability.

2️⃣ Paid Distribution (Amplify what’s already working)

• Promote top-performing content, not just gated assets.
• Run ads to educational content first, not just demo pages.

3️⃣ One-to-One Distribution (Direct engagement from sales)

• Sales teams should be sending high-value content (not just “checking in”).
• Personal outreach should be insight-driven, not sales-driven.

4️⃣ Amplification through Partners & Influencers

• Leverage guest posts, podcast interviews, and co-marketing.
• Get industry influencers to share your content (this builds trust faster than brand ads).

💡 Example: One company we worked with had amazing content, but engagement was low. Their problem? They weren’t distributing it effectively. When they started repurposing their reports into LinkedIn posts, running targeted ads on high-intent keywords, and having sales share insights in 1:1 conversations, engagement skyrocketed—and so did inbound opportunities.

4. Capturing Demand at the Right Time

Once you’ve successfully generated demand, the next critical step is capturing that demand.

At this point, buyers have:
✅ Identified a clear need and made solving it a priority.
✅ Researched different solution types and concluded that your category is the right fit.
✅ Evaluated multiple vendors, including you, and narrowed their choices.

🚨 The Goal Now: Convert this demand into sales opportunities.

One of the biggest gaps in traditional demand generation is misaligning sales outreach with actual buying intent. Many companies focus on immediate lead conversion, assuming that if someone downloads a whitepaper, attends a webinar, or engages with a LinkedIn post, they’re ready for a demo.

Demand capture is about identifying and acting on intent signals to accelerate deals. We break it down into three core areas:

1️⃣ Capturing Intent Signals – Understanding which accounts are showing signs of buying interest.
2️⃣ Inbound Demand Capture – Making it easy for in-market buyers to find and choose you.
3️⃣ Allbound Demand Capture – Proactively engaging high-intent buyers based on observed behavior.

1. Capture Intent Signals

Before you can capture demand, you need to identify the right signals—data that tells you which accounts are actively looking for a solution like yours.

📌 Website Traffic & Social Engagement

• Visits to high-intent pages (pricing, case studies, demo page).
• Repeat visits from specific named accounts.
• Engagement with your content on LinkedIn or Twitter.

📌 Retargeting List Engagement

• Visitors interacting with retargeting ads multiple times.
• Accounts spending significant time on key pages.

📌 Event & Webinar Attendance

• Signing up for a webinar, especially if it’s late-stage content (e.g., ROI analysis, customer case studies).
• Attending industry events where your company has a presence.

📌 2nd Party Intent Data (Review Sites & Directories)

• Accounts actively visiting G2, Capterra, TrustRadius and researching your category.
• Comparing your solution with competitors.

📌 3rd Party Intent Data (Paid Platforms & ABM Tools)

• Platforms like 6sense, Bombora, or Demandbase detecting increased activity in your category.
• Identifying spikes in engagement across multiple stakeholders in an account.

Once you capture these signals, the next step is knowing how to act on them.

2. Inbound Demand Capture

Inbound capture focuses on pulling buyers in when they’re already actively searching—instead of chasing them, you’re ensuring they can easily find you and validate their decision.

Search Intent Capture (Google Ads & SEO)

• Buyers searching for a solution are highly motivated—meet them where they are.
• Optimize Google Ads and landing pages for high-intent keywords.
• In addition to landing pages aligned with keywords, don’t ignore the rest of your website.
  • ✅ Clear product pages with use cases and pricing transparency.
  • ✅ Interactive demos & calculators that let them self-educate.
  • ✅ Fast & frictionless demo booking—let them schedule directly without back-and-forth emails.

Review & Directory Listings (G2, Capterra, TrustRadius)

• Buyers actively researching in G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius are already evaluating solutions—make sure your presence is strong.
• Encourage customer reviews and case studies to boost credibility.
• Run paid placements in directories where top buyers compare options.

Retargeting 

The goal is to engage known accounts and individuals who have already interacted with demand generation content and might be moving toward a buying decision.

Key retargeting audiences:

• Website visitors (but not all—only high-intent ones).
• Social media engagers (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.).
• Event and webinar attendees.

Qualified Retargeting. In high ACV B2B sales, not every visitor is valuable, so you need to qualify retargeting efforts to focus on accounts that fit your ICP.

One of the biggest mistakes in B2B retargeting is treating it only as a conversion mechanism. In addition, retargeting should be part of the nurturing process, moving buyers toward deeper engagement. It should be a mix of: 

• CTA ads (e.g. book a demo)
• Product marketing ads (e.g. key capabilities, problem-solution)
• Social proof – Share case studies, industry reports, customer success stories.

3. Allbound Demand Capture Proactively Converting Engagement into Opportunities

While inbound demand capture focuses on making it easy for high-intent buyers to find and choose you, Allbound demand capture is about proactively tracking engagement and intent signals to move accounts toward meaningful conversations before they reach out on their own.

🚀 The Goal: Ensure that marketing and sales work together to track buyer engagement and trigger the right playbooks at the right time. The key is to align outreach with the buyer’s actual journey—not based on assumptions, but on real behavioral signals.

1. Tracking Intent & Engagement Signals

Before running any playbooks, you need to define which signals actually indicate buyer intent or engagement.

📌 Examples of Engagement Signals You Can Track:

• Retargeting Ads: Accounts engaging with ads promoting high-value content.
• Website Activity: Repeated visits to high-intent pages (pricing, case studies, product comparisons).
• Content Hub Engagement: Accounts consuming multiple resources in a dedicated hub.
• Webinar Signups & Attendance: Particularly for solution-focused webinars.
• Newsletter Engagement: Regular open and click behaviour (not just one-time interactions).
• 2nd Party Intent Data: Accounts researching your company or competitors on G2, Capterra, or TrustRadius.
• Social Content Engagement: Likes, shares, or comments on LinkedIn posts by key decision-makers in target accounts.

⚠️ What This Is NOT:
❌ This is not about MQL scoring—just because someone reads a blog post doesn’t mean they’re ready for sales.
❌ Not every signal = buying intent—you need to classify signals based on level of engagement and where the buyer is in their journey.

Once signals are defined, it’s time to set up the right playbooks to act on these insights.

2. Turn Engagement into Meaningful Conversations

The biggest mistake companies make? Treating all engagements the same.

Your approach should match the buyer’s level of intent. Let’s break this down with real-world examples.

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📌 Scenario 1: Low-Intent Engagement (Early Awareness Stage)

🔹 Example: A target account engages with your content on social media or in a community discussion.

Does this mean they’re ready to buy? ❌ No.
At this stage, they are just becoming aware of you and have low or no buying intent.

🔹 What to do instead?
✅ Marketing: Reach out with a simple profiling question:

“Hey, I saw you engaged with our post about ABM. Are you running an ABM program or just exploring?”

✅ If they reply, follow up with relevant content based on their response:

“We recently recorded an ABM strategy guide—happy to share it if you’re interested.”

🚀 Why this works:

• It’s non-salesy and provides value.
• It qualifies their level of interest without assuming intent.
• It creates an opportunity to nurture the relationship over time.

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📌 Scenario 2: Medium-Intent Engagement (Solution Evaluation Stage)

🔹 Example: A target account signs up for a webinar about “How to Launch a Demand Gen Program in 90 Days.”

Does this mean they want to buy from you? ❌ Not yet.
But it does mean they are actively researching solutions and looking for different approaches.

🔹 What to do?
✅ Marketing: Send a follow-up email with:

• The webinar recording.
• A link to a content hub with additional insights on the same topic.

✅ Sales:

• Review who attended and how engaged they were.
• Check the analytics—did they visit the content hub?
• Send a soft-touch LinkedIn message:

“Hey, saw you attended our webinar on demand gen. Curious—are you looking to launch a program soon?”

🚀 Why this works:

• It identifies who is actually interested vs. who was just browsing.
• It helps segment early-stage buyers vs. accounts that are moving forward.
• It builds trust by offering more insights, not just pushing for a call.

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📌 Scenario 3: High-Intent Engagement (Buying Decision Stage)

🔹 Example: A specific account repeatedly visits high-intent pages (pricing, case studies) and multiple stakeholders from the same company are engaging with your content.

Does this mean they are ready for a sales conversation? ✅ Yes, most likely.
When you see multiple people from the same company engaging, it’s a strong buying signal.

🔹 What to do?
✅ Marketing: Add this account to a customized retargeting program.
✅ Sales: Look for a named buyer in CRM—someone who attended an event or engaged previously.
✅ If no named buyer is available: Find the most likely champion and send a personalized outreach message:

“Hey Tim, I noticed your team has been checking out our case studies. Are you currently evaluating ABM programs?”

✅ If the response is positive:

• Offer a tailored consultation with a subject matter expert.
• Share a business case template to help them internally justify the purchase.

🚀 Why this works:

• Engages the account at the right moment—not too early, not too late.
• Provides relevant resources based on what they’ve already shown interest in.
• Moves the conversation forward naturally, rather than forcing a sales pitch.

3. Building Allbound Demand Capture Playbooks

To make Allbound demand capture work, you need documented playbooks that outline:

📌 Which signals matter?

• Define what counts as low, medium, and high intent.

📌 What action should be taken?

• What should marketing do?
• What should sales do?
• What content should be shared?

📌 What next steps should follow?

• If an account responds, what’s the next logical CTA?
• If they don’t respond, how do we continue nurturing?

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Takeaways and the next steps

It takes many quarters and 300+ touchpoints to generate a $50K+ deal. And it’s not enough to focus on buyers currently in the market, because most select a vendor they discovered BEFORE they start their buying process. 

If you only try to capture the demand or prospect accounts that are actively buying, you are already late.

Understand how and why your customers are buying.

Define the key activities to create awareness, attract attention, and generate demand aligned with the buyer journey.

Develop a demand generation function with a long-term mindset.

If you need help with developing a B2B demand generation function,  book a call here or dm me on LinkedIn with additional questions. 

If you want to uplift your skills and learn more about the complete Demand Generation Strategy, get step-by-step guidelines to launch a program in 90 days to generate account engagement and marketing-sourced pipeline check out our B2B Demand Generation Playbook.

Inside you’ll find:

• Five behind-the-scenes demand generation playbooks 
• 25 short and actionable videos and tutorials (no theory or high-level overview, just 15-mins max videos to explain a specific process or show how to implement it) 
• 10 ready-to-use templates, Including demand gen reports, budgeting, creating playbooks, a pilot demand generation program presentation, demand generation program examples, thought leadership, nurturing content production templates, and many more
• 30/60/90 launch plan: get step-by-step instructions, a plan, and a timeline