Your Blueprint for a High-Impact Demand Generation Framework
Is your sales pipeline running dry?
There’s a good chance your problem is a lack of demand gen. You need to build awareness before customers are ready to buy.
By engaging prospects early, you're known, trusted, and on the shortlist when the buying window opens.
What Is a Demand Generation Framework?
A demand generation framework is a set of processes for building awareness and interest before prospects are ready to buy. It educates them about the problems products solve, features, and benefits. This makes convincing them to buy far easier when they’re in the market.
It’s often confused with three other types of marketing that occur later in the sales pipeline:
Lead generation: Collecting prospects’ contact details
Demand capture: Targeting buyers already looking to buy
Account-based marketing (ABM): Going after specific corporate accounts
Creating demand is the first step to winning new customers. Active shoppers usually have preferred brands and shortlists. And if you haven’t made a connection yet, you may be too late, even with a top-shelf copywriter and a premium ad spot.
It’s no surprise that nearly half (45%) of B2B brands consider demand generation to be a strategic necessity, according to research by Activate.
Demand gen focuses on high-quality engagement and meeting potential buyers where they are through ads, organic content, social media, Google searches, webinars, and industry events.
A strong demand generation strategy relies on sales and marketing teams working together to increase interest through:
Audience segmentation
Buyer persona development
Content creation
Lead nurturing
Sales messaging
The end goal is an evergreen pipeline packed with high-quality leads that frees you from a frustrating cycle of peaks and troughs.
Demand Generation Framework Examples
What do great demand generation campaigns look like in the real world? Let’s learn from three companies that do it right.
HubSpot
HubSpot generated $2.63 billion in revenue in 2024, marking 21% year-over-year growth. Part of that is down to its credibility-boosting marketing.
HubSpot develops engaging and informative resources, including blog posts, reports, courses, and social media content. The blog is mostly ungated, only requiring web visitors to give their email addresses for deeper content when relationships are likely already established. This allows awareness to build naturally.
Plus, HubSpot always fits its approach to the platform, and it’s not afraid to stand out. For example, its LinkedIn strategy involves posting casual, playful posts alongside more serious business content.
Artisan
Artisan is an AI sales startup transforming sales pipelines. As a startup in a new category, Artisan had virtually no presence on Google and a one-person marketing “team” a year ago.
Today, 40% of its blog posts rank in the top ten on Google, and the content brings in over 40 thousand monthly sessions.
The blog is high-quality and successfully targets an array of keywords (like “what is an AI SDR” in the example below). This cemented their market position, building relationships with potential customers through value.
Artisan also ran a “ragebait,” attention-grabbing ad campaign that took recognition from 5% to 70% in San Francisco and increased brand searches by 197%.
Revolut
Revolut, a finance app, saw net profits skyrocket by 129% to $1bn in 2024. The increase was the result of a rise in subscriptions and revenue from crypto trading.
Revolut focuses on product-led growth, pioneering virtual cards, crypto trading, low currency exchange fees, and budgeting tools in its marketing. This builds trust with prospects. It also has a strong incentive scheme, which focuses on word-of-mouth advertising—a strong indicator of product-market fit.
It also has a witty and relatable social media presence. On Instagram, the team focuses on providing value. It shares company successes, answers customer questions, or shares finance tips.
Key Components of a Demand Generation Framework
For it to work effectively, a demand gen framework needs to focus on three areas: memorability, nurturing relationships, and conversions.
Let’s look at each of these in depth.
Generating Demand: Making a Memorable Impression
Before you generate leads, you need to generate attention. It’s not about hard selling. It’s showing up where your future buyers are, clearly explaining what you do, and becoming a brand they recognize.
Below are the most effective paid and organic lead attraction strategies.
Content Marketing
Content brings people to your website looking for information. It’s a value exchange: you answer their burning questions, and in return, your audience gains awareness of your product and establishes you as trustworthy.
Here are the main types of content marketing assets:
Blog posts
Reports/whitepapers
Ebooks
Podcasts
Videos
All content should be easily searchable, so create the content that meets SEO best practices.
Similarly, don’t target high-volume, ultra-competitive keywords when you’re starting out. The #1 result for a search term has 10 times the CTR of a #10 result, according to research by Backlinko. Stay realistic and aim for high rankings rather than high volume.
Social Media Content
Developing an interesting profile that gets people talking, liking, and sharing generates attention, which in turn creates awareness and demand.
Instagram and TikTok, in particular, are good spaces for sharing lighthearted content and storytelling.
Humor can work well for brands. But be sure that your content fits your brand messaging and doesn’t cause offense.
The viral video below was created by one of Sephora’s employees. It humanizes the brand and rides on the “of course” TikTok trend. As a result, it went viral and now has over 1.2 million likes.
Once you build a following, you can also encourage your audience to create content about your products. This is known as user-generated content (UGC).
For example, Apple’s Instagram often uses the hashtag #shotoniphone to show what its camera can do. Tens of millions of posts feature the hashtag—that’s a lot of free content.
LinkedIn is a better fit for thought leadership content, industry insights, and company news. But remember that you don’t always need to go deep. LinkedIn is a space for quality but bite-sized info. Direct viewers to your website to learn more.
In the example below, Ahrefs’ CMO, Tim Soulo, shares the generous bonus the company gave its marketing team. While this may not look like marketing, it increases positive sentiment and keeps the brand top of mind.
Paid Advertising
Creative ads are excellent at creating awareness about your product or brand. Often, they don’t need a dedicated CTA. Instead, their function is simply to generate memorable associations.
Brands rely predominantly on the following platforms for paid advertising:
Google Ads
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram
In the example below, pharmaceutical company Novartis uses storytelling to create brand awareness on LinkedIn.
Lead Nurturing: Strengthening Relationships and Staying Top of Mind
Once leads recognize your brand and products, the next step is to develop the relationship.
At this point, the lead still isn’t ready to buy, and you must find a balance between overmessaging and being forgotten. Personalized, sequenced content that’s relevant to the prospect is best.
Use the following channels to reach prospects with tailored content:
Email and LinkedIn messaging: Send personalized emails that target users' pain points and characteristics.
Webinars and events: Host events that show your expertise, provide value, and build relationships.
Retargeting ads: Draw lost leads back into your pipeline with ads that reengage.
Case studies: Increase social proof by sharing case studies of clients that benefited from your services. Add seductive stats and testimonials.
Here’s an example of a simple lead-nurturing email:
Subject: How [similar brand] reduced churn in 6 weeks
Hi [name],
Congrats on your recent job change to [recipient company].
[Product] helped [similar brand] cut churn by 20%. We think you could benefit too.
Would you like to see a case study?
To nurture effectively, you need to know as much about the prospect as possible. One way to learn more is through surveys and feedback requests. However, the easier option is by accessing enriched databases filled with current, relevant data that makes personalization just a few clicks away.
For example, Artisan’s database contains over 300 million contacts. Entries are regularly enriched with data from company news, social media, and more. Understanding leads has never been easier.
Converting Demand into Customers
The final step of the demand gen funnel is turning demand into customers.
By now, leads should know about your products and how they solve their problems. They should also have shifted into the ready-to-buy category. For example, leads may have accessed your pricing page or visited competitor pages.
Here are the four most common tactics for converting leads:
Product demos: Invite leads to try the product. Your experts should tailor demos to leads and address concerns and questions.
Special offers and time limits: Don’t overuse these tactics. Definitely don’t lie. But offering a free trial, lower price, or perks can push a purchase over the line.
Web copy with social proof: Leads see an ad, then head to your website. This is the make-or-break moment. Your web copy must be top-notch. Include social proof to engage them in this key moment. Think awards, high ratings, and customer testimonials.
Meetings and calls: Having a conversation with warm leads helps the sales team to better understand what they need and build closer relationships. Often, a rep will close a deal then and there.
Thanks to the early stages of your demand generation framework, you’re already on prospects’ radar. All you need to do is overcome final obstacles and convince them you’re the best choice.
Aligning Marketing and Sales in Demand Generation
The gap between sales and marketing is sometimes called the “great divide” because it’s that difficult to bridge.
But aligning teams is necessary. Otherwise, you’ll confuse leads with mismatched messages and miss opportunities.
The Role of Marketing in Generating Demand
The marketing team’s job is to generate interest and bring in high-quality leads via ads and organic marketing.
Below are a few of the marketing team’s domains:
Marketing is responsible for all of the following areas:
Developing content (blogs, YouTube videos, whitepapers) that builds authority in relevant niches
Launching targeted ad campaigns
Running company events and webinars
Ensuring SEO gets eyes on pages
Combining multi-channel marketing
Marketers work on your website and social channels. They run inbound campaigns, attracting prospects to your funnel with effective messaging.
Across each of these channels, company values and product benefits should be obvious. You’ll be more memorable if audiences can recognize your brand purely by your colors, style, and messaging.
Coca-Cola is a branding genius. Below is a TikTok video featuring Coca-Cola’s signature red and white.
The Role of BDRs and SDRs in Lead Nurturing
Active nurturing is the responsibility of business development representatives (BDRs) and sales development representatives (SDRs).
Let’s explore the differences between BDRs and SDRs.
Here’s how BDRs nurture leads with outbound sales:
Outreach via cold email or calls to engage high-quality prospects
Reengaging cold leads with personalized messages
Here’s how SDRs nurture leads with inbound sales tactics:
Qualifying leads and assessing their behavior
One-on-one relationship building with leads during the early stages of the sales funnel
Once upon a time, sales teams had to take on these tasks manually, which took up large amounts of time and resources. It could take weeks to contact just 100 leads. Modern AI tools have changed this.
For example, AI outreach platform Artisan has a suite of data scraping and personalization features. AI BDR Ava can send hundreds of tailored emails every day, all on autopilot.
6 Key Steps for Building Your Demand Generation Framework
With all the groundwork covered, it’s time to start bringing your demand generation framework to life. Here are six actionable steps you can follow to make prospects more aware of your brand.
1. Start with Data-Driven Insights to Define Your ICP
Companies with a properly developed ideal customer profile (ICP) move faster and get better results.
Your ICP should include:
Channels used
Tech stack
Firmographics
Demographics
Pain points
Location
Your marketing and sales teams should target these “perfect” customers. They are the people most likely to value your product or service and, therefore, stick around longer.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to developing your ICP:
Initial research: Ask key stakeholders in sales and marketing about ideal customer features and characteristics.
Go deeper and get the data: Dive into market research and customer analysis. Who is benefiting most from your product and sticking around the longest? Are there any relevant industry reports about customer types?
Building the profile: Pinpoint the qualities of a high-value customer. Be specific.
Share your ICP and refine: Your whole company needs to be on the same page with your ICP. Always be on the lookout for data that supports or rejects qualities in your ICP.
Once you’ve identified who you’re targeting, you can streamline your demand generation efforts by scoring leads based on how they fit. Most automated sales tools do this on autopilot based on your ICP inputs.
2. Map Out the Buyer’s Journey for Lead Nurturing
The next step is to gather data on how your customers act. The buyer's journey will change as your business grows and the market changes.
But there is a general path most customers follow. And you should create different types of content tailored to each stage.
1. The awareness stage in which buyers notice a problem or need:
Informational blog posts
Podcasts
Social media content
B2B companies should focus on providing value with deep, easy-to-read content. Here’s a great example of a “how to” article from Artisan:
2. The consideration stage in which buyers specify the issue and research solutions:
Case studies
Webinars
Testimonials
Reviews
Every enticing case study begins with a headline that makes potential customers want to learn more. Including eye-watering stats is also a great tactic, as in the Stripe example below.
3. The decision stage in which buyers choose the best solution:
Product demos
Free trials
Special offers
In the email below, Linktree offers a 25% discount to encourage buyers in the decision stage over the line.
Remember to tailor each stage to your ICP. Always monitor responses and interactions. And account for the fact that B2B demand generation and sales processes take longer. There are multiple decision makers and large sums on the line, meaning you need to provide in-depth, valuable content across multiple touchpoints.
3. Develop Multi-Touch Campaigns for Each Stage of the Funnel
A marketing funnel visualizes the progression of a lead from initial awareness to in-market consideration, the point at which a sales rep takes over. It’s important to create content for all stages of this journey.
A typical marketing funnel is split into three stages:
Top of funnel (ToFu): Prospects discover your brand and products.
Middle of funnel (MoFu): Prospects aren’t ready to buy but have shown interest.
Bottom of funnel (BoFu): Prospects are close to purchasing.
It’s important to set and track KPIs for each stage. But don’t get caught up with seductive but ultimately meaningless metrics.
For example, reducing your bounce rate by 20% is only valuable for BoFu content if it leads to more conversions.
In addition, including multiple touchpoints at each stage makes your brand more memorable and ensures you meet prospects on their preferred channels.
Engage prospects by marketing across all of the following mediums:
Social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram)
Email newsletters
Paid search/online ads (Google Ads, paid social media ads)
Content marketing (blogs, whitepapers, case studies)
Webinars and virtual events
Landing pages and website content
Influencer collaborations
It’s also important to tailor content to the nuances and specifics of individual platforms. A deep-dive feature landing page, for example, will almost certainly flop if it's repurposed as a social media post.
For example, Duolingo runs multi-channel campaigns. On TikTok, it’s casual and witty. As a result, it has over five million followers, and its content often goes viral—the post below has almost seven million likes.
On LinkedIn, however, Duolingo takes a more serious approach, sharing insights that fellow professionals would value.
While you can repurpose content across other channels, don’t repost willy-nilly. Context is key. You must edit the content to fit each platform.
4. Implement Lead Scoring and Segmentation for Better Targeting
Don’t waste time on leads who will never buy. Lead scoring prioritizes prospects based on engagement, fit, and readiness to purchase.
Here’s how to score leads based on their level of engagement using a points-based system:
Give points for each specific engagement, such as email opens, website visits, or content downloads.
Give points for leads who match your ICP, such as firmographic, technographic, or current news.
Subtract points for negative behaviors, such as inactivity or unsubscribing.
Weigh each action accurately. For example, visiting the pricing page may be worth 20 points, while landing only on the homepage may be worth ten points.
The next step is to set thresholds for each lead category:
Hot: A lead on the cusp of buying (80+ points)
Warm: A lead showing positive interest but not ready to buy (20-80 points)
Cold: A disengaged or incompatible lead (<20 points)
Leads require different approaches depending on which bucket they fall into. For example, taking a step back is best for cold leads. But a hot lead needs quick engagement to seal the deal.
5. Optimize Your SEO Content Strategy for Demand Generation
Having an SEO-focused content strategy is one thing. Having an optimized content strategy is another. The worst thing you can do with content designed for search is hit publish and then forget about it.
You should continuously track the performance of your content and refine your approach. Over time, you’ll see tangible increases in engagement, shares, and conversions.
Here are some tips for improving your SEO-focused content marketing:
Use tools such as Google Trends, Ahrefs, and Google Ads Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords for SEO content.
Create content that fits searcher intent closely (for example, “best engine manufacturer” is mid-funnel and suits a comparison).
Ask subject matter experts to give input into blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, and case studies to build trust and authority.
Add clear CTAs to collect contact details for buying-intent keywords.
Gain high-quality backlinks by producing guest posts and surveys (these can be simple questionnaires—you don’t have to break the bank for a full report).
Track performance and refine your strategy based on results.
6. Invest in Marketing and Sales Technology for Automation and Scaling
Experts have likened the introduction of AI to the start of the Internet. The tools now available that cut time and save resources can’t be ignored. And being an early adopter gives you a clear advantage.
In fact, 81% of sales teams say they use AI today, according to research by Salesforce. Using AI is a particularly effective strategy for startups, allowing them to start working as though they had a large team from day one.
Here are the main opportunities for automating your sales processes:
B2B data enrichment for deeper knowledge about leads
Email outreach with automated, personalized messaging
Lead scoring and intent tracking to tell you which leads to prioritize
Reporting that provides real-time insights and automated optimization
A/B testing of different messages and copy elements
Website visitor tracking with automated follow-up outreach
Artisan is an example of a next-gen AI platform that combines an array of impressive features. Virtual BDR Ava scrapes the web for detailed insights into leads, sends personalized outreach at scale, and optimizes campaigns in the background.
Take the Next Step in Creating Your Demand Generation Framework
A good demand generation framework transforms your sales process, bringing more revenue and reliability. It engages leads before they're ready to buy with persuasive, informative marketing.
Add AI to the mix, and you have an even more potent combination.
An AI-first platform like Artisan automates and scales significant portions of your sales cycle. Virtual BDR Ava researches prospects, delivers personalized messages, tracks performance, A/B tests campaigns, and more.
