If you work in B2B marketing, you have probably felt the pressure: more pipeline, better opportunities, less waste. Demand generation sits right in the middle of that tension. Done well, it builds awareness, creates real interest and moves the right buyers toward your sales team without relying on another list of low intent leads.
In this guide, we will unpack what B2B demand generation actually is, how it works in practice, and the innovative approaches high performing teams are using in 2025 to create sustainable growth.
We will keep things grounded in the reality of complex buying groups, long sales cycles and limited internal resources, particularly for Australian and APAC based teams.
What is B2B demand generation?
B2B demand generation is the strategy and set of activities you use to create awareness, interest and intent for your products or services among the right accounts and buyers.
Instead of asking “how many leads did we get this month”, demand generation asks questions like:
- Are we known among our ideal customers?
- Are the right people engaging with our content and sales team?
- Is our pipeline made up of opportunities that actually close at a reasonable cost?
At its core, B2B demand generation focuses on:
- Educating the market so buyers understand the problem you solve and why it matters
- Positioning your brand as the safe, credible choice
- Creating buying intent long before someone fills in a form or talks to sales
Lead generation is usually about capturing contact details. Demand generation is about creating the conditions where those details are worth something.
Key characteristics of modern B2B demand generation
To put some shape around it, most effective demand generation programs share a few traits:
- They are audience first
- They blend brand and performance rather than treating them as separate
- They align tightly with sales and customer success
- They are measured on pipeline and revenue, not just MQLs
If your activity feels like a collection of disconnected campaigns rather than a coordinated engine, you are probably still in lead gen mode.
How B2B demand generation works
Demand generation is not a single tactic. It is a system. A simple way to think about it is in three layers.
1. Foundation: strategy, ICP and messaging
Everything starts with clarity. Before you worry about channels or creative, you need:
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)
Who are the accounts you want more of, based on firmographics, technographics and revenue potential. - Buying committee mapping
Who is involved in the decision and what they care about at each stage of the journey. - Positioning and narrative
Why you exist, why you are different and why that difference matters commercially.
Without this work, even clever campaigns will struggle. You end up talking to everyone and resonating with no one.
2. Engine: always on programs across channels
Once the foundations are clear, demand generation becomes about orchestrating always-on programs that appear where your buyers spend time. That usually includes a mix of:
- Paid search and paid social
- Organic content and SEO
- Email and lifecycle flows
- Events, webinars and communities
- Sales outreach and enablement content
The point is not to be everywhere. It is to consistently be where your best buyers actually are, with a clear, consistent story.
3. Feedback loop: data, intent and optimisation
Finally, demand generation works when you close the loop with data. Innovative teams:
- Track account and buyer level engagement across channels
- Use first and third party intent signals to see who is warming up
- Feed this insight into sales, creative and media decisions
The engine improves over time because you understand which topics, formats and channels genuinely move buyers closer to a commercial conversation.
Innovative approaches to B2B demand generation in 2025
Many B2B brands are still running webinar blasts, gated PDF campaigns and bottom funnel search ads and calling it demand gen. The more innovative teams are taking a different route.
Let’s examine some of the approaches that are currently gaining traction.
1. From lead lists to account and buying group engagement
Instead of tracking individual leads in isolation, leading teams are optimising for engagement at an account and buying group level.
That looks like:
- Scoring engagement across all contacts in an account, not just one person
- Watching patterns such as “three people from the same company attended different events in the last month”
- Triggering sales plays based on account level readiness, not a single form fill
This shift helps marketing and sales focus on where there is a real project, budget and timeline, rather than chasing down every whitepaper download.
2. Combining ABM and demand generation
Account based marketing and demand generation are no longer separate camps. The most effective programs bring them together.
In practice, that often means:
- Using ABM principles to set your target account list and tiers
- Running broad demand creation campaigns across your target market to build awareness and education
- Layering in one to few or one to one programs for high value segments
- Personalising creative, landing pages and offers based on industry or problem
Recent ABM benchmarks from Demandbase show top B2B teams achieving significantly higher ROI when they treat ABM as a broader growth strategy rather than a single channel.
3. Building media-style content engines
Instead of publishing a handful of long blogs and hoping for the best, innovative B2B marketers are acting more like specialist media companies.
That typically includes:
- Defining a handful of content pillars aligned to core pain points
- Running recurring formats such as shows, series or office hours
- Repurposing one core asset into multiple derivatives
- Distributing content heavily via paid and organic channels
The shift is from “campaign-based content” to “ongoing audience building”.
4. Community, peers and customer voice
Buyers trust peers more than they trust brands. That is not new, but some demand gen teams are building entire plays around it.
You will see approaches such as:
- Invite only communities for specific roles or sectors
- Customer councils or advisory groups that feed both product and marketing
- Customer-led webinars where marketing barely speaks
- Case studies structured as “how we made the business case” rather than generic success stories
This is not fluffy brand work. When done well, it creates direct access to decision-makers and shows the language you can feed back into ads and landing pages.
5. High intent content journeys
Rather than producing random assets, leading teams design content journeys that map to the real buying process.
For instance:
- A strategic POV article that reframes the problem
- A practical “how to” guide that shows the path forward
- A calculator or framework that helps quantify impact
- A case study that deals with internal objections
Each piece builds on the last, with clear CTAs that logically move someone to the next step, whether that is another asset, a webinar, or a sales conversation.
This is particularly powerful when combined with strong SEO, so these journeys capture both existing and latent demand.
6. Creative that looks nothing like traditional B2B
A noticeable creative gap is emerging. B2B brands willing to lean into more distinctive, emotionally resonant creative are standing out in feeds clogged with generic headlines.
Innovative teams are:
- Using strong, simple visual systems that are instantly recognisable
- Writing headlines in plain language that speak to a current lived pain point
- Testing narrative angles, not just button colours
- Letting subject matter experts be the “face” of the brand
The opportunity here is to look and sound like humans who understand the problem better than anyone else.
How to use intent data tools for demand generation
Intent data and buyer signal tools have gone from nice to have to core infrastructure for many B2B organisations. Whether you use UserGems, 6sense, Demandbase or another platform, the goal is the same: understand who is in market and where to prioritise effort.
Here is how innovative B2B marketers are folding these tools into their demand gen engine.
1. Prioritise accounts, not just contacts
Most tools will give you a mix of:
- Contact level signals such as job changes or content engagement
- Account level signals such as research activity on certain topics
Instead of handing every signal to sales, use it to:
- Prioritise ad spend on accounts showing increased activity
- Create micro segments for more relevant messaging
- Trigger outbound on accounts with multiple converging signals
2. Build “trigger-based” plays
Intent signals are most powerful when they kick off structured plays. For example:
- A key contact changes jobs to a target account
- Several people from one company visit pricing or comparison pages
- An account surges on specific competitor or category keywords
In response, you might:
- Launch a 30 day account specific program across LinkedIn, email and outbound
- Serve tailored ads that focus on switching risk, implementation or ROI
- Invite key contacts to a small, relevant event such as a roundtable
The point is to respond quickly with relevant value, not generic pitches.
3. Close the loop with sales and marketing
Finally, your intent platform should not sit in a silo. Leading teams:
- Integrate signals into CRM and sales engagement tools
- Run regular reviews with sales to refine playbooks
- Use win and loss data to refine scoring and models
Over time, you will see which signals genuinely correlate to pipeline and revenue, not just clicks and opens. That is where you double down.
Why leading B2B companies are shifting from lead generation to demand generation
Vendors such as Cognism have spoken openly about shifting away from traditional lead gen towards a demand generation approach focused on building awareness, educating their market and aligning more tightly with sales.
While every business is different, the drivers are usually similar:
- Lead quality problems
Big volumes of low-intent leads that never progress beyond an initial call. - Sales friction
Sales teams are frustrated with marketing-sourced “leads” that do not match the ICP. - Misleading metrics
Dashboards that look great on MQL volume but poor on pipeline, win rates and CAC. - Buying behaviour changes
Buyers doing more self directed research and expecting to find answers before they talk to a rep.
The shift to demand gen is essentially a decision to:
- Optimise for quality over volume
- Invest earlier in the buying journey
- Build brand equity that continues to pay off, rather than “one and done” campaigns
For many organisations, that also means being brave enough to kill lead gen tactics that look good in a weekly report but drag down real commercial performance.
Measuring B2B demand generation success
If you move to a demand gen model but keep reporting like a lead gen machine, you will run into trouble quickly. The numbers no longer tell the right story.
You will want a mix of commercial, behavioural and leading indicators.
Commercial metrics
Start here. If demand gen is not influencing these, something is off.
- Pipeline generated and influenced from target accounts
- Win rate and deal velocity for demand gen sourced opportunities
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC) and payback period
Behavioural and account-level metrics
These sit in the middle and give you a read on whether your programs are changing buyer behaviour.
- Account reach within your ICP
- Buying group penetration within key accounts
- Depth of engagement on high intent content
- Volume of self reported attribution such as “heard about you on…”
Leading indicators
Finally, there are top of funnel signals that show you are building future demand:
- Share of voice and branded search
- Content consumption and social engagement from ICP segments
- Event attendance and community participation from target accounts
The goal is not to report on everything. It is to agree with sales and leadership on a small, meaningful set of metrics that reflect the real impact of demand generation.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Even experienced teams hit a few predictable roadblocks when they try to modernise demand generation.
Here are some of the big ones and how to manage them.
1. Expecting instant results
Demand gen includes activities that build long-term equity. You still want clear, near-term outcomes, but it often takes several months before the new shape of your pipeline is obvious.
Set expectations early:
- Use pilot programs on specific segments or product lines
- Track leading indicators such as opportunity quality and win rate
- Tell a narrative in your reporting, not just show numbers in isolation
2. Treating content as an afterthought
Demand generation lives or dies on the strength of your content and messaging. If you underinvest here, the clever targeting will not save you.
Make sure you:
- Involve subject matter experts in content creation
- Speak plainly about real problems, instead of vague benefits
- Design content specifically for the channels you are using
3. Poor alignment with sales
If sales still believe marketing is sending low-value leads, any shift will be hard work.
A few practical alignment steps:
- Co-create definitions for key stages and handovers
- Run joint pipeline reviews with a focus on quality, not just volume
- Build feedback loops so sales can easily flag which sources and content themes are helping
4. Tech before process
Buying another platform without clear plays and processes is an expensive distraction.
Before you expand your toolset, document:
- How you define ICP and target accounts
- How marketing and sales will respond to specific signals
- Which channels and plays you will prioritise for each tier of account
Then bring in tech to support those workflows, not the other way round.
Ready to build a demand engine that actually drives pipeline?
If you are tired of chasing low-intent leads or running campaigns that look busy but do little for revenue, it is probably time to rethink your demand engine. We partner with B2B teams across Australia and APAC to build strategies, content programs and tracking foundations that create real commercial impact.
Whether you need a full demand generation roadmap, help standing up new campaigns or a clean analytics setup that lets you measure what matters, our team can support you.
Book a call with The Marketing Project today and let’s build a demand engine that grows with you.
FAQs: B2B demand generation
To round things out, here are some of the questions we are most often asked by B2B teams rethinking their approach.
What is the difference between demand generation and lead generation?
Lead generation is focused on collecting contact details, usually as quickly and cheaply as possible. Demand generation is focused on creating and capturing genuine buying intent among the right accounts and buyers, even if that means fewer overall leads.
In practice, demand gen usually results in:
- Fewer, higher quality inbound opportunities
- Better alignment between sales and marketing
- More predictable, efficient pipeline growth over time
How long does it take to see results from demand generation?
It depends on deal size, sales cycle length and how big a shift you are making. As a general guide, many B2B teams start seeing early indicators such as improved opportunity quality and better sales feedback within 2–3 months, with clearer commercial impact across 6–12 months.
Do you still need lead forms in a demand generation model?
Yes, but you use them more intentionally. Demand gen teams:
- Keep forms short and relevant for high value offers
- Use ungated content for early education and awareness
- Offer multiple “next steps” such as self guided demos, tools or events
The aim is to remove unnecessary friction early in the journey and collect details when there is real interest.
Is demand generation only for large enterprise brands?
Not at all. The principles of:
- Knowing your ICP
- Educating your market
- Aligning with sales
- Measuring pipeline and revenue
apply whether you are a 10 person SaaS company or a large enterprise. Smaller teams often have an advantage because they can shift faster and build a clear, distinctive point of view without layers of internal sign off.
How does ABM fit into B2B demand generation?
ABM is essentially a way of focusing your demand generation on the accounts that matter most. Many teams now:
- Use ABM to define and prioritise accounts by tier
- Run broad demand creation programs across their ICP
- Layer ABM plays on top for top tier accounts
Recent research indicates that when ABM is tied into broader demand and brand activity, it can deliver significantly higher ROI and stronger sales alignment than isolated ABM campaigns.
