The myth of linear B2B funnels
Traditional top-of-funnel ebooks and gated whitepapers create vanity leads that burden sales reps without generating closed-won revenue. Modern B2B buyers conduct 80% of their research anonymously before ever filling out a form.
Demand creation vs demand capture
Demand creation happens in dark social, podcasts, industry slack groups, and YouTube. Demand capture happens on Google and high-intent comparison queries when the buyer has an active budget and an executive mandate.
Building the capture engine
Architecting high-intent capture pages requires brutal honesty about competitor alternatives, pricing transparency, and instant access to qualified product demonstrations without lengthy SDR disqualification sequences.
Bottom-of-funnel search signals
Target “[competitor] alternatives”, “[use case] software for [industry]”, and pricing queries where buyer search volume may be low but commercial intent and conversion rates surpass 8%.
Conversion friction points
Cut unnecessary form fields, replace email gating with ungated value assets, and let qualified enterprise buyers self-schedule calls directly into account executive calendars.
Measuring revenue pipeline
Stop measuring marketing qualified leads (MQLs). Shift reporting to qualified sales pipeline, win rates, and customer acquisition cost payback periods.