Lesson 1: Demand gen content marketing philosophy
Why this lesson matters:
If you take one thing away from this lesson, let it be this: Content doesn’t just support demand gen, it is demand gen.
But only when it’s built like a machine. That means consistent, character-led, and genuinely worth coming back for.
In B2B, too many content programs are still just calendars. Random acts of content. Isolated blog posts. One-off videos. Whitepapers that get published and forgotten.
What you need is a media engine. The kind of engine that shows up every week in your buyers’ inbox, feed, podcast app, or YouTube queue. One that earns attention, builds trust, and creates pipeline before intent is ever declared.
This lesson is about making that shift from scattered content production to strategic, media-led demand creation.
Why consistency > virality
Going viral is fun. It can also be helpful when it comes to brand awareness and reach. But virality is unpredictable. You can’t build a strategy on it.
Instead, consistency builds brands.
The real win is when your audience starts to expect you. When your podcast is part of their Monday routine. When your social clips are what they share with their team. When they subscribe, not just follow.
At Cognism, we focus on:
- Formulaic podcast formats - So every episode feels like part of something bigger. Shows like ‘Why Did It Fail?’ and ‘Marketing Dilemmas’ follow a similar blueprint each episode, allowing listeners to know exactly what they’re getting.
- Regular newsletters - Persona-specific, high-signal content that lands like clockwork.
- Recurring live events - Not just webinars, but series. Audiences know what to expect, and when.
- Consistent posting on company and SME profiles - I don’t mean activity for the sake of it, but value-led commentary, clips, and behind-the-scenes content.
And importantly, we do this per persona. Sales leaders get different formats than marketers. RevOps gets content that speaks their language and reflects their world.
This is how we build habitual attention. Because while virality spikes and fades, consistency compounds. And compounding attention is the foundation of long-term demand.
What it means to be a demand generation content marketer
B2B content marketing has changed significantly within the last 10 years. Basic webinar and SEO blog content on its own doesn’t cut it. The competition for prospects’ mental availability for content is fierce.
A marketer who understands the content that drives demand can be a huge differentiator.
Legacy content marketer:
- Long-form written blog content (formulaic for SEO).
- eBooks and long-form PDFs (designed to get a content download rather than to be engaged with).
- Webinars (slide-based and unengaging).
- Social media as a means of distribution for the above only (lack of strategic understanding).
New age demand gen content marketer:
- Comfortable in long and short-form written, video and audio media. As comfortable writing as producing podcasts and video series.
- Creates content with engagement and community first, and they understand this drives brand and conversion.
- At home in all social media, obsessed with engagement, community and virality (not just distribution space).
- Thinks about content and how people consume it first, i.e. customer and impact-centric.
- Knows that to get engagement, you need to break formulaic content practices.
- Testing and measurement mindset to achieve content goals.
The demand generation content marketer isn’t just a creator; they’re a strategist, storyteller, and distribution expert rolled into one, building content that earns attention and drives revenue.
Distribution in a demand gen context
Too often, marketers treat distribution as an afterthought. Something you do after hitting publish. In a modern demand generation strategy, distribution is the strategy, and it should come at the start.
At Cognism, we plan how to distribute a piece of content before creating it. This ensures every asset is set up for success and is seen by the right people, in the right places, at the right time. We custom-build content to maximise our reach on each channel.
Plan distribution at the start
Instead of asking “where should we post this?” after the fact, we get all necessary departments together, either in person during our quarterly creative days:
Or in an online meeting. When I say necessary departments, for us, that means:
- DG Content (the people writing/designing the content).
- DG Managers (who put this content into campaigns).
- Paid (who set up our paid campaigns, if required for the specific content we’re creating).
- Video (dependent on whether the campaign includes a video element).
- Graphic Design (to create a visual identity for the content from the beginning. Every template, webpage, and graphic must tie back to the specific project).
- Product Marketing (if the content has a product angle).
- Customer Marketing (as the content you create isn’t just for new business).
- Project Manager (well, because there’s a lot of moving parts… so having a project manager helps!)
In these sessions, we discuss each team’s needs:
- Where are the gaps in content that we might need to fill for each team?
- Can this new content project help?
- Which channels will we need to distribute the content on?
- What does that mean for the required formats?
- Do we need to involve external subject matter experts? Could they help us distribute the content?
This upfront thinking shapes everything: the content format, the messaging, the collaborators, and even the timing.
Owned vs paid vs earned: Know your channels
Each distribution type plays a different role in your content strategy:
- Owned - These are your newsletters, website, podcast feed, and social handles. Great for long-term engagement and building habitual attention.
- Paid - Use to accelerate reach or amplify high-performing content. Also useful for targeting specific personas (e.g. LinkedIn ads for sales leaders with intent).
- Earned - This includes shares from internal SMEs, partner shoutouts, and influencer collaborations. It builds trust and unlocks new audiences.
When building content to fuel your media machine, you want to think about all three.
Course homework
Pick one content asset from your recent work - it can be a blog post, podcast episode, video clip, newsletter, or social post. You’re going to run it through the “media engine” lens.
Step 1: Evaluate for Consistency
Ask yourself:
- Does this asset feel like part of an ongoing series or “show” your audience could get hooked on?
- If someone saw only this piece, would they know where to find the next one?
- Is the format repeatable and recognisable?
If the answer is “no”, think about how you could build this into a recurring content pillar.
Step 2: Reframe for Engagement First
Before the asset is even published, consider:
- How could you rework the opening into a storytelling hook?
- Start with a relatable pain point.
- Use a surprising stat or bold statement.
- Frame it through a character or first-hand anecdote.
- Is there a clear point of view? What do you believe that competitors might not?
- What emotional tone do you want to convey - urgency, reassurance, excitement?
Step 3: Plan Distribution Before Creation
Using the “plan at the start” principle:
- List at least three owned channels you’d use for distribution (e.g., podcast feed, company LinkedIn, newsletter).
- Identify one paid channel and how you’d target it for persona relevance.
- Map two earned opportunities - SME shares, partner reposts, influencer quotes.
If your current asset was created without this level of distribution planning, document what you would have done differently.
Lesson 2: Big rock content and the media machine
Why this lesson matters:
In demand generation, not all content is created equal. Some pieces - your “big rocks” - are the heavy-hitters. They’re the in-depth, high-value assets that have the weight to anchor your campaigns for months.
They can be broken down into dozens of smaller pieces, repurposed across every channel, and used to feed your media machine long after the initial launch.
At Cognism, big rock content isn’t just a whitepaper or webinar you publish and forget. It’s the starting point for an ecosystem of content - podcasts, social clips, live events, ads, email sequences - all designed to keep showing up in your buyers’ world consistently, in formats they actually consume.
Cognism’s content strategy
At the start of 2024, our team worked within the Easy Mode strategy, a useful content framework that Obaid Durrani and Todd Clouser developed. It encouraged us to break out of rigid content formats and approach topics from fresh, unconventional angles. It gave us a solid foundation and introduced some principles that still shape how we run content today.
But over time, we found it hard to sustain. The framework was complex to execute consistently, and while the content felt creatively rich, it didn’t deliver the same results we’d seen previously. It felt like we’d drifted from the kind of content our audience had come to value and trust us for.
Ironically, a couple of years earlier, we’d already struck the right balance, without even knowing it. That content was rooted in a much simpler idea: create around what you want to be known for.
So we went back to that approach. We stripped things back and refocused. And that became the foundation for the new content framework we use today.
Our overarching demand generation ideology
Our content strategy is rooted in the belief that the best way to earn the trust of our ideal customers is by consistently delivering value, long before they’re ready to buy. The goal is to become a familiar, credible brand that they naturally turn to when the need for a solution like ours arises.
We’ve intentionally stepped away from the mindset that marketing’s role is to drive immediate conversions. That’s not how most B2B buying journeys unfold, especially in today’s climate, where decisions are slower and buying groups are growing larger and more cautious.
Instead, we focus on showing up regularly in the channels our audience already spends time on, with content that helps them solve problems, learn, or get inspired. But if you try to speak to everyone, you will end up resonating with no one.
That’s why it’s crucial to define a clear narrative.
To ask: What do we want our brand to be known for? Because focus is what gives your content clarity and makes your brand memorable.
The goal is to anchor your brand within a specific product category, positioning yourself as the go-to expert or thought leader in that space. This builds recognition, but more importantly, it creates strong mental associations between your brand and the problems your product solves. So when a buyer eventually enters the market, your company is top of mind.
By consistently publishing content tied to your category, you reinforce memory structures that help buyers recall your brand when it matters most. But to be effective, the content can’t just be a stream of product talk. Most buyers aren’t in-market right now, and if your content feels overly promotional, they’ll quickly tune out.
Instead, focus on delivering valuable, engaging content that’s thematically connected to your solution, without directly selling it. Content that educates, entertains, or solves a pain point creates real value.
When buyers receive value, they hopefully remember where it came from. Consistent engagement in the space you want to be known for builds positive brand awareness, trust, and affinity.
For example:
For our sales persona, we landed on cold calling as the topic we want to be known for. It’s tied to what our product does, which is supplying contact data that salespeople can use for cold calling. But the topic is broader than just talking about contact data..
If someone is building an SDR team and needs data for cold calling, hopefully, we’ll be front of mind because that’s what we’ve tied ourselves to.
For marketing, we switched from lead gen to demand gen and wider demand gen strategies and tactics. Why?
Because our product can help marketers break free from the hamster wheel of lead gen and focus instead on more innovative marketing ideas.
Across the board, we want to be known for European data quality, as this is a Cognism USP. That’s why, more recently, we’ve focused our content efforts on creating a bank of content for those who are expanding their business into Europe.
That means offering valuable resources on prospecting into Europe, what GTM strategies tend to work in those places, and what you need to know about operating in these countries.
Brand content and big rocks
Big rocks are heavy-lift content projects designed to increase brand awareness and reach, as well as catch attention. Because they’re much more in-depth, we aim for these projects to be more evergreen (although we do go back to update and edit these over time!) and ensure we deliver them through multiple formats.
We have an OKR around producing one big rock per quarter, alternating between our core personas.
For example:
In January 2025, we published our Cold Calling Report (aimed at the sales persona), then in March, we published our International Expansion Zone (which had content spanning all three of our personas: sales, marketing and RevOps).
Later in May, we published Date-a-vendor, which, while applicable to any decision-maker in our ICP, was much more relevant for our RevOps persona. And as you’re reading this, you’ll likely realise that this is our marketing-focused big rock.
We align each big rock with a topic that we want to be known for, e.g.
- Cold Calling Report = Ties us to the cold calling topic.
- International business expansion = Ties us to the topic of expansion, as those expanding into Europe may need our data expertise.
- Date-a-vendor = Ties us to data and data quality.
- And for this DG Playbook = Ties us to demand generation and forward-thinking B2B marketing.
The value of these “big rock” content pieces lies in their ability to attract attention and provide in-depth insights.
Distributing big rocks
Because big rocks are designed to raise brand awareness, distribution is crucial. To return to my point in lesson 1, we plan our distribution channels and formats for our big rock content before it’s produced.
I’ll use this Demand Generation Playbook as a recent example. The team met in person in June to discuss our plans for our next big rock. The month prior, we’d met online to present the data we could see to uncover what was working well for our core persona to direct our ideas.
We decided to revamp the course, as the data revealed that our previous iteration was still one of our best-performing content assets, with great engagement rates.
However, we knew we had learned and developed our strategies tenfold since then, and we knew that revamping the course would give our audience a lot more value.
The benefit was that we had some previous experience and data to base our thinking on distribution this time.
For example:
We mainly relied on video for the last DG Playbook. But we didn’t optimise the videos for YouTube. Meaning this could be a quick win to distribute on another major channel.
And when we filmed, we could record short-form versions with quick-fire tips and takeaways that can be optimised for search, as short videos are now a Google search result.
There are also many other places where short-form video can live. We can use them for organic social media, via our company pages, and through the profiles of our subject matter experts and influencers.
We can then use these videos on other short-form platforms, such as TikTok. One area in which we have struggled to get a consistent pipeline has been video content for our paid buckets.
By producing a short-form video for each lesson in the DG Playbook, we will have a considerable number of hyper-specific content that we can test in video content buckets on paid.
While these content ideas are based on the value delivered within the course, we also wanted to create a video to promote the playbook’s launch.
As mentioned in the previous module, we always try to produce entertaining and emotional content, as it’s more memorable.
We landed on a ‘back to school’ theme, where we could play with nostalgia and experiment with some TikTok-style videos. These, again, can be distributed in multiple places, through SMEs, organic company page, and on paid.
Going back to paid media for a second. Video isn’t our only format, of course. Our brilliant DG Managers came up with some fun, eye-catching static ads to run on LinkedIn via paid.
Something we didn’t do the last time for our DG Playbook was write a long-form guide. But in the age of AI, long-form written content fuels AI results. With ChatGPT searches quickly becoming a primary source of information, we decided that having both a video and a written version was worthwhile.
Because large language models and AI search features don’t generate original thought, they source from high-quality, well-structured content. The deeper, better researched, and more authoritative your content is, the more likely it is to be referenced, summarised, and surfaced in AI-generated results.
Speaking of written content, with any big rock, we tend to create supporting blog content on similar subjects that we can use to weave links through, directing towards our new big rock. Adding CTAs or dynamic, personalised banners to relevant webpages on corresponding topics.
This is especially helpful for boosting our search engine traffic, as we can add CTAs to high-traffic pages, which then lead to our big rocks.
Another distribution channel at our disposal is SMEs and influencers. Both internal, meaning our relevant experts in-house (for example, in marketing, we use Alice, our CMO). And external, through any paid partnerships with influencers we have.
We can push their social posts through paid for further reach (I’ll go into our influencer strategy properly later in this module!)
Finally, we can use our own channels through the media machine, whether that’s via email or newsletters, our regular live event series, or our podcasts.
By distributing our content in so many ways and places, we fuel our channels with regular, value-led content and make the effort that goes into our big rock more worthwhile.
Distribution checklist
You can distribute content in a million ways, and not every channel will work every time.
But it’s good to go through the thought process of evaluating which makes sense for each big rock campaign.
Here is a quick checklist you can run through to assess your distribution options:
Owned Channels
- Website & Blog - Core hub for all evergreen and campaign content.
- Resource Library / Knowledge Hub - Central place for guides, templates, and tools.
- Email Newsletters - Nurturing audience with updates, thought leadership, and offers.
- Product Marketing Pages - Feature updates, use cases, and ROI pages.
- Customer Portal / Community - Forums or spaces for customer education and retention.
- Podcasts - Owned audio content with consistent publishing schedule.
- Webinars & Virtual Events - Live and on-demand educational sessions.
- YouTube Channel - Long-form video hosting, SEO-friendly content hub.
Organic Social & Influencer Channels
- LinkedIn Personal Profiles - Employee advocacy and thought leadership.
- LinkedIn Company Page - Brand updates and campaign promotion.
- Twitter / X - Real-time conversations, industry commentary.
- Instagram - Employer brand, behind-the-scenes content.
- Facebook - Industry groups and event promotion.
- TikTok - Short-form educational and personality-led content.
- Influencer Partnerships - Content co-creation and distribution via industry experts.
- Employee Advocacy Platforms (e.g., EveryoneSocial, Oktopost) - Amplify the team’s reach.
Search-Driven Channels
- High authority domains within GTM, Marketing and Sales - through mentions and backlinks
- Google Organic Search (SEO) - Blog posts, landing pages, resource hubs.
- YouTube SEO - Search-optimised video content, titles, descriptions, and tags.
- Short-Form Video Search - TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts appearing in Google.
- Alternative Search Engines - Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia.
- Review Sites & Directories - G2, Capterra, TrustRadius.
- Reddit / Quora - Participating in niche threads and answering questions.
- Industry-Specific Forums - Niche communities with SEO value.
Paid Media Channels
- LinkedIn Ads - Sponsored content, InMail, conversation ads.
- Google Search Ads - Targeting commercial and competitor keywords.
- YouTube Ads - Pre-roll, mid-roll, and bumper ads.
- Programmatic Display - Retargeting and targeted placements.
- Facebook & Instagram Ads - Retargeting and interest-based targeting.
- Twitter / X Ads - Event or product launches.
- Influencer Paid Partnerships - Paid collaborations for reach and credibility.
Earned Media Channels
- PR & Media Outreach - Getting featured in industry publications.
- Guest Articles & Columns - Publishing on relevant third-party sites.
- Podcast Guest Appearances - Tapping into other audiences.
- Event Speaking Slots - Industry conferences and panels.
- Award Nominations - Industry recognition and backlinks.
- Customer Advocacy - Case studies, testimonials, and customer social shares.
Community-Led Channels
- Slack Communities - e.g., RevGenius, Pavilion, Demand Curve.
- LinkedIn Groups - Niche networking and sharing insights.
- Reddit AMAs - Hosting ask-me-anything sessions in relevant subreddits.
- Industry Membership Groups - Exclusive communities and roundtables.
- Partner Ecosystems - Distributing content through integration partners and alliances.
Offline & Hybrid Channels
- Trade Shows & Conferences - Booths, speaking slots, workshops.
- Direct Mail - Tangible campaigns to target accounts.
- Printed Publications - Industry magazines and newsletters.
- Networking Events - Local meetups, breakfasts, and dinners.
The media machine
As mentioned in the big rock lesson, we can use our media machine channels to amplify big rock content. These channels play a key role in our content strategy.
If you consider big rocks as our magnet, attracting new people to Cognism with more flashy, entertaining, and value-adding content, then our media machine, made up of ‘value loops’, is our way of continuing to engage with them once they’re in the Cognism orbit.
These value loops reinforce messages about what we want to be known for and continue the delivery of value within those core themes.
Our marketing persona media machine looks a little like this:
We have a podcast, newsletter, live event series and blogs, plus we share marketing content via our LinkedIn and YouTube channels. Our podcast, live event series and newsletter all follow a similar theme, which is marketing dilemmas.
These are forums for marketers to discuss the challenges we all face and explore how we can find solutions.
Our podcast series helps us to highlight other prominent marketers in the space, sharing their insights and learning from their experiences.
Our live event series is more of a community-building exercise. We chat directly with attendees about the challenges and dilemmas they’re facing and workshop solutions.
The newsletter is a way to share the content from these dilemmas in a snapshot format.
Our YouTube is another channel where our ICP can subscribe and get continuous value. While the content isn’t solely marketing-focused, we have marketing-specific playlists (I’ll deep dive into our video and YT strategy in the next lesson!).
Finally, we have our social media platforms. Of course, this includes our company LinkedIn page. We have internal SMEs that we factor into our media machine approach. We’ve also been venturing onto TikTok.
Now, as you can imagine, when the team is working on content for the media machine, alongside their larger big rock content projects, there are a lot of spinning plates… therefore, we need a solid way to keep track of our content and when it will be published.
Below, I’ve added a screenshot of our content roadmap. This is where both the content team and the other relevant teams can see what is upcoming so that they can plan for it. It’s especially useful when mapping out where we distribute our big rock content through media machine channels.
For example:
When creating our International Expansion Zone, to ensure we consistently released content as we went, we lined up podcast episodes covering Europe expansions, published blogs as we drafted them, recorded videos with top tips for SDRs operating in each region, and much more.
Once we had finished creating the content, the final step was to combine everything we had created in our new content hub.
The DG content team maps out deliverables for upcoming months with clear deadlines, ensuring visibility across the team. With tools like Asana’s timeline view, managers can track upcoming content releases:
Additionally, tagging allows us to filter content by theme, making it easy to identify materials that support each strategic priority. This structured yet flexible content planning approach enables us to stay agile in our execution while maintaining a long-term vision.
It ensures that everything we produce - from our ongoing media activities to our major content initiatives - aligns with what we want to be known for.
Media machine paid content distribution workflow
Our demand generation managers lean heavily on LinkedIn paid ads to get content in front of the right people, with other channels like email playing a supporting role. We roll content out in deliberate stages to maximise impact.
We start with organic social distribution, posting on company pages and SME profiles to gauge which topics resonate with our audience.
For example:
One of our DG content managers recently wrote a blog on GTM AI. By sharing the main takeaways on LinkedIn, we tracked audience engagement. When a post gets strong traction, it moves into phase two: light paid promotion.
Here, we put a modest budget behind high-performing SME posts to extend their reach as thought leadership pieces. It’s quick, low-effort, and helps validate audience interest, while also growing our SMEs’ profiles.
If these boosted posts continue to perform, we move into phase three: testing fast-turnaround, low-production ads - what we call “ugly” posts, to further scale reach and test creative angles.
These ads are built for speed - quick to launch and perfect for testing audience response. Unlike earlier phases, they include clear CTAs driving users to the original blog post.
At this stage, we want to understand whether people are simply engaging with the ad itself or if they’re genuinely interested enough to consume the full content. Likes and comments signal surface-level interaction, but our real success metrics are click-through rates and time spent on the article.
When a blog post earns strong engagement at this level, we invest in a more polished, long-running ad with improved creative. This version runs over an extended period, steadily driving high-quality traffic back to the blog.
If a content asset consistently performs through paid channels, we’ll take it a step further and integrate it into an email nurture sequence. Because nurture flows require more effort to build, we reserve them for pieces that have already proven they can contribute to pipeline.
By rolling out content in stages, we can test, refine, and scale strategically, directing budget and effort toward content that clearly resonates.
A crucial part of this process is the feedback loop:
- Which pieces made it all the way through validation?
- Which need refinement?
- Which missed the mark entirely?
To answer these questions, DG content and DG managers hold monthly calls to:
- Share newly published pieces.
- Review upcoming campaign plans.
- Provide performance feedback and insights.
This shared intelligence feeds directly into the next round of content planning, ensuring each new piece is informed by real audience data, not just assumptions.
Cognism’s DG content across regions
As we expand Cognism, we’ve had to consider creating content for other regions. We know that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work when you’re expanding into new markets.
What resonates in the UK might fall flat in France, Germany, or the US. That’s why we take a local-first approach to regional content.
We don’t just translate, we localise. We work with in-market experts, adapt messaging to reflect cultural nuance, and blend proven global assets with original content created for each region. This approach ensures our campaigns feel native, build trust quickly, and deliver results faster.
Here’s how we make our content work across regions while keeping it scalable.
1. Localise, don’t just translate
Yes, in some cases, you can translate content, and it will be fine. However, we’ve all seen some dodgy translations in our time, which in a B2B context can end up isolating your audience more than connect with them.
Instead, you need to
- Ensure you have someone who understands language nuances to check any copy.
- Go beyond simple translations to make sure the topics are of interest. For example, the US and UK markets tend to be more advanced regarding tech and marketing approaches versus other places in Europe. Therefore, the topics that speak to a UK audience may not land in France, Spain or Italy.
We focus on true localisation, adjusting tone, imagery, messaging, and even terminology so it feels natural in the market we’re entering.
For example, the phrase “sales intelligence” carries a completely different level of awareness in France compared to the UK, so our content needs to reflect that. Local nuance is what makes our campaigns feel authentic.
2. Educate before promoting
If a market isn’t familiar with our product category, we don’t emphasise benefits and features. Instead, we take time to educate and build trust.
When we entered France, for example, we shifted away from repurposing UK messaging. We created educational content to explain the “why” behind our solution, framing the problem before presenting ourselves as the answer.
3. Mix localisation with new content
We don’t reinvent the wheel from scratch every time. We start by adapting proven global content, then layer in fresh, region-specific assets built with local insight.
In France, that meant starting with translated “low-hanging fruit” pieces that our local team members felt would still resonate, then gradually increasing truly original, in-market content. This balance helps us scale while staying relevant.
4. Involve local SMEs
Our best-performing regional content almost always involves local subject-matter experts. They bring cultural credibility, insider knowledge, and access to their networks.
You can’t replicate that with a simple translation. These local voices help us connect faster and more deeply with our target audience.
5. Bridge with AI - under expert guidance
We use AI to speed up parts of the localisation process, brainstorming ideas, drafting outlines, or translating as a starting point, but it’s never the final step.
Local experts review and refine every piece to ensure its tone, context, and messaging are spot-on. AI helps us move fast; human input ensures we get it right.
Using influencers within a demand generation content strategy
Influencers are a key part of our demand generation engine, helping us extend our reach, build trust with our ICP, and amplify our content authentically.
Our program blends internal influencers (our own team members) with external creators (industry voices with credibility and engaged audiences in sales, marketing, and RevOps).
1. Internal influencers: Building voices from within
We work with subject-matter experts across sales, marketing, and RevOps to create consistent, high-value content from their personal profiles. This includes:
- SMEs like Isa Sher, Shivan Pillay, and Johnny Stiffell posting 2–4x a week with tactical insights and show clips.
- Visionary leaders like our CMO, Alice de Courcy, posting thought leadership content weekly.
- DG managers and marketing leaders contributing thought leadership posts from a hands-on, tactical perspective.
We manage their posting schedule on an Asana board, tracking the copy and assets shared with the post and later adding the post results. This board also tracks the ‘content cluster’ for each post to keep us true to sharing content that we want to be known for.
We’ve also developed our own internal ‘creator fund’. This fund rewards colleagues who post relevant content on LinkedIn.
2. External influencers: Extending reach and credibility
We partner with respected voices in our ICP’s world, from sales trainers and marketing strategists to RevOps specialists. External influencers:
- Appear on our podcasts and live events to bring fresh perspectives.
- Create contracted content for launches and campaigns.
- Provide amplification for high-value content in their own tone of voice.
We carefully match influencers to content relevant to their audience, and measure post engagement, audience growth, and contribution to pipeline.
Having a pre-determined network of SMEs allows us to distribute any new content assets through another relevant and, more importantly, trusted channel.
3. Paid amplification and boosting
When influencer content performs well organically, we boost it with targeted paid spend. Criteria for boosting includes:
- Above-average engagement metrics.
- Alignment with current campaign focus.
- ICP relevance.
This turns high-performing organic posts into scalable reach drivers, with targeting notes logged in our paid promotion sheet for visibility across the DG team.
4. Measuring impact and optimising
We track:
- Internal and external audience growth.
- Post engagement and top performers.
- Influencer recognition in customer/prospect surveys.
- Pipeline contribution from paid influencer campaigns.
Monthly reporting connects influencer activity directly to campaign performance, helping us decide who to scale, promote, and contract with.
Course homework
To apply what you’ve learned in this lesson, choose at least one of the following exercises:
1. Map your media machine
- List your current recurring content formats (e.g. podcasts, newsletters, live events, blog series).
- Which personas do they target? Are all of your core personas represented?
- How often does each format publish?
- Where are the gaps or inconsistencies in cadence?
2. Define what you want to be known for
- For each persona, write down the single topic area you want to own in their minds.
- Map at least five content ideas that connect to this topic without directly pitching your product.
- Ask yourself: if my ideal buyer thought about this topic tomorrow, would my brand come to mind?
3. Plan distribution before creation
- Take one upcoming content idea and map its distribution plan before you create it.
- Include: owned, paid, and earned channels.
- Who will share it internally? Which SMEs or influencers could help amplify it?
- What format changes will you need for each channel?
Guest Lecture: Webinars as a Core Content Flywheel with Allie Smith
Allie Smith
Head of Growth Marketing @ Sequel.io
Allie Smith is a growth & marketing strategist focused on bridging brand and demand, while helping businesses build scalable, sustainable growth engines.
Why this lesson matters
Too often, webinars are treated as isolated campaigns: a registration page, a live session, a recording link, and then they’re forgotten. That’s a wasted opportunity.
At Sequel, webinars are the content engine itself. They fuel 80% of our pipeline, anchor our thought leadership, and scale product adoption. But this only works if you stop thinking of them as one-time events and start building them as a flywheel, a recurring, multi-format strategy that compounds over time.
Our Full Funnel Webinar Strategy
Because the buyer journey isn’t linear, we map webinars across the funnel:
- Top of Funnel: CMO Series
Thought leadership sessions designed to spark conversation, position our brand at the executive level, and drive broad awareness. - Mid Funnel: Game Changers Masterclass
Tactical sessions for demand gen leaders and operators, full of experiments and playbooks they can copy. - Bottom Funnel: Sequel Academy
Hands-on training, product adoption, and customer enablement to ensure expansion and retention.
By tailoring sessions by persona, use case, pain point, and vertical, we create relevant content at every stage, fueling net-new pipeline and customer growth.
Audience Insights: Closing the Loop
The power of webinars isn’t just in hosting them, it’s in the engagement data. With Sequel’s Audience Insights, we know:
- Who registered, attended, and replayed.
- What content they consumed before, during, and after the event.
- Which resources they clicked, which polls they answered, and whether they showed buying intent.
This data doesn’t just live in marketing. It flows directly into ABM campaigns, sales sequences, and nurture programs, turning engagement into pipeline.
Scalable Execution Through AI
A key reason this works is scalability. With 1-2 marketers, we can run the entire flywheel:
- Every webinar starts with a recorded intro call → fed into AI to generate:
- Session brief, titles, and descriptions.
- Calendar invites, reminder messaging, and nurture emails.
- Promotion guides for our team, speakers, and partners.
- Live sessions are always recorded locally to ensure high-quality repurposing (no fuzzy Wi-Fi or lag).
This automation and process makes it possible to host more webinars, attract more registrants, and scale pipeline, without ballooning headcount.
Designing the Live Experience
Every webinar is hosted directly on our website, not on third-party domains. That way:
- Audiences are immersed in a branded, Netflix-style environment.
- CTAs, related resources, and high-intent touchpoints are embedded seamlessly.
- There’s no friction of multiple steps (register, wait for an email, click, join, watch a replay link later).
During live sessions, we also:
- Surface targeted resources that map to the topic and pain points.
- Use polls strategically, from problem discovery to direct demo interest. (Surprisingly, attendees respond positively to demo polls because it feels like self-serve, not a forced pitch.)
After the Session: The Repurposing Engine
The replay is live the moment a session ends; just like speed-to-lead in sales, speed-to-content is crucial for marketing.
From there, a 30-minute webinar becomes 6+ assets:
- Blog recaps (for those who prefer to skim, plus SEO impact).
- 3–5 highlight clips for LinkedIn and social channels.
- Carousels, infographics, and reels to extend reach.
- Highlight reels across multiple sessions, organised by theme.
Repurposing isn’t just about content. It’s also about nurture:
- 24h recap email with key takeaways.
- Curated follow-up tailored to poll responses and chat interactions.
- Final value email connecting insights to how we can help.
Proof: The Flywheel Works
Our customers mirror this approach with incredible results:
- ThreatConnect drove $2 million in pipeline from webinars.
- Carta generated 52,000+ registrations through recurring series.
- Cognism has scaled webinars into $6 million in revenue.
This is the difference between webinars as “events” and webinars as a core content strategy. One is transactional. The other is transformational.
Lesson 3: Demand Generation paid ad creative process
Why this lesson matters:
We’ll discuss our paid strategy in a later lesson. However, your paid strategy is only as strong as the creative behind it. The creative is often fuelled by your content and sits within your content engine, so I feel it’s important to touch on it at this stage.
Buyers don’t experience campaigns in spreadsheets or reports; they experience them in the feed. Creative is the first (and sometimes only) touchpoint that decides if people ignore your ad, remember it, or act on it.
The challenge:
Most B2B ads look and feel the same. Safe, corporate stock images. Over-engineered graphics. Boring headlines. In a noisy LinkedIn or Meta feed, they blend into the background.
We’ve built a process for consistently producing ad creative that:
- Stops the scroll - eye-catching, unexpected, and native to the platform.
- Delivers value in-feed - so even if someone never clicks, they still walk away remembering us.
- Ties directly to objectives - creative is matched to campaign goals (reach, traffic, conversions).
The principles we follow
1. Design for the objective
Every ad must align with the outcome we want from that campaign. Creative that works for brand reach won’t work for bottom-of-funnel conversions. That’s why we match design and messaging to the campaign objective:
Reach campaigns → ads that educate or entertain in-feed
Buyers should take away value even if they never click. We design these ads to stop the scroll and deliver a complete, memorable message in the feed.
Think “snackable” content like memes, familiar UI mockups, or short videos.
Example: a Teams chat-style ad that highlights a common sales pain point.
Traffic campaigns → ads that tease or intrigue, driving curiosity and clicks
The goal here is to move someone from passive scroller to active engager.
These ads work best when they give just enough away to make the buyer want more - blurring part of an ebook page, using a provocative stat, or framing a question that the linked content answers.
Example: “17 cold call openers that actually work (you’ve only tried 3).”
Conversion campaigns → clear, benefit-led ads that make the offer unmistakable
At this stage, clarity trumps everything. What’s on the table? Why should they care? The copy should spotlight the outcome (e.g., “Verified mobile numbers in minutes”) while the design keeps it bold and direct.
Example: a simple before/after split-screen showing wasted time vs. verified decision-maker numbers.
2. Be memorable, not safe
In B2B, the feed is full of serious, lookalike ads. That’s why we deliberately go the other way.
- Humour, parody, memes, and bold design choices are part of our style. A well-placed joke or exaggerated scenario makes ads stick. Buyers may not remember your value prop word for word - but they’ll remember how your ad made them feel.
- Bright colours, minimal whitespace, and unexpected formats help ads stand out from the sea of grey, blue, and corporate stock photography. A parody Spotify playlist (“Lead Gen Heartbreak Mix”) is far more likely to be recalled than a generic “download our ebook” banner.
- Being different is the strategy. If your creative looks like every other B2B vendor’s, buyers will scroll past without a second thought.
3. Clarity over cleverness
It’s easy to get carried away with creativity. But if the message isn’t clear in under 2 seconds, the ad fails.
- Over-engineered creative often misses the point. Elaborate metaphors or overly designed graphics can confuse the buyer. If they have to pause to “decode” what you mean, you’ve already lost them.
- Simplicity wins. The best-performing product ads follow the formula: pain point → solution → outcome. Example: “Calling the wrong numbers? Cognism gives you verified mobiles so you reach decision-makers faster.”
- Don’t bury the value. If the ad is trying to communicate one benefit, stick to one. Multiple CTAs, mixed messages, or three different pain points dilute the impact.
Making creative that sticks: Lessons from testing and research
Our creative doesn’t just have to catch attention - it has to stick in memory and build stronger brand recall over time. Independent research into Cognism’s ads highlighted a few areas where we score highly and where we can push further.
1. Brand early, brand often
One of the clearest lessons we’ve learned from testing video is that branding can’t wait until the end. Viewers are scrolling fast. Attention drops off quickly. If your brand only shows up in the final frame, you’ve lost the opportunity to make an impression on the majority of people who don’t finish the video.
That’s why it’s critical to introduce the brand within the first five seconds. Even if someone doesn’t watch the whole piece, they still leave with a mental imprint: Cognism was behind that message.
This matters because:
- Brand recall increases when the logo or name is shown early. Viewers are more likely to remember you when they think back to the ad or message.
- Frequency compounds - the more consistently Cognism shows up at the start, the quicker buyers connect our brand with verified, compliant B2B data.
- AI and search visibility - transcripts and captions often get scraped. Early mentions of “Cognism” boost discoverability in AI-generated answers and SEO snippets.
How we apply it in practice:
- Every video starts with a branding cue - logo sting, on-screen product demo, or a verbal mention like “At Cognism, we see this all the time…”
- Branded visuals aren’t just tagged on at the end; they’re integrated into the storytelling (e.g., product UI used as a punchline in a cold calling tips video).
- We test formats where brand = context, not just decoration. For example, showing the Cognism dashboard while explaining how SDRs save hours chasing bad numbers.
2. Drive emotion, don’t just inform
Our research showed that Cognism consistently scores exceptionally high for humour, and that’s not an accident. Humour is one of our creative superpowers.
By using parody, sarcasm, and relatable “inside jokes” about B2B life, we make ads that feel less like corporate marketing and more like something people would actually share with colleagues.
This matters because:
- As we mentioned earlier in this module, emotion boosts memory. Neuroscience shows that information paired with emotion sticks longer in the brain. If an ad made you laugh or nod in recognition, you’re more likely to recall the brand later.
- Humour builds affinity. When Cognism makes fun of a painful reality in sales or marketing, buyers feel understood. That sense of relatability humanises the brand.
- Emotions drive persuasion. Whether it’s humour, frustration, or surprise, an emotional jolt makes people stop scrolling and pay attention.
How we apply it in practice:
- Lean into humour as a differentiator. Parody formats (e.g. GTA-style videos, Love Island intros, memes about quota pressure) have become part of our brand voice.
- Make pain points relatable. We often frame ads around exaggerated but recognisable B2B struggles (e.g. “200 bounced emails again?”) so buyers instantly connect.
- Experiment with other emotional levers. While humour is core, we also test content that taps into frustration (wasted budget on bad data), surprise (stats or unexpected visuals), or even relief (the feeling of finally reaching decision-makers).
- Keep it human. Even product-focused ads should avoid jargon. Plain language, sarcasm, or a witty headline can carry more weight than a technical spec sheet.
3. Brand fluency = consistency + clarity
Research shows that Cognism’s brand fluency scores ranged from good to exceptional. Buyers are increasingly able to connect our creative style with our brand.
But we also learned that we could strengthen this by weaving in branding earlier and more consistently across all creatives, rather than saving it for the final frame or relying on context clues.
This matters because:
- Brand fluency creates mental shortcuts. Buyers don’t have to think twice - Cognism instantly equals premium B2B data.
- Consistency compounds recall. When the same cues appear across ads, channels, and formats, recognition grows stronger over time.
- Clarity removes confusion. In a crowded space, if buyers don’t instantly know what you stand for, you risk being forgotten or mistaken for competitors.
How we apply it in practice:
- Double down on brand codes. Our colour palette, playful humour, and data-first positioning should show up in every creative piece, no matter the format.
- Tie our content back to what we want to be known for, meaning we’re repeatedly tied to category entry points.
- Human tone, branded feel. Even when we’re leveraging humour or parody, the brand voice and look remain distinctively ours - never generic “corporate LinkedIn.”
4. Keep messaging simple, real, human
In a feed crowded with jargon-heavy ads and over-designed creatives, the ones that stand out aren’t the cleverest or the flashiest. They’re the clearest.
From our testing, people praise Cognism ads for human connection and relatability. When we strip away complexity and talk to buyers plainly - the way they’d explain a problem to a colleague - performance spikes. The strongest ads don’t try to show how smart we are. They show that we get the buyer’s pain and can solve it.
This matters because:
- Simplicity cuts through. On LinkedIn or TikTok, buyers give you a couple of seconds at most. If the value isn’t obvious, they scroll past.
- Over-engineering kills clarity. Complex metaphors, heavy animations, or jargon-rich copy make ads harder to decode. And in a fast-scrolling environment, confusion = rejection.
- Relatability drives trust. Ads that feel like they were written by people, not brands, create a stronger sense of connection. Buyers recognise their own problems in our words.
How we apply it in practice:
- Formula first. We follow a simple structure in product-led ads: pain point → solution → outcome. For example: “Still wasting hours chasing bounced emails? Cognism gives you verified mobiles so you reach decision-makers faster.”
- Conversational copy. We write ads the way our buyers talk. Short, plain sentences. No buzzwords. No corporate speak.
- Human tone. Instead of faceless corporate messaging, we use humour, empathy, and scenarios that reflect real-life frustrations in sales and marketing.
- One idea per ad. We resist the temptation to cram multiple benefits into one creative. Each ad has one message, delivered clearly.
- Test for clarity. If a message can’t be understood in two seconds, it doesn’t go live.
5. A/B testing: insights from EMEA vs the US
One of the most important lessons we’ve learned is simple:
Never assume, always test. What feels like a “universal” message often lands very differently once you put it in front of real buyers in different regions.
For example, we once used the tagline: ‘Connect you with your perfect match’ on our homepage, which we thought was a clever idea - alluding to our contact data helping you reach the people you want to do deals with.
Only to do a Wynter survey, which revealed people were confused, thinking we were a dating service!
Another good example is one of our biggest hypotheses: “Will global messaging outperform European messaging?”.
At first glance, a global positioning seemed like the smarter play - scalable, consistent, easier to manage. But when we ran the two head-to-head, the results were decisive: European messaging significantly outperformed global messaging with EMEA buyers.
That result wasn’t a one-off either. Later validation work reinforced the same conclusion: context matters. European buyers wanted messaging that felt closer to their markets, their language, and their day-to-day realities.
This matters because:
- Buyer context shapes perception. A message that feels spot-on in London can sound tone-deaf in New York.
- Regional nuance builds trust. When buyers see ads and content that reflect their specific market challenges, they’re more likely to engage.
- Scaling without testing risks waste. Rolling out a single “global” creative approach without proof risks lower engagement and higher costs in key markets.
How we apply it in practice:
- We test messaging angles, not just formats. We A/B test the content of the message itself (e.g., global vs. local positioning), not just whether video beats static.
- Segment tests by region. We always break down performance by EMEA vs the US, looking for differences in resonance and engagement.
- Adapt, don’t replicate. When we see a message resonate in one region, we don’t copy-paste it everywhere. We adapt the creative to align with local buyer context, culture, and expectations.
- Validate through multiple sources. Campaign data, Wynter tests, and even “covert ops” projects feed back into our messaging decisions to reduce bias.
Frameworks we use for repeatable creative
Our creative process doesn’t start from scratch each time.
Instead, we lean on a set of proven frameworks that make it easier to ideate, test, and refresh ads at scale. Each framework is designed to stop the scroll, deliver value in-feed, and connect emotionally with our audience.
1. Meme and humour ads
- What it is: Ads that use memes, sarcasm, or light-hearted exaggeration to dramatise a pain point.
- Why it works: Humour triggers emotion, and emotion drives memorability. A clever joke about quota targets will stick far longer than a generic “get more leads” message. It also makes your brand feel more human.
- How we use it:
- Lean into relatable frustrations (e.g., sales vs marketing tension, bad data, missed targets).
- Use simple formats (stock images + bold captions, reaction gifs, parody references).
- Always tie the punchline back to a Cognism-solved problem.
- Examples:
- Exec team saying: “We’re cutting headcount 10% but increasing quota 60%.”
- A marketer thinking: “No one warned me about sales when I got into marketing,” with speech bubbles of the sales team demanding leads.
2. Familiar UI/UX ads
- What it is: Ads that mimic everyday digital environments, such as Slack messages, Teams chats, Twitter posts, and iMessage bubbles.
- Why it works: This leverages the familiarity principle: people pay more attention to things they already recognise. A fake Slack thread looks native in the feed, so it feels less like an ad and more like something they’d actually see.
- How we use it:
- Build scenarios inside recognisable interfaces (e.g., “Head of Sales” messaging “You up? Haven’t spoken to a CEO since Friday”).
- Pair the joke with a real business pain (e.g., sales not hitting pipeline targets).
- Use platform quirks to add realism-avatars, timestamps, reaction emojis.
- Examples:
- A fake iMessage screenshot: “New prospect list ready?” / “It’s 200 bounced emails again…”
- A Twitter-style ad with viral-post formatting, achieving 3x engagement compared to standard designs.
3. Before and after (or versus) ads
- What it is: Split-screen or side-by-side ads showing a painful “before” scenario against a desirable “after.”
- Why it works: The human brain processes contrasts instantly. By showing both the problem and solution in one glance, you deliver clarity in under a second.
- How we use it:
- Pair the left side with a frustrating situation (e.g., “Hours wasted on bounced emails”).
- Pair the right side with Cognism’s benefit (e.g., “Verified mobiles in minutes”).
- Keep the copy minimal-let the contrast do the heavy lifting.
- Examples:
- “Dialling wrong numbers” vs “Direct dials verified by Cognism.”
- “Generic CRM lists” vs “Targeted personas built in seconds.”
4. Social proof and UGC ads
- What it is: Using screenshots of real posts, reviews, or customer feedback as the ad creative. Often left “ugly” and unbranded.
- Why it works: Buyers trust other buyers more than polished marketing claims. User-generated content feels organic, authentic, and credible-because it is.
- How we use it:
- Capture and crop LinkedIn shout-outs, G2 reviews, or Reddit threads mentioning Cognism.
- Keep the creative raw - no glossy overlays or heavy branding.
- Use headline copy to highlight the outcome: “Don’t just take our word for it-see what [X company] achieved.”
- Examples:
- A screenshot of a sales leader’s LinkedIn post praising Cognism’s mobile data, run directly as an ad.
- A G2 review screenshot with the quote: “Reduced sales cycle time by 40%.”
5. Video ads
- What it is: Short-form videos that educate, entertain, and make the value prop memorable.
- Why it works: Video lets you hook attention fast and tell a story better than a static creative. Done right, it combines education and entertainment (“edutainment”), keeping you top of mind even if the viewer doesn’t click.
- How we use it:
- Keep videos under 60 seconds. Attention drops quickly.
- Hook in the first 3 seconds (e.g., “Ever wasted half your day chasing bounced emails?”).
- Call out the ICP directly (e.g., “Marketers, here’s how to fix your content distribution problem”).
- Focus on one clear value prop per video. Don’t overload.
- Use humour, behind-the-scenes clips, or real-world demos to make it relatable.
- Examples:
- A blooper-style opening from Liam before cutting into “How B2B marketers use Cognism in under 60 seconds.”
- Filming a subject matter expert on London Bridge testing cold call openers with strangers, then linking back to a playbook.
Our creative process in practice
Building ads isn’t random - it’s a structured process we repeat every week. By standardising our approach to creative, we can move faster, stay consistent, and scale ideas that actually work.
Here’s how we do it:
1. Start with the bucket
Every ad begins with the campaign bucket to which it belongs. The bucket determines the objective, the tone, and the level of product tie-in.
- Product Value → educate in-feed, show pain → solution → outcome. Usually bold and straightforward.
- Content → promote thought leadership or tactical guides. Should intrigue, tease, or entertain to drive clicks.
- Social Proof → showcase customer outcomes or peer validation. Needs authenticity and credibility.
- Remarketing → bottom-of-funnel offers. Clear, direct, and designed to convert.
Starting with the bucket prevents “random acts of creative” and ensures every ad has a job to do.
2. Choose the format
Next, we pick a creative framework that fits both the bucket and the objective:
- Meme or humour ads (Product / Content) → scroll-stoppers that use relatability.
- Familiar UI ads (Product / Social Proof) → native-feeling designs that trigger recognition.
- Before & After ads (Product) → instant clarity on pain vs solution.
- UGC/Testimonial (Social Proof) → raw credibility from customers.
- Short-form video (Content / Product / Remarketing) → education + entertainment in under a minute.
Limiting ourselves to a set of proven formats means we don’t reinvent the wheel every time - we just slot new ideas into structures that already work.
3. Draft copy and hook
The copy and hook do the heavy lifting. Our rules of thumb:
- Always lead with a question or pain point: e.g., “Still wasting hours on bounced emails?”
- Call out the ICP directly: e.g., “Marketers, here’s how to fix your content distribution.”
- Stick to one idea per ad - don’t cram in three benefits.
- Keep it short: if a buyer can’t understand the ad in 2 seconds, it fails.
Think of the copy as the punchline. The image or video gets attention, but the words drive meaning.
4. Design to stand out
Once the copy is set, design brings it to life. Our design principles:
- Use bold, bright colours - especially Cognism purples - to stand out against LinkedIn’s grey-blue feed.
- Keep minimal whitespace; ads should feel full, not empty.
- Break away from “corporate LinkedIn” by using humour, parody, or raw screenshots.
- Design for platform context: vertical formats for Meta, clean statics for LinkedIn, subtitles for video.
The aim is to break pattern recognition. If your ad looks like every other B2B ad, people will ignore it.
5. Test, don’t guess
No matter how clever an ad feels in brainstorm, the market decides if it works. That’s why testing is non-negotiable.
- Benchmark metrics:
- Engagement rate for reach campaigns (0.4–0.6% is healthy; 1–3% = strong).
- CTR for content campaigns (0.7–1%+).
- CPI and demo conversions for remarketing.
- Rotate creative every 4–6 weeks to avoid fatigue.
- A/B test systematically: change one variable at a time (copy, format, colour, hook).
Some pitfalls to watch out for
Even with strong creative principles, there are common traps that can undermine performance. These are the pitfalls we’ve seen most often - and the ones we work hard to avoid.
1. Over-creativity kills clarity
It’s easy to fall in love with a clever concept or beautifully designed ad.
But if buyers can’t understand what the ad is about in under two seconds, it fails. The job of a creative isn’t to showcase how smart the marketing team is; it’s to communicate value fast.
2. Generic offers fall flat
Promotions like “Win an Amazon gift card” might drive clicks, but they can attract the wrong people - low-intent leads who will never convert.
Offers have to feel valuable and relevant to your ICP. A targeted playbook, benchmark report, or insight from a peer will always outperform a generic incentive because it solves a real problem your buyers care about.
3. Long videos underperform
Attention spans in-feed are short. Viewers rarely stick around beyond the first 30–60 seconds, no matter how good the content is. Long videos tend to see sharp drop-offs in completion rates, which means your message gets lost.
The key takeaway? Brevity wins.
Keep videos focused on one clear point, hook in the first 3–5 seconds, and cut the fluff. If you need depth, break it into a series or link out to a longer-form asset.
Course homework
To apply what you’ve learned, choose at least one of the following activities:
1. Audit your last 10 ads. Categorise them into buckets: Product, Social Proof, Content, Remarketing. Which frameworks (meme, UI mimic, video, etc.) are you using?
2. Pick one pain point your ICP faces. Create two mock ads for it:
- One meme-style creative.
- One before/after split-screen.
3. Review your ad objectives. Are your creatives designed for in-feed consumption, traffic, or conversion? If not, adjust.
Lesson 4: SEO in demand generation
Why this lesson matters
SEO is no longer just about ranking and driving clicks. In 2025, search is changing faster than ever:
- Zero-click results are growing, with Google and LLMs like ChatGPT keeping users in-platform.
- Competition for high-intent terms is fierce, with competitors doubling down on BOFU strategies.
- LLMs shape brand perception by pulling content directly from high-quality sources - with or without clicks to your site.
For demand generation, this means two things:
- You can’t just measure SEO by traffic anymore.
- You need to treat SEO as a brand visibility and authority play as much as a lead driver.
The role of SEO in demand gen
In a modern demand generation strategy, SEO is much more than a traffic-driving channel - it’s an always-on engine for visibility, credibility, and market intelligence.
At its core, SEO serves three strategic purposes:
1. Capture demand
This is where SEO works at the end of the funnel.
By ranking for bottom-of-funnel or commercial keywords - the terms your in-market buyers use when actively evaluating solutions - you position your brand to intercept high-intent searches at the right moment.
These visitors are closer to making a decision, so the focus here is on conversion and clear pathways to product pages, demos, or sales conversations.
2. Support demand creation
Most of your ideal buyers aren’t in-market right now, but they’re searching for insights, strategies, and solutions to adjacent problems your product solves.
By building content that ranks for these broader, educational queries, you can show up early in their research process. This positions your brand as a trusted source long before they’re ready to buy, increasing the likelihood they’ll remember and choose you when the time comes.
In practice, this also means building authority for your brand outside your domain, which will only become even more crucial in the new AI SEO era.
We (and others in the industry) call this surround-sound SEO, whereby tactics have included getting our solution added to relevant tool lists on other domains (a brand mention!) and distributing our optimised content through search via other channels such as YouTube.
3. Fuel the pipeline with insights
Search behaviour is one of the clearest signals of market interest.
Analysing keyword data and search trends gives you a direct line into what your audience cares about, how they describe their problems, and where demand is emerging.
These insights can guide your content strategy, influence campaign messaging, and even inform product positioning - ensuring your marketing is grounded in real buyer intent rather than guesswork.
At Cognism, we’ve seen the compounding effect of this approach. Branded searches alone account for 78% of our influenced MQLs - showing that visibility in search results doesn’t just matter when someone clicks.
Even unclicked impressions contribute to brand recall and trust, making your brand the natural choice when buyers finally raise their hands.
In other words:
In demand gen, SEO isn’t just about ranking - it’s about consistently showing up in the right searches, at the right stage of the journey, with the right message to drive both immediate and future pipeline.
The zero-click challenge
We’ve entered what many are calling “the great decoupling,” also known as the separation between impressions and clicks.
In simple terms:
Your content might be seen more than ever, but fewer people visit your site.
Our data shows this shift is happening:
Crocodile charts in Google Search Console (GSC), whereby the clicks drop below impressions and split apart.
(Source: GSC data last 12 months - normalised for the purpose of the chart)
You can see from the chart how this trend began not long after Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) were launched more widely in March 2025.
These shifts will only continue to become more severe as Google’s AI Mode becomes the new normal for search and LLMs become more widely adopted.
Here’s why it’s happening:
Google’s changing behaviour
In 2024, global search volumes grew by 21%, yet many publishers and brands reported flat, or even falling, website traffic. Why?
Because Google is keeping users in-platform. Rich snippets, People Also Ask boxes, AI-generated summaries, and featured answers mean users can get what they need directly in search results without clicking through.
For now, ranking is still important, but Google’s AI Mode is a fundamental shift away from how traditional search surfaces information. Traditional search uses deterministic ranking, whereas AI Mode uses probabilistic ranking.
This means that instead of having page-level indexing, the model pulls the info it needs using passage-level retrieval, so the answer is personalised for the user’s query. Even if the user asks the same or similarly phrased questions, each answer will be different.
The rise of AI-led search
Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are fundamentally changing search behaviour.
These tools pull answers from across the web, blend them together, and present them in a single, conversational response. The user gets the value instantly; your content is the source, but not necessarily the destination.
The impact?
Traditional SEO metrics like click-through rate and organic traffic no longer paint the full picture. Your content might be informing the buyer’s journey, but in ways your analytics platform can’t fully capture.
The new question for marketers:
How do you prove SEO’s value when traffic - your long-standing KPI - is in decline?
The answer:
Shift your measurement and mindset from clicks to presence, authority, and influence in all search environments. In practice, that means:
- Measuring share of voice (or brand visibility) - tracking how often your brand name appears in relevant queries, regardless of clicks.
- Owning informational real estate - aiming for featured snippets, knowledge panels, video carousels, and other high-visibility placements.
- Optimising for AI discovery - structuring content so it’s more likely to be referenced in LLM responses.
- Building brand recall - ensuring your name is consistently associated with the topics you want to own, so even “zero-click” impressions contribute to mindshare.
- Relevant content topic coverage - your content breadth, depth and freshness matter more than ever.
In an AI-first world, long-form, high-quality content is the key:
- Something LLMs can never do is provide lived experiences; this is where you need your content to stand out.
- LLMs source from authoritative, well-structured pages.
- Depth and originality increase chances of being cited in AI-generated responses.
- Written and video content cover multiple search formats, including video carousels and short-form videos that appear in Google results.
Pro Tip:
Treat SEO content as raw material for AI models - your aim is to make your brand the source that AI trusts.
Cognism’s SEO framework
We structure our approach around five key pillars:
1. BOFU keywords (“Money keywords”)
These are non-branded, high-commercial-intent terms, the queries your ideal buyers search when they’re actively looking for a solution.
Examples: “B2B data vendors”, “best sales intelligence tools”, “GDPR-compliant prospecting data”.
Why they matter:
- They connect you directly with in-market buyers in the decision stage.
- These searches typically have shorter sales cycles because the need is already established.
How we optimise for them:
- Create high-quality decision-stage assets like comparison guides, vendor evaluation checklists, ROI calculators, and case studies.
- Keep SERP position in the top 3 - anything lower sees a sharp drop in CTR.
- Measure success by:
- SERP position stability.
- Influenced MQLs and pipeline from organic.
- Revenue attribution from these keywords.
2. Competitor keywords
These are comparative or alternative terms where buyers are weighing their options.
Examples: “Cognism vs ZoomInfo”, “Apollo alternatives”.
Why they matter:
- They intercept high-intent buyers already deep in the consideration stage.
- They allow you to control your narrative and present clear differentiators.
How we optimise for them:
- Build dedicated comparison pages optimised for clarity and transparency.
- Avoid overly aggressive competitor-bashing - focus on positioning strengths rather than giving competitors extra visibility.
- Track conversions and pipeline influence from these pages, as they often deliver some of the highest lead-to-opportunity conversion rates in SEO.
3. High-traffic keywords
These are broad, high-volume, relevant educational terms that align with the topics you want to be known for.
Examples: “Go-to-market strategy”, “cold calling tips”, “B2B lead generation”.
Why they matter:
- They attract top-of-funnel awareness from a large, relevant audience.
- They fuel brand familiarity and trust long before the buyer is in-market.
How we optimise for them:
- Create pillar content supported by a cluster of related blogs, videos, and guides.
- Use strong internal linking to move visitors deeper into mid- and bottom-funnel content.
- Leverage lead magnets (templates, calculators, reports) to capture early-stage interest for nurture.
4. Surround-Sound SEO
The goal here is omnipresence - appearing on multiple domains, in multiple formats, for the same key queries.
Examples: guest posts, partner content, review platforms, directories, podcasts, and YouTube videos all ranking for your target terms.
Why they matter:
- Increases brand authority by reinforcing your presence across the SERP.
- Captures clicks that might otherwise go to competitors or third parties.
- Builds trust - if a buyer sees you in multiple credible locations, your perceived authority grows.
How we optimise for them:
- Partner with industry publications and influencers to place high-value content.
- Maintain strong profiles and review coverage on G2, Capterra, and other software directories.
- Repurpose top-performing content into multiple formats that can rank independently.
5. UX & CRO
Once a visitor lands, every second counts. A slow, confusing, or poorly optimised page experience can waste hard-won SEO gains.
We regularly run tests on our website modules to see where we can optimise for speed or user engagement. In some of the most recent ones, we tested our testimonial cards and found that the one with a white background and insight statistics improved engagement and conversions.
Why they matter:
- Search engines now factor page experience (Core Web Vitals) into rankings.
- A smooth user journey increases on-page engagement and conversion rates.
How we optimise for them:
- Checklist and page review process to ensure pages are optimised for load speed.
- Prioritise fast load times, mobile responsiveness, and clear navigation.
- Continuously A/B test CTAs, form lengths, page layouts, and messaging.
- Focus optimisation efforts on high-value pages (BOFU and competitor keyword pages) where intent is highest.
KPIs for modern SEO
In the age of AI search, zero-click results, multi-channel discovery, and measuring SEO success requires a wider lens than just organic traffic. The old “rank and clicks” model misses much of the real value SEO delivers to demand generation.
Today’s most impactful SEO programs look at performance in terms of visibility, influence, and revenue impact.
1. Brand visibility will take over organic search
- What it means: The visibility your brand has in terms of company name mentions in all areas of the web, including on your domain and others.
- Why it matters: Clicks are falling. The winners in SEO’s AI era will have strong brands that are mentioned and suggested the most in Google’s AI Mode and LLMs.
- How to measure: Some new tools allow you to track specific prompts. But using something like Ahrefs Brand Radar and its web mentions functionality will also help you do this, as it’s all based on LLM training data.
2. Branded search volume growth
- What it means: The number of times users search specifically for your brand (pure brand, e.g., ‘Cognism’) or other branded terms (e.g., ‘Cognism Sales Companion’).
- Why it matters: Branded search is a strong indicator of demand creation - people already know you exist and are actively seeking you out. As clicks decline, the likelihood is that more and more of your prospects will come back and convert through your brand when they are ready to buy.
- How to measure: Monitor Google Search Console and keyword tracking tools for changes in branded query volume over time. Link spikes to campaign launches, influencer activity, or PR events.
3. Influenced pipeline and revenue from organic/referral
- What it means: The amount of pipeline and closed revenue where organic or referral traffic played a role.
- Why it matters: This connects SEO directly to business outcomes, not just vanity metrics.
- How to measure: Use attribution models to capture touchpoints where organic/referral sources contributed - whether first-touch, last-touch, or multi-touch.
4. Page engagement metrics
- What it means: Behavioural indicators such as bounce rate, dwell time, pages per session, and scroll depth.
- Why it matters: Search visibility is wasted if visitors don’t stay, engage, or take action. Strong engagement signals also help SEO by showing search engines your content satisfies user intent.
- How to measure: Monitor in analytics tools and set benchmarks for key page types (e.g., blog vs landing page vs guide).
5. Visibility across diversified content formats
- What it means: Your presence in search results beyond your website and blogs - including guest posts, social media, review sites, video, and partner listings.
- Why it matters: This is “surround-sound SEO”, where you appear multiple times for the same query, making it harder for competitors to get noticed.
- How to measure: In-platform, e.g., views for YouTube videos, the number of reviews you have on G2, etc..Track rankings and placements for your owned assets and any earned media or partner content.
6. Your homepage traffic growth
- What it means: The growth in traffic coming to your homepage from organic.
- Why it matters: Homepage growth goes hand-in-hand with search in a zero-click era. Your homepage will matter even more as users will likely return to it when they’re ready to convert.
- How to measure: Use GA4 and other website analytics tools.
Course homework
To put this lesson into practice, choose at least one of the following exercises.
1. Map Your SEO Across the Funnel
- Take your current keyword targeting list and categorise each term as BOFU, MOFU, or TOFU.
- Which stage is overrepresented? Which is underrepresented?
- Identify one high-potential keyword in each stage that you’re not currently targeting.
- Draft a content concept for each (e.g., BOFU comparison page, MOFU case study, TOFU educational guide).
2. Zero-Click Visibility Check
- Search five of your target keywords in Google and note:
- What SERP features appear? (e.g., Featured Snippet, People Also Ask, Video Carousel)
- Where do you show up?
- Identify at least one keyword where you could optimise for a non-click placement (e.g., rewrite a section to target a snippet, produce a YouTube video for the carousel, create FAQ markup).
3. AI-Optimised Content Brief
- Pick one of your high-value blog posts or guides.
- Rewrite the first 150–200 words to clearly and concisely answer the main question behind the keyword.
- Structure your H2s so each could stand alone as a short, factual answer.
- This makes the piece more likely to be referenced in LLM-generated responses.
Lesson 6: Measuring content
Why this lesson matters:
If you can’t prove content impact, it’s likely to be underfunded, under-appreciated, and under-prioritised.
For content to earn more budget, headcount, and strategic influence, you need a measurement framework that:
- Tracks the right metrics for each channel and format.
- Separates early signals from revenue impact.
- Ties activity back to the business outcomes that sales and leadership care about.
This isn’t about vanity metrics or chasing views for their own sake. It’s about building a body of evidence that shows your content drives demand, accelerates deals, and expands revenue.
Cognism’s content KPIs by channel and format
One thing to note is that you can’t measure everything.
We live in a content world where a lot of engagement happens in the dark. Think scrolling past a post on LinkedIn but not liking it. And some things are being made harder to measure, for example, Google cookie preferences limiting our view.
However, by measuring the whole journey, you can start to piece together a story from engagement to revenue.
We also measure content in context - because a webinar, a podcast, and a TikTok clip play very different roles in the demand engine.
For example, measuring webinars by registration numbers can be misleading. It’s not until you dig into who those registrations are coming from that you better understand the impact this content activity could have on revenue. Wrong audience = limited impact.
Which is why we look at three things per channel or big rock content project.
1. Engagement
This is about how the content performs within its native environment. Are people stopping, watching, clicking, commenting, or sharing?
Strong engagement signals mean the content is resonating with the audience it reaches. For video, that might be average watch time or completion rate. For a blog, it could be scroll depth or time on page.
For social, it’s interactions from your ICP rather than just raw likes. Engagement tells us if the creative and the message are compelling enough to hold attention.
2. Audience
It’s not just how many people engage - it’s who. We enrich our audience lists to see things like job titles, seniorities, countries they’re in, or company sizes, to ensure we’re reaching the right people.
A post with fewer total views but higher ICP engagement is more valuable than one that goes “viral” with an irrelevant audience. Tracking audience fit helps us keep distribution and targeting sharp.
3. Influenced pipeline and revenue
Ultimately, we want to know whether the content contributed to creating, accelerating, or closing deals.
When we connect these dots, we can show leadership that content isn’t just a “brand play” - it’s actively contributing to revenue outcomes.
By examining these three pillars together, we get a full-funnel view of performance, from attention and relevance to commercial impact.
How we report content performance to the wider team and leadership
We’ve learned that what you measure isn’t enough - how you present it matters.
We’ve developed a way of communicating outwards and upwards based on what other teams need or care about.
For the wider marketing team, we have a monthly ‘what’s been published’ call to discuss the new content released and review the insights from what we see working. This also gives our demand gen managers a chance to provide feedback on what they see working on paid.
This feedback loop lets us reprioritise based on real-time insights and team requirements.
For leadership, we share much less of the day-to-day detail. This is more of a top-level snapshot, with summary slides and a red, amber, and green light system to highlight areas of focus, success, and where we need to address issues.
Connecting brand, content, and pipeline
The real win comes when you can demonstrate how brand building fuels pipeline, and content is the bridge between the two.
For example:
- A spike in branded search volume after a thought leadership campaign leads to higher direct demo requests.
- Consistent podcast engagement with target personas results in warmer outbound replies.
- High-value accounts consuming multiple pieces of content close faster and at a higher rate.
When you connect these dots, you’re not just proving content works; you’re proving content is essential.
Course Homework
To put this lesson into practice, choose at least one of the following exercises.
1. Build Your Content KPI Dashboard
- Pick one channel (e.g., LinkedIn, YouTube, blog) or a recent big rock project.
- Fill in the three-pillar framework: Engagement, Audience, Influenced Pipeline & Revenue.
- Identify one metric in each pillar you’re currently not tracking - and outline how you could capture it.
2. Map a Content-to-Revenue Story
- Choose a piece of content you’ve produced in the last 3 months.
- Trace its journey from first engagement through to any pipeline influence (direct or assisted).
- Create a short “narrative” showing how that content may have accelerated or contributed to a deal.
3. Audience Quality Check
- Take your top-performing post, video, or blog from the past quarter.
- Analyse the audience: job titles, seniority, industry, company size, and region.
- Score the audience quality on a scale of 1–5, and note at least two actions to improve ICP reach next time.
Ready to put it into practice?
This quick quiz will test your understanding of the key concepts and help you lock in the strategies for building a smarter, more connected content engine.
