Monthly Archives: April 2023

Sitemaps are one of SEO’s oldies but goodies.

In fact, they’re one of the most important elements of SEO, because they help Google and other search engines find the pages on your website.

Not to mention they also help you rank better, because Google is able to locate new pages and identify updates to old pages much more quickly.

In a nutshell: you can’t live without ’em.

I’ve often heard that they can feel overwhelming and quite technical to understand.

But don’t let the frustration of their technicality make you throw your computer out the window — I’ve got your back!

I will show you what sitemaps are, how to create one, how to submit them to Google, and all the essential best practices.

What is a sitemap?

To start off with the basics, a sitemap is a file that provides information about the pages, videos, images, and other files on your website. It’s important for various reasons, including:

Acting as a roadmap for Google and other search engines to find and better understand your content.
Leading search engines through your website to crawl and index the essential pages.
Helping search identify when new pages and updates to old pages are available.
Helping search engines find alternate language versions of your page.

But before I go further, you must know that there are two types of sitemap formats: HTML and XML. Here’s the basic difference:

HTML sitemaps: This is more like your content sitemap that users can see and use to navigate your site. They’re also commonly referred to as your “website archive.” Some marketers view HTML sitemaps as outdated or even entirely unnecessary.

XML sitemaps: This is the sitemap that’s purely used for indexing and crawling your website and is manually submitted. It’s the more modern form of handling how all your content is stored across your website.

While HTML sitemaps might help users find pages on your site, as John Mueller said, your internal linking should take care of that anyways. So the focus from an SEO perspective should be on XML sitemaps.

Types of Sitemaps

From these two types of sitemaps described above, there are also subsections within them. I’ll now go over these in more detail.

1. Page Sitemap

A page sitemap or regular sitemap improves the indexations of pages and posts. For sites that are not image-focused or video-focused, like photography and videography sites, a page sitemap can also include the images and videos on each page.

A page sitemap without an image would look like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″ >

  <url>

    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>

    <lastmod>2020-09-17</lastmod>

    <changefreq>daily</changefreq>

    <priority>0.9</priority>

   </url>

</urlset>

Include your URLs in <loc> tags. <lastmod> indicates when the page was last edited. <changefreq> indicates how often the page is edited and <priority> indicates how important the page is to other pages on the website as a whole. You can take a look at Sitemaps XML format for more information on these parameters.

2. Video Sitemap

An XML video sitemap is similar to a page sitemap, but of course focuses largely on video content, which means they are only necessary if videos are critical to your business. If they aren’t, save your crawl budget (the finite amount of crawlable pages and resources across your site) and add the video link to your page sitemap.

But if you do need a video sitemap, it would look like this:

Note: This is what a video sitemap looks like. Implement it only if videos are critical to your business.

3. News Sitemap

If you publish news and want to get those news articles featured on top stories and Google News, you need a news sitemap. There’s a crucial rule here: do not include articles that were published longer than the last two days in the file.

Google News sitemaps aren’t favored in regular ranking results, so make sure you only add news articles. Also, they do not support image links, so Google recommends you use structured data to specify your article thumbnail.

4. Image Sitemap

Like the video sitemaps, image sitemaps are only necessary if images are critical to your business, such as a photography or stock photo site. If they aren’t, you can leave them in your page sitemap and mark them up with the image object schema, and they will be crawled along with the page content/URL.

If you believe an image sitemap is needed, it will look like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″ xmlns:image=”http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1″ >

  <url>

    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>

       <image:image>

<image:loc>https://example.com/image-url.png</image:loc>

       </image:image>

      <image:image>

<image:loc>https://example.com/second-image-url.png</image:loc>

      </image:image>

  </url>

</urlset>

5. Sitemap Index

There are a few limitations you’ll want to keep in mind for sitemaps:

Having too many URLs will only lead to no indexation of some of your pages.
All sitemaps, except the news sitemap, should have a maximum of 50,000 URLs.
News sitemaps should have a maximum of 1000 URLs.
A sitemap should be a maximum of 50MB in uncompressed file size.

As a result of those limitations, you might need to have more than one sitemap. When you use more than one sitemap file, you need an index file that lists all of those sitemaps. It’s the index file that you submit in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. That file should look like this:

Build a Sitemap With HubSpot’s Free CMS

You can easily make a sitemap using HubSpot’s free CMS. After building your sitemap, you can easily make edits as needed.

Create a new menu

Image Source: HubSpot

Add child pages to a menu

Image Source: HubSpot

Create a secondary menu

Image Source: HubSpot

View revisions to your menu

Image Source: HubSpot

For more information, visit this how-to guide.

XML Sitemap Example

So far, you have seen each sitemap’s structure. Most websites will only need the page sitemap that includes the images on each page. That looks like this:

Sitemap Priorities

Adding priorities to your sitemap is one of the things many people do to differentiate between how important different pages are, but Google’s Gary Illyes mentioned that Google ignores these priorities. In his exact words:

Generally speaking, as long as you are honest about when your content was actually modified, include it in your sitemap so that Google and other search engines know to re-crawl the modified page and index the new content.

How to Create a Sitemap

In this section, I will show you how to create a sitemap without using any generator or plugin. If your website is on WordPress or you’d rather use a generator (which makes this easy), skip to the next section.

These are the exact steps to follow to create a sitemap manually:

1. Decide which pages on your site should be crawled by Google, and determine the canonical version of each page.

Canonical versions are necessary when you have duplicate pages. For example, suppose you serve an international community and have pages for each location with the same language and content, like example.com/us/page and example.com/ca/page for US and Canada visitors, respectively.

In that case, it’s important that you point to the original, which might be example.com/page or one of the two as the canonical. If you’d like to learn more about how this works, this post explains canonicalization in depth.

Furthermore, do not include URLs that are blocked by robots.txt files, require a login to access, or are password-protected, as search bots can’t crawl them. You’ll only get coverage errors in GSC if you add them.

2. Determine if you need more than one sitemap.

Several websites use separate files for pages, posts, and categories. Remember that if you have more than 50,000 URLs, you need multiple sitemaps.

3. Code all your URLs in XML tags to look like the type of sitemap you want to create.

This page explains how to use XML tags in further detail.

4. If you have multiple sitemap files, create a sitemap index file and include the links to the individual sitemaps you created.

This one is already described in the section titled “Sitemap Index”.

Sitemap Generators

Most of us marketers do not have a web development background, so we can’t code to save our lives. If the thought of manually crafting a sitemap gives you a headache, use a sitemap generator and save yourself 12 days of looking through complex coding.

There are several sitemap generators that you can use:

TechnicalSEO by Merkle has one where you can upload a CSV file with your URLs. It’s especially great if you have different language versions of your pages (hreflang tags).If your website is custom-coded and is not on any CMS or builder that generates a sitemap, you need to use a generator like TechnicalSEO.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider also has one that I like to use with simple custom-built sites. In Screaming Frog, ensure you are using the spider mode. You can do that by clicking on “Mode” and selecting “spider”. Then type the URL of your home page and let it crawl. When it’s done, click on “Sitemaps.”

For clarification on how to use Screaming Frog, take a look at the image below:

In order to save the XML file to your computer, tick all the options that matter to your site and click on “export”. Then, upload that file to your server in the root directory.

Both tools do not automatically update the sitemap file. Some tools do but are premium, so you pay for the service.

However, you won’t need to deal with any of the above if your website is on WordPress or an ecommerce platform like Shopify.

For WordPress sites, Yoast and Rank Math are popular SEO plugins that generate sitemaps and update them when you edit your posts and pages and Shopify even generates sitemaps automatically.

How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google

The best way to submit your sitemap to Google is through Google Search Console (GSC). There are other ways and additional steps as well, but I will start with GSC, because it’s the most common method.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to Google Search Console and click on “sitemap.”

2. Type your sitemap URL and click Submit. If you have multiple sitemaps with a sitemap index file, you only need to type the URL for the index file.

As an alternative, if you haven’t submitted it to GSC, there is another way to let Google know you have one by adding this line in your robots.txt:

Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap.xml

But of course the URL here with the one you actually have. And if you have an index file, include only your index file here.

If (for some weird reason) you aren’t using GSC, use the ping service to let Google know it should crawl your file. To do that, type the URL below in your browser:

http://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=https://example.com/sitemap.xml

Replace https://example.com/sitemap.xml with your sitemap URL.

And it’s done!

Sitemap Best Practices

Now that you understand the importance of sitemaps, how they work, and your options for submitting them, let’s make sure the final one you create is in tip-top shape by following these best practices.

1. Use tools to generate automatic sitemaps.

Manually creating and updating an XML sitemap will cost you a lot of time (and is unnecessarily complex). To save time so you can focus on other things like your next Netflix binge, it’s best to use an automatic sitemap generator.

The ones mentioned for WordPress above come with that feature for free. For custom-built sites, you will have to pay, but in my opinion it’s absolutely something worth paying for.

2. Do regular sitemap maintenance checks and updates.

All parts of SEO are an ongoing effort, so check your sitemaps regularly. Search console does an excellent job of letting you know if your submitted URLs have issues with crawling or indexing.

Check the ‘Coverage’ section in GSC regularly and update your site or sitemap when there are errors. The great thing about this is that it tells you what the exact error is with suggestions on how to fix it.

You can also use Screaming Frog for sitemap maintenance. After crawling your website or sitemap URL, check the response code tab for 404 or 5xx errors.

If you are using an automatic sitemap generator tool or plugin, update it when updates are available. Furthermore, periodically view the sitemap by going to your sitemap URL and checking if any page is missing or the last updated time is incorrect.

3. Prioritize high-quality pages in your sitemap.

Although Google no longer pays attention to the priority tag (or so they say), you can still add it because there’s more than Google out there (yes, as an SEO I will admit it). Bing might pay attention to that tag, so it’s still good practice to prioritize high-quality pages in your sitemap.

Sitemap priority shows which pages to crawl and index faster, so you can set priorities using values ranging from 0.00 to 1.00. But make sure not to use the same value for all pages or else Google won’t be able to tell which is most important.

For values, you can go with something like this:

Homepage – 1.00
Main landing pages – 0.90
Other landing pages – 0.85
Main links on navigation bar – 0.80
Other pages on site – 0.75
Top articles/blog posts like hub pages – 0.80
Blog category pages – 0.75
Other posts – 0.64

4. Include only canonical versions of URLs in your sitemap.

Your sitemap should only contain URLs that you want search engines to index. That means if a URL points to another as its canonical version, you shouldn’t include it, as it’s a statement to Google and other search engines that you don’t wish for that URL to be indexed.

Ignoring that and including that URL in your sitemap provides conflicting information to Google. The unintended URL might get indexed, or you will get coverage errors in GSC. So, only include the canonical versions, so you can consolidate your position in search engine results.

5. Split up your large sitemaps.

I mentioned this above already that you need to split your sitemap into multiple files if it exceeds 50MB or has more than 50,000 URLs. Never submit large XML files to Google, otherwise some of your URLs will not be indexed – and you know well that every URL matters!

One quick tip here is to save each file with easy to understand names (for you) like page_sitemap1.xml and page_sitemap2.xml.

And with that, I wish you happy sitemapping!

News flash — your email address from high school won’t cut it in the real world. Even if “baseballbro25@aim.com” is a reminder for your athletic years, it’s not a professional email address and can result in your email being ignored.

That said, there’s probably at least one person who has the same name as you, so the email address with just your first and last name is most likely taken by now.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways you can choose a business email address that any recruiter or hiring manager would consider professional.

How to Create a Business Email Address

Unprofessional Email Address Examples

Professional Email Address Ideas and Examples

Email Name Generators

1. Choose your email host.

You must purchase a domain and hosting site when you start your business.

One way to create a business email address is to look for a hosting package with a business email. It’s usually an additional cost, but many users choose to set up their business email this way because of the ease.

If you choose this way of creating a business email, you’ll need to go to your hosting site and set up your email. Usually, this means going to the “Email” section of your hosting site and choosing an email (tips and examples below).

However, another way to set up email is to go through G-Suite instead of your hosting platform (this is what we do at HubSpot). Google will walk you through this process, so it’s usually as simple as 1, 2, or 3.

2. Connect your email to an email client.

Next, if you choose to host your email through your hosting platform, you must connect your email address to an email client.

To do this, you’ll log in to your hosting platform, go to the “Email” section, and find a button that says “Set up Mail Client” or something to that effect.

This will walk you through setting up your email with Outlook, Gmail, or any mail app.

3. Connect your email to your marketing automation software.

Finally, you’ll want to ensure your marketing automation platform has access to your email.

To do this with HubSpot, you can follow these instructions.

Usually, this process will include going to your settings and looking for a “Domains” or “Email Sending” button.

Once you’ve found this in your automation software, it should walk you through the process of connecting your email.

Before exploring different ideas to inspire your professional email address, let’s first dive into what you should avoid when crafting your email address.

Unprofessional Email Address Examples

Here are some examples of what your professional email should not include.

Nicknames

Even if your colleagues call you by your nickname, you should still leave nicknames and alter-egos out of your professional email.

For example, let’s say your name Daniel Johnson and your coworkers, friends, and family all call you Danny or DJ.

While you may like being called by the aforementioned names, the following email addresses would still be inappropriate:

dannyjohnson@domain.com
djdaniel@domain.com
dannyj@domain.com

Your personal and social life could be separate from your business. Your coworkers can refer to you by your nickname if you wish.

However, it’s best to keep things professional if you’re emailing someone for the first time or giving out your contact information to a new potential lead.

Instead, use a combination of your first and last name or initials:

djohnson@domain.com
danieljohnson@domain.com
danielj@domain.com

Company Position

Though it’s acceptable to include your profession in your business email, you should avoid using your company’s position. Your position within the company can change over time.

Furthermore, the title of your position may only capture a handful of your skills, and the person you’re contacting may not be interested in those particular skills.

Avoid creating an email address similar to the following:

jsmithoperationsmanager@domain.com
seniorengineerjohnsmith@domain.com
jsmithceo@domain.com

Instead, include your job position in your email signature and have your email combine your name and initials. It’s also shorter and easier to read.

Numbers

There are 4.37 billion email users worldwide as of 2023, so the chance of finding a unique email address is pretty slim.

So, you’re probably tempted to include numbers in your email address, but adding numbers can actually do more harm than good.

When creating email addresses, avoid the following:

janedoe95@domain.com
jdoe813@domain.com
janedoe1408@domain.com

Usernames like the above are often considered unreliable and untrustworthy. They can set off spam filters and send your emails to the recipient’s junk folder.

You can opt to use periods or underscores, but do so sparingly because too many punctuations or symbols can trigger spam filters.

The following formats are acceptable for a professional email:

jane.doe@domain.com
jane.a.doe@domain.com
jane_doe@domain.com

Use only one or two punctuation marks or underscores in your email address if you choose to use them.

Professional Email Address Ideas and Examples

Now that you know how to set up your business email and what to avoid when crafting an address, let’s review some ideas and examples to help you choose your naming conventions.

Combine your names.

First name + last name = cliffordchi@domain.com
First name . last name = clifford.chi@domain.com
First name . middle name . last name = clifford.douglas.chi@domain.com
First initial + last name = cchi@domain.com
First initial + middle name + last name = cdouglaschi@domain.com
First initial + middle initial +last name = cdchi@domain.com

Shorten your names.

cliffchi@domain.com
cliffdougchi@domain.com
cliffdouglaschi@domain.com
clifforddougchi@domain.com

Combine your name with your profession, city, or degree.

cliffordchiwriter@domain.com
cliffchiwriter@domain.com
cchiwriter@domain.com
cliffordchiboston@domain.com
cliffchiboston@domain.com
cchiboston@domain.com
cliffordchimfa@domain.com
cliffchimfa@domain.com
cchimfa@domain.com

Email Name Generators

If you’re still struggling to develop a professional email address, the following email name generators can craft the right one for you:

1. Romarto

Just enter your first and last name, and the generator will come up with different combinations you can use for your address. You can also add your profession or city to get more options.

Image source

2. 4MeNearMe

4MeNearMe’s free email address generator works similarly to Romarto’s, except you can also add your email host.

Image source

3. GetMara.com

GetMara.com allows users to add their company’s domain to craft the right business email address.

Image source

Key takeaways when creating your professional email address are:

Stick to a variation of your real name, and avoid nicknames.
Don’t use numbers because they can result in your email going to the junk folder.
If you must use punctuation and symbols, do so sparingly and only use periods and underscores
Keep your professional and personal life separate.

Choosing a professional email address can be challenging since you can’t spice it up like you can with your personal one.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of ways to choose a solid professional email address, and hopefully, we helped you find one.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

CV vs. resume: Which should you use when applying for a job? If you spend enough time job searching, you’ll likely see a few postings asking for curriculum vitae (CV) rather than a resume.

You’ll probably wonder what the difference is between the two. Since resumes and CVs both serve as documents that help candidates land new jobs, it is easy to confuse them.

To help you distinguish between the two and choose the proper document for your job application, here’s everything you need to know about CVs vs. resumes.

What is a CV vs. a Resume?

CV vs. Resume Difference

CV vs. Resume Format

CV vs. Resume Examples

What is a CV vs. a Resume?

A CV provides the complete history of your academic credentials, career, and qualifications. A resume is a more concise document that focuses on your career, skills, and capabilities as they relate to a specific position.

In regions like Europe and Asia, a CV is the same as a resume, so be mindful when applying for jobs abroad. Now that you know what a CV and resume are, let’s explore the differences between the two.

CV vs. Resume Difference

A CV is more in-depth and lengthy than a resume because it gives a more thorough summary of a candidate’s career. A resume is more of a “snapshot” of a candidate’s professional history and skills relevant to the potential employer.

As a result, CVs are often longer than resumes, which are usually only one or two pages.

CVs are commonly used in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. They are far less common in the U.S. unless a candidate applies for medical, law, science, or academia jobs.

CV vs. Resume Format

Resumes have three basic formats that vary depending on the job seeker’s goals:

Functional – Ideal for applicants who are early into their career, are changing careers, or have gaps in their resume.
Chronological – Ideal for applicants with at least one year of steady work experience.
Combination – Works best for candidates with more than 10 years of experience who want to showcase their skills and job history.

A CV doesn’t have a standard format because the layout depends on the applicant’s industry and desired job. For example, a scientist’s CV will likely focus more on the candidate’s research and published work.

However, a legal CV may highlight a candidate’s work history and skills attained at past law firms.

Furthermore, resumes typically have five sections – contact information, professional summary statement or objective, education, skills, and job history.

A CV will also require that information, but some need more sections to adhere to industry norms.

Here’s a breakdown of what to include in a CV:

Your contact information
A summary of your professional profile
Detailed work history
Education
Professional skills

Depending on the industry, you’ll also want to include other information such as:

Publications
Awards
Certificates and licenses
Volunteer work
Languages
Grants, scholarships, and fellowships
Teaching and lecturing experience
Professional associations and memberships

CV vs. Resume Examples

Below is an example of a graphic designer’s comprehensive CV.

The graphic designer’s CV is two pages long and features standard information expected in a typical resume. It also includes the applicant’s past clients, projects, awards, certifications, and volunteer experience.

Image source

The graphic designer resume below is similar to the CV, but it’s kept to one page and only focuses on the applicant’s work experience, skills, and education.

Image source

CVs don’t have to be two pages long. Like resumes, the length will vary depending on your years of work experience, industry, and what employers want to know. However, it’s common for CVs to go into deeper detail than resumes.

And regardless of length, including a cover letter with your resume or CV is strongly suggested.

A cover letter gives you the space to explain changes in your career, gaps in your work history, and a more thorough analysis of your awards and achievements.

Now that you know the differences between a resume and a CV, you can decide which to use for your next job application.

If you ask 10 different B2B marketers what “demand generation” means, you’ll get 10 different answers.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions about demand generation in B2B marketing.

In this guide, we’ll clear up the confusion. You’ll get an updated definition of demand generation, along with the components of a successful demand generation strategy.

And finally, you’ll learn why demand generation is not the same as lead generation.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation captures the umbrella of marketing programs that get customers excited about your company’s product and services without trying to explicitly sell to them.

Demand generation programs can help your organization reach new markets, promote new product features, build consumer buzz, generate PR, and re-engage existing customers.

Essentially, demand generation is a long-term, education-focused marketing strategy that prioritizes reaching and engaging “out of market” buyers.

 The ultimate goal of B2B demand generation is remaining top of mind while your potential customers are not in a buying cycle — so that whenever the need arises, your product or service is immediately considered for purchase.

What makes demand generation a distinct concept from other customer acquisition tactics is a commitment to long-term customer relationships and a strategic mindset.

Why is demand generation different than lead generation?

Demand generation marketing is about educating your audience with no expectation in return. Meanwhile, lead generation is optimized for capturing contact information – but prematurely pushes non-solution seeking people to sales automation workflows, which is highly ineffective.

Image Source

Why are most lead generation strategies unsuccessful?

Let’s explore six reasons most lead generation strategies can be unsuccessful.

Misaligned to the modern day buyer’s journey. Gartner research reveals that B2B buyers only spend 17% of their time talking to sales — yet most lead generation efforts are geared toward ushering prospects into a sales conversation.
Destroys the morale of sales teams. Since most MQLs by definition are not in a buying cycle, you are exposing SDRs to mental harm by generating large volumes of uninterested leads.
Creates a hostile environment between sales & marketing. Where the classic conflict of “marketing is sending us garbage leads” and “sales can’t close deals” results in tremendous inefficiency.
Damages brand perception among research-stage buyers. These are buyers that may eventually request a demo when they are motivated and ready to speak to sales.
Gating content generates top of the funnel leads. Types of content like white papers, webinars, case studies and free tools primarily collects the contact information of uninterested buyers (MQL).
Over-reliance on lead scoring and lead nurturing. With this method, marketing teams are placing a bet on their ability to use behavioral data and intent signals to predict the right sales triggers.

Gated Content: Bad Practices versus Good Practices

Is gated content an acceptable lead generation tool for demand generation?

Let’s start by looking at the biggest drawbacks of gated content:

Lack of page views and traffic.
No SEO benefit or boost
The form deters people from downloading content
No brand visibility

But if you’re going to march-on with gated content, it should be done for ABM warm-up, and not direct response sales follow up.

The Role of Inbound Marketing in B2B Demand Generation

Inbound marketing is a key component of any high-performing demand generation campaign. However, this is no longer about content calendars or the AIDA framework.

Instead, it’s about alignment with sales to properly respond to a buyer’s intent to purchase (declared intent), while orchestrating and facilitating the desired purchasing experience.

Today, with inbound marketing, you are either capturing demand or creating demand.

Let’s explore what that means.

Demand Capturing: Intent Channels and Content Examples

Demand Capture Examples — Top Email Marketing Services, Best ETL Tools, Identity Protection Companies, ERP Integration Tools, etc.
Verticalized Demand Capture — CRM for Real Estate, SEO for Startups, QA Metrics for Software Testing, VoIP for Enterprise, etc.
SEO – Bottom of funnel demand generation strategy – this can be summarized as content marketing that creates blogs and landing pages for purchase-intent keywords.
PPC – Bidding on commercial intent keywords to attract your target audience while they are solution narrowing.
CRO – Conversion rate optimization, a practice by which marketers run testing programs to increase conversion rates against high intent website traffic.
Review Websites – G2, TrustRadius and Gartner. Anywhere your buyer personas go to read in-depth peer reviews and ratings of your brand, products and services.
Affiliates & Aggregators – PCMag, US News, Business.com, TechRadar, etc.
Intent Data Providers – Bombora, 6Sense, DemandBase, etc.

Demand Creation: Education Channels and Content Types

Social Media Platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok.
Influencer Marketing: Brand awareness or product launch campaigns with relevant influencers in your niche.
Email Marketing: Newsletters, content promo, nurture sequences and event invites.
Online Communities: The Hustle, Sales Hacker, Demand Curve, etc.
Offline Media: Direct mail, NYC subway ads, etc.
Offsite Channels: Guest posts, press and thought leadership.
Audio Channels: Podcasts, interviews, radio advertising.
Video: YouTube, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Wistia, Loom, etc.
Events: Webinars, live hangouts, virtual conferences.
Conferences: INBOUND, SaaStr, Dreamforce, etc.
Forums: Reddit, Quora, Slack, Discord.
Brand search volume
Your brand vs. competitor brand search volume
Organic traffic to high intent website pages
Direct traffic (people type your website URL into the browser)
Entrances and engagement on your feature / solutions pages
Referral traffic from other relevant websites and social platforms
Assisted conversions: pages consumed “on the path” to becoming a conversion.
Website traffic to conversion rate (declared intent)
Qualified demo to sales opportunity rate
Proposal sent to closed/won rate
Average deal size
Sales pipeline velocity
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Customer lifetime value (CLV)

The Role of Sales in B2B Demand Generation

Rewind to five years ago and ask anyone about demand generation — they’d tell you it was marketers disguised as salespeople running lead generation tactics via marketing automation.

And that’s because marketing used to be a service organization to sales, until B2B executives realized that marketing should be a strategic partner — not an order-taker.

Today, outbound-focused demand generation is not about high-volume cold outreach with automated follow-up sequences. Instead, it’s about ABM (account-based marketing), the inverted marketing funnel.

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Instead of a top-down inbound marketing approach, ABM is a bottom-up marketing strategy that collaborates with sales to engage with high-quality leads and target accounts during complex B2B sales cycles.

Revenue teams have learned that full-funnel marketing with a hybrid mix of inbound, outbound, and lifecycle marketing is the right balance for a high-performing demand generation program.

Metrics and KPIs for Measuring Success

Your demand generation marketing efforts should be guided by a north star: lead quality.

In addition to understanding key SaaS metrics, these are important questions to ask:

Which channels are driving highly qualified leads? 
Which lead types most often convert into qualified sales pipeline? 
What percentage of our opportunities convert into paying customers?
What percentage of our paying customers stick around long enough to become profitable?
Which marketing channels are driving opportunities with the best LTV? 
How do we generate more qualified opportunities from the best channels?
How do we champion full-funnel pipeline visibility?
How do we hold sales accountable for working the leads properly? 
How can we develop an effective feedback loop between marketing & sales?

Leading indicators: example metrics

Brand search volume
Your brand vs. competitor brand search volume
Organic traffic to high intent website pages
Direct traffic (people type your website URL into the browser)
Entrances and engagement on your feature / solutions pages
Referral traffic from other relevant websites and social platforms

Lagging indicators: example metrics

Assisted conversions: pages consumed “on the path” to becoming a conversion.
Website traffic to conversion rate (declared intent)
Qualified demo to sales opportunity rate
Proposal sent to closed/won rate
Average deal size
Sales pipeline velocity
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Declared Intent vs. Assumed Intent

Digital marketing has evolved away from direct response, lead generation focused marketing campaigns to a more holistic approach that covers brand awareness, demand nurturing, and demand capturing across the entire sales funnel.

With this in mind, it’s worthwhile to think about the CTA buttons on your website — and what constitutes declared intent vs. assumed intent.

Run a “declared intent audit” to check if assumed intent leads are being treated as declared intent. If yes, that’s a clear misalignment of sales experience and buyer expectations..

This is the decisive test which confirms if your marketing team truly understands the customer journey — a critical component of any demand generation program.

Once you’re acquainted with your buyers’ needs and can anticipate marketing trends, you can fuel your marketing programs with enhanced levels of personalization.

Marketing automation software will help you run A/B tests, choose the right content, and customize timing for each of your marketing campaigns and customer segments.

To begin with your demand gen strategy, get to know your customers and conduct qualitative research through user feedback and conversations. If you’re struggling to understand your prospects’ needs, pick up the phone and ask.

The success of demand generation stems from your ability to connect with target customers. All you need to get started is a point of reference.

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