Why CMOs Must Rebuild Demand Gen Around In-Market Buyers
If you’ve been running a B2B demand engine recently, you’ve felt it: the traditional funnel isn’t producing a reliable pipeline anymore.
Email engagement has eroded. Outbound feels like shouting into a void. What used to take 8–10 touches now takes 12–14 and still doesn’t move the pipeline consistently.
Yet most teams respond with more of the same: more sequences, more tools, more noise.
The uncomfortable truth is this: the problem isn’t the channels. The problem is the playbook we’re still clinging to.
For too long, we’ve treated demand gen like a volume game. Push enough activity through the top, and something should convert.
That belief doesn’t hold anymore.
Buyers aren’t resisting outreach, they’re resisting irrelevant outreach. They’ve changed faster than our GTM motions have.
After running demand at multiple companies and now leading marketing at HG Insights, I’ve learned this:
Demand gen isn’t failing because buyers have moved. Demand gen is failing because we haven’t moved with them.
It’s time we do.
What Changed: The Old Model Can’t Be Saved
The decline of demand gen didn’t happen overnight. It eroded the moment our narrative drifted from buyer reality into product-first selling.
Teams began leading with features: AI claims, automation promises, platform unification. Each one technically accurate and emotionally irrelevant.
Because none of these answer the only question the buyer is asking: “Does this solve the problem I’m struggling with right now?”
“Selling took precedence… and the value proposition got lost.”
— Shekar Hariharan
When the story shifts away from buyer context, buyers tune it out. And that’s exactly what’s happening across the market.
Campaigns aren’t underperforming due to channel fatigue. They’re underperforming because they never spoke to the buyer’s lived pain in the first place.
The Mindset Shift: Start Where the Buyer Actually Is
The fix isn’t a new content strategy or the latest AI-powered writing tool.
The real fix is deceptively simple: invert the funnel and start with in-market buyers first.
Instead of asking, “How do we get more leads?” Ask, “Who is actively researching our category this week and why?”
Instead of guessing who might care, identify the accounts and champions already showing intent.
This inversion forces a different GTM behavior:
- You talk to fewer accounts
- You craft sharper narratives
- You focus on relevance before reach
- You prioritize the people who actually want to hear from you
And suddenly your outbound stops feeling like outbound. It feels like guidance.
Or in my words:
“Flip the order. Start with what the buyer wants before you talk about what you sell.”
This is the foundation of modern demand activation.
Proof: Buyers No Longer Trust Claims, They Trust Context
There are three truths about today’s buyer that every CMO needs to internalize:
1. Buyers need proof that works in their environment
I still see vendors pitch customer stories assuming it’ll impress me. It doesn’t.
“I don’t buy unless I see it work in my environment.”
If you can’t show me the outcome using my data, my workflow, and my reality, I’m not convinced.
2. Internal proof is more credible than any external social proof
My first buying question is always: “How do you use your own product internally?”
If your team isn’t using your solution to drive pipeline, conversions, or efficiency, why should I trust you to help mine?
This is why we run our own marketing on HG’s ecosystem: TrustRadius intent + MadKudu lookalikes, long before we sell that value externally.
Early cycles: 50+ leads from the first waves. Target: scale that toward hundreds per month.
That’s proof. Not theory.
3. The math behind volume-based GTM has collapsed
This is the clearest signal of all.
- 8–10 touches once worked
- Now it takes 12–14
- Conversion hasn’t improved
- Buyers are more selective than ever
You can’t “optimize” your way out of this. The model itself no longer works.
What Works Now: The In-Market Precision Playbook
Here’s what an effective demand engine looks like today, built from what we run at HG Insights and what I’ve implemented across multiple companies:
1. Anchor the story in real buyer pain
Don’t start with features. Start with:
- What metric is slipping?
- What internal friction is blocking progress?
- What outcome matters this quarter?
Pain-first beats product-first every time.
2. Tie everything to a business KPI
Buyers don’t care about tech. They care about:
- Pipeline
- Revenue
- Retention
- Efficiency
- Meetings booked
If your narrative doesn’t tie to a number, it won’t land.
3. Prioritize using intent + champion lookalikes
TrustRadius = who is researching today
MadKudu = who resembles your real champions
Together, they give you a bullseye not a funnel.
4. Build 1:1 micro-narratives, not mass campaigns
If your email could be sent to 500 people, it’s not worth sending to one.
Buyers engage with relevance. Not volume.
5. Use your own workflows before marketing them
This earns trust faster than anything you could write.
When you show the internal transformation, the external story becomes real.
Where GTM Goes Next: Removing the Manual Work
The biggest bottleneck in GTM isn’t creativity. It’s the manual martech workflow everyone pretends is fine.
A single campaign may require: Sixth Sense → Bombora → ZoomInfo → enrichment → CRM hygiene → filtering → sequencing → routing.
One missed step, one missing license, one broken integration, and performance collapses.
That’s why the future is agentic GTM.
AI won’t just write copy.
It will run the workflows:
- Identify ICP-fit accounts
- Enrich and score lookalikes
- Trigger activation
- Personalize messaging
- Guide SDR + AE actions
- Map activities to pipeline
- Optimize based on outcomes
No glue work. No tool juggling. No ops debt.
Just a consistent system that executes the way your GTM playbook should have been executed all along.
Why This Matters Now
This isn’t a “nice to have” shift. The market is forcing it.
- Revenue targets are rising
- Budgets are not
- Email performance is slipping
- LinkedIn outbound is saturated
- Buyers ignore anything that isn’t contextual
- Tool fatigue is real across every marketing org
“Emails don’t work. Outbound doesn’t work. Buyers ignore anything that’s not relevant.”
— Shekar
Scaling the old funnel isn’t a strategy anymore. It’s a liability.
The teams who shift now toward in-market buyers, intelligence-led targeting, and agentic execution will create real competitive advantage.
Those who keep scaling volume will fall further behind, no matter how good their creative is.
The buyer has changed.
The market has changed.
GTM has to change with it.
And the companies that rebuild their demand engine around precision – not volume – will be the ones shaping what comes next.
