Demand generation struggle: Your funnel isn’t broken. Your buyer has changed.

If your MQL-to-opportunity conversion is dropping, ABM campaigns aren't performing, or if your paid campaigns aren’t hitting like they used to, it might not be your strategy. It might be your assumptions.

Hidden demand generation channels

Here’s what I’m seeing across B2B SaaS:

Buying journeys are nonlinear

Buyers bounce between channels. They ghost your SDRs, come back 3 weeks and ask for a demo on your website.

If you're only measuring the parts of the buyer journey that show up in your CRM or analytics tools, you're missing all the hidden steps that actually influenced the decision.

Dark social is influencing more than you think

Decisions are getting made in private communities, group texts, and internal Slack threads.By the time they hit your site, they’re 80% sold or totally out.

Brand, reputation, and peer proof matter more than ever.

Buyers want to self-serve first 

They want ungated content. 

They want pricing without a call. 

They want product tours without booking a demo.

If your process is friction-heavy, they’ll go somewhere else.

So what does this mean for demand generation?

→ Shift from lead capture to lead awareness → Invest in community, not just clicks → Align content to stages you can’t see in your CRM → Support sales with buying context, not just contact info

The old funnel didn’t break. It just evolved - and so did your buyer.

How are you adapting? What are you seeing in your demand gen efforts?

#DemandGen #ModernSaaSBuyer #DarkSocial