What Is Demand Generation?

How Demand Generation Differs from Demand Capture

Demand generation and demand capture are often conflated, but they target different stages of the buying process and produce different outcomes.

Demand generation creates the market. It educates buyers about a problem they may not realize they have, introduces solution categories, and builds preference for your brand. The payoff is months away — you're planting seeds, not harvesting.

Demand capture converts existing demand. It targets buyers who already know what they need and are actively evaluating solutions. The payoff is near-term revenue. BOFU content like comparison pages and alternative pages is the primary organic channel for demand capture.

The distinction matters because most SaaS marketing teams spend disproportionately on generation while leaving capture under-resourced. The result: they create awareness that competitors convert.

What Demand Generation Looks Like in Practice

Demand generation programs typically operate across multiple channels and touchpoints:

• Educational content — blog posts, whitepapers, and guides that address industry problems without pushing a product
• Brand marketing — podcasts, video series, and social content that build familiarity and trust over time
• Events and webinars — conferences, workshops, and digital events that engage prospects in the problem space
• Thought leadership — original research, frameworks, and perspectives that position the company as an authority
• Community building — forums, Slack groups, and user communities that create ongoing engagement

The common thread: none of these activities ask the buyer to evaluate or purchase. They build awareness and preference so that when the buyer eventually enters the market, your brand is already on their shortlist.

Why Demand Generation Alone Isn’t Enough

Demand generation fills the top of the funnel. But without content at the bottom of the funnel to capture that demand when buyers are ready, much of the investment leaks.

Consider a SaaS company that runs a successful podcast about project management challenges. The podcast builds brand awareness among operations teams. Months later, a listener decides to evaluate project management tools and searches “Monday vs Asana.” If that company doesn’t have comparison content ranking for those queries, a competitor captures the buyer the podcast created.

The most effective SaaS marketing strategies pair demand generation with demand capture. Generation builds the market. Capture converts it. Neglecting either half leaves money on the table.

Measuring Demand Generation

Demand generation is harder to measure than demand capture because the results are indirect and delayed. Common metrics include:

• Pipeline sourced from organic and direct channels — deals that didn’t come from outbound or paid
• Brand search volume — how many people search for your company name, indicating growing awareness
• Content engagement — time on page, newsletter subscribers, podcast downloads
• Share of voice — how often your brand appears relative to competitors in industry conversations

By contrast, demand capture metrics are more direct: conversion rates on BOFU pages, demos booked from high-intent keyword traffic, and CAC by content channel.