← The Signal · #211
The demand generation gap
Most marketing captures demand that already exists. The brands that compound growth are the ones building demand among people who are not yet looking to buy.
There is a gap at the heart of most marketing strategies.
The gap between the people who are actively looking for what you sell right now — and everyone else who will eventually become a buyer but is not looking yet.
Most marketing budgets are almost entirely focused on the first group. Paid search. Retargeting. SEO. Lead generation forms. All of it is designed to capture people who have already decided they have a problem worth solving.
This is efficient. It is also limited.
Research from the B2B Institute at LinkedIn, building on the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, consistently shows that the buyers in market at any given time represent a small fraction of the total addressable market — often as low as 3-5%. The other 95% are the future buyers. The ones who will, eventually, be looking. The ones who will remember the brand that showed up consistently, helpfully and memorably before they needed it.
The brands that build compounding growth are almost always the ones investing in both. Demand capture for the short term. Demand creation for the long term.
Demand creation is not awareness advertising in the traditional sense. It is the work of making a brand distinctive, credible and memorable in the specific contexts where future buyers are spending attention — before they know they need you.
It is the thought leadership piece that reframes how a founder thinks about their category. The piece of research that shifts perspective. The creative work that earns attention in contexts where no-one is actively shopping.
The practical question for founders: what percentage of your marketing budget is building future demand versus capturing existing demand? If the answer is less than 20% on future demand, you are likely generating short-term efficiency at the cost of long-term growth.