Mark | GCMO

Demand Gen vs. Demand Capture: Where You’re Losing Millions

Demand Gen vs. Demand Capture: Where You’re Losing Millions

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by

Mark Gabrielli
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Marketing Isn’t Magic—It’s Math (With Better Fonts)

Marketing Isn’t Magic—It’s Math (With Better Fonts)

Demand Gen vs. Demand Capture: Where You’re Losing Millions

Let’s get one thing straight: marketing isn’t a Hogwarts elective. It’s not a cauldron of “vibes,” “virality,” and “manifesting brand love.” It’s math. It’s strategy. It’s psychology with a budget and a deadline. And yes, it’s got better fonts than finance, but don’t let the Helvetica fool you—this is a numbers game.

So if your current marketing plan is a vision board, a TikTok intern, and a prayer, buckle up. We’re about to turn your glitter into gold—with spreadsheets.

The Big Lie: “We Just Need to Go Viral”

Ah yes, the battle cry of the desperate founder or the board member who read one TechCrunch article in 2019. “Let’s go viral!” they say, as if virality is a vending machine and not a statistical anomaly wrapped in a meme.

Here’s the truth bomb:

“If your business model only works when you go viral, you don’t have a business—you have a lottery ticket.”

Instead of chasing unicorns, let’s talk about building a marketing engine that actually works. One that scales. One that doesn’t rely on the algorithm gods smiling upon your 7-second video of a dancing CFO.

Marketing as a Math Problem (That You Can Actually Solve)

Let’s break it down. Every marketing strategy should answer this equation:

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) < Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

If that’s not true, you’re not marketing—you’re lighting money on fire and calling it “brand awareness.”

Step 1: Know Your Numbers Like You Know Your Coffee Order

  • CAC: How much does it cost to acquire one customer? Include ad spend, salaries, software, and the emotional toll of explaining attribution to your CEO.
  • LTV: How much revenue does one customer bring in over their lifetime? Bonus points if you segment by cohort and not just “vibes.”

If your CAC is $300 and your LTV is $250, congrats—you’re paying people to be your customers. That’s not marketing. That’s philanthropy.

Step 2: Build a Funnel That Doesn’t Leak Like a Sieve

Funnels are like dating apps. You don’t want to match with everyone—you want to match with the right ones, and you want them to stick around.

  • Top of Funnel (TOFU): Awareness. This is where you stop shouting into the void and start targeting people who might actually care.
  • Middle of Funnel (MOFU): Consideration. Give them value. Educate. Entertain. Don’t just pitch—court them.
  • Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Conversion. Make it easy. Make it obvious. Make it irresistible.

If your funnel has more holes than a colander, fix that before you pour more budget into the top. Otherwise, you’re just funding a very expensive disappearing act.

Framework: The “3M” Model (Message, Market, Mechanism)

Here’s a simple framework that works better than most agency decks with 47 slides and zero substance:

  • Message: What are you saying, and why should anyone care? If your message could be used by your competitor, it’s not a message—it’s wallpaper.
  • Market: Who are you talking to? Be specific. “Millennials” is not a target audience. “Millennial dads who use Notion and drink cold brew” is.
  • Mechanism: How are you delivering the message? Email? Paid social? Skywriting? (Please don’t do skywriting.)

When these three align, you get results. When they don’t, you get confusion, wasted spend, and a Slack message from your CFO that starts with “Hey, quick question…”

One of our clients—a B2B SaaS company we’ll call “SaaSy McSaasface”—was spending $50K/month on paid ads with no clear attribution. Their CAC was higher than their LTV, but hey, they had a killer TikTok presence. (Insert slow clap.)

We stripped it down to the basics:

  • Refined their ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
  • Rebuilt their funnel with clear CTAs and value props
  • Shifted budget from paid social to high-intent search and partner channels
  • Implemented a lead scoring model that didn’t require a PhD in data science

Result? CAC dropped by 42%, LTV increased by 30%, and the CEO stopped asking if they should “do something on Clubhouse.”

Stop Worshipping the Algorithm. Start Worshipping the Customer.

Algorithms change. Customers don’t. They want value. They want clarity. They want to know why your thing is better than the other thing.

So stop chasing trends and start solving problems. Be the brand that understands your customer better than they understand themselves. Be the brand that shows up consistently, not just when the algorithm decides to bless you with reach.

Final Thought: Marketing Is a Business Function, Not a Talent Show

If your marketing strategy looks like a talent show—random acts of content, desperate attempts to be funny, and a lot of jazz hands—it’s time to grow up.

Marketing is how you scale revenue. It’s how you build defensible moats. It’s how you turn strangers into customers and customers into