The B2B demand generation glossary

ABM concentrates marketing and sales efforts on a small group of high-value accounts, aligning messaging and channels to each one individually rather than chasing volume. It's often combined with highly personalized outbound.

A team defines 50 target accounts and designs a specific multichannel campaign for each one.

The BDR actively prospects cold accounts, starts conversations and books meetings for the sales team. It's usually distinguished from the SDR in that it works more on pure outbound than on inbound leads.

A BDR sends email and call sequences to a list of target accounts that have never interacted with the brand.

It describes the goals, challenges, behaviors and decision criteria of whoever buys your product or service. It serves as a shared reference for marketing and sales to build relevant messaging.

“Sales Director at a B2B SaaS company with 50-200 employees, measures success by pipeline generated.”

A champion believes in the value of your product and helps move it through the buying organization, providing access to other stakeholders and internal information.

An operations manager who advocates for your proposal in front of the purchasing committee.

It remains an effective channel in B2B outbound when combined with prior account research and a flexible script aimed at starting a conversation, not closing an immediate sale.

A 3-minute opening call to qualify interest and book a follow-up conversation.

Its effectiveness depends on personalization, how relevant the message is to the recipient's role, and a subject line that drives opens without landing in spam.

An email that references a specific challenge in the prospect's industry, not a generic offer.

It shows where in the process you lose the most opportunities, and where it's worth adjusting messaging, qualification or process.

Out of 100 meetings booked, 30 move to proposal: a 30% conversion rate.

It centralizes interaction history, the status of every opportunity, and contact data, letting sales and marketing work from the same up-to-date information.

HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive are common examples of a CRM in B2B teams.

Each deal represents a possible transaction with a qualified prospect, and it moves through defined stages of the sales process until it's won or lost.

A deal in the “proposal sent” stage worth an estimated $12,000 annually.

Correctly identifying the decision maker keeps the sales cycle from stalling out talking only to influencers who have no budget authority.

The VP of Sales who signs the final contract, even though the technical team evaluated the tool.

Unlike a generic demo, an effective demo connects every feature shown to a problem the prospect already mentioned during the discovery call.

Showing only the 3 modules relevant to the prospect's use case, not the whole product.

Its goal is to diagnose before selling: understand the prospect's current process, pain, budget and decision process, to confirm whether it's worth moving forward.

Questions about the current process, the impact of the problem, and who else is involved in the decision.

It should answer what you do, for whom, and what concrete result it produces, without unnecessary jargon, in about the time an elevator ride takes.

“We help B2B companies build predictable pipeline through segmented, measurable outbound.”

It's built from the active opportunities in the pipeline, weighted by their probability of closing at each stage of the sales process.

A quarterly forecast based on the value and stage of every open deal.

It's not always an obstacle: a well-informed gatekeeper can become an ally once they understand the value of the conversation they're enabling.

An executive assistant who books the meeting with the director if the message feels relevant.

It's defined by firmographics (industry, size, location) and by behavioral or contextual signals that show a company is ready to buy. It's the foundation of every effective outbound strategy.

“B2B SaaS companies with 20-200 employees in LATAM, without an in-house SDR team.”

It relies on content, SEO and brand demand to attract prospects who are already searching for a solution, in contrast to outbound's active contact.

A prospect who downloads an ebook and then requests a demo on their own.

Not every lead is ready to buy; that's why different qualification levels (MQL, SQL) are used before handing it to sales.

Someone who left their email in a contact form.

It consists of consistently delivering relevant content and contact, so the lead progresses in their decision process without feeling pressured.

A sequence of educational emails sent over 6 weeks after a first download.

It assigns value to behaviors (pricing page visits, downloads) and to firmographic data (job title, company size) to decide which leads go to sales first.

A lead who visits the pricing page 3 times scores higher than one who only read a blog post.

It meets certain behavioral or profile criteria defined together with sales, but hasn't yet been validated in a direct conversation.

Someone who downloaded two resources and visited the pricing page.

It increases the odds of a reply by not relying on a single channel, and lets you adapt the message to the context of each platform.

The same prospect gets an email on Monday and a LinkedIn interaction on Wednesday.

Unlike inbound, outbound doesn't wait for the prospect to arrive: it identifies target accounts and proactively starts the first contact in a segmented way.

A cold email sequence aimed at a defined ICP.

It combines data, segmentation and targeted research so every message feels specific, even though it's part of a campaign reaching hundreds of accounts.

An email that references recent news about the prospect's company, generated through quick prior research on the account.

A healthy pipeline has enough volume and stage-to-stage velocity to sustain the sales team's revenue goal.

A $200,000 pipeline spread across 15 opportunities at different stages.

It defines how many contact attempts are made, on which channel and with what spacing, to maximize the odds of a reply without overwhelming the prospect.

Day 1: email. Day 3: LinkedIn. Day 5: call. Day 8: closing email of the sequence.

It can be measured in closed revenue, meetings booked or opportunities generated, depending on the role and the funnel stage it's meant to drive.

An SDR with a quota of 15 qualified meetings per month.

It's one of the most direct indicators of how relevant your message and audience targeting are.

A campaign with 500 emails sent and 60 replies has a 12% reply rate.

It includes sales materials, ongoing training and tools that reduce the time it takes a rep to become effective.

A library of success stories organized by industry, used in sales calls.

It goes from initial interest to close, and each stage naturally filters out those who don't move forward — hence its funnel shape.

Lead → Qualified contact → Meeting → Proposal → Close.

It serves as a reference guide so every rep, new or experienced, runs the sales process with the same criteria and quality.

A document with call scripts, common objection handling, and qualification criteria.

The SDR is the first human touchpoint in the sales process: they filter, qualify and prepare the prospect before handing them to an account executive.

An SDR who qualifies an MQL by phone before booking them with an Account Executive.

Unlike the MQL, the SQL has already gone through a direct conversation confirming budget, need and fit with the ICP.

A prospect who confirmed on a call that they have approved budget for this quarter.

It marks the point where an SQL officially becomes an opportunity with an estimated value, stage and projected close date.

An $8,000 annual opportunity logged in the CRM with an estimated close date.

It can be an email, a call, a message or a social interaction; the sum of well-spaced touchpoints builds the prospecting cadence.

The third email in a 5-touchpoint sequence.

It answers why a prospect should choose you over any other alternative, including doing nothing, in a clear and verifiable way.

“We build predictable pipeline in 90 days through segmented, measurable outbound.”

It differs from a cold lead because there's already some level of recognition or prior interest, which makes it easier to pick the conversation back up.

Someone who opened three emails from a past campaign without replying.