The B2B marketing funnel has changed drastically in just the last year or two. What are the major takeaways for the manufacturing sector when it comes to generating more leads? Here’s your TL;DR:
- Your website is the new mid-funnel, so let’s stop pretending that PDFs might actually qualify buyers.
- Ungate your content (unless it’s first-party research) and focus on publishing proof points from your ERP and business data.
- Route meaningful signals to sales plays in hours, not weeks.
- Measure what really matters: quote speed ↑, win rate ↑. If it doesn’t move those metrics, cut it.
Contents:
The Gating Problem: Lead Math That Isn't Mathing
Now, Your Website IS the Mid-Funnel
Look for Signals to Route to Sales
30/60/90 Implementation
FAQs
The Gating Problem: Lead Math That Isn’t Mathing
For the last 10-15 years, the theory of inbound marketing has reigned supreme, with its neatly packaged flow of funnel stages from lead > marketing qualified > sales qualified > opportunity.
The main driver of all those leads? Gated content; i.e., ebooks, white papers, data sheets, and the like, tucked away safely behind forms. Why? Because the PDFs were so valuable, your best prospects were willing to throw their contact info at you for them.
Or so the world thought.
Your content has value, but it isn’t about qualifying leads; it’s about educating your prospects. In the manufacturing sector, gated content can actually result in inflated lead numbers, reduced trust by prospects and customers, and even worse: a stalled pipeline.
That’s because the inbound model eliminates the operational proof point (it was buried behind a form), and proof is critical in manufacturing. Your prospects need to understand the results you deliver, and those data points must lead your story, not be hidden away.
How can you tell if you’ve got a gating problem? One indicator is a high number of inbound leads paired with a low number of meetings – and an even lower number of conversions to actual paying customers.
If you’re hearing the marketing team say “we’re driving so many leads” but the sales team is complaining that they have nothing to close, you might just have a gating problem.
On top of that, lead qualification at the mid-funnel typically isn’t happening in a strategic way. Marketing teams often aren’t able to clearly identify which leads are a fit or are showing true buying intent.
And so, too many “leads” flow into your website (and your CRM), click on a few things or engage with some email marketing, and then BOOM! – they’re routed straight to sales as “marketing qualified,” way before they’re ready.
Here’s the reality: If a PDF download is your strongest intent signal, you’ve got a problem – and it’s your lead generation engine.
Now, Your Website IS the Mid-Funnel
Outbound Prospecting: Easier Now, But Not Always Smarter
It used to be really hard to find the right people. You would put out ads or stand up trade show booths and hope for the best, buy lists (the quality was sh*t), sign up for expensive databases (the quality was still questionable), and try to cobble it all together to find the right people.
With AI, finding the right people has gotten easier (even if not always 100% accurate). As long as you can define your ICP (ideal customer profile), there are endless tools that will help you find the right companies, and the right people at those companies.
But the age-old gap in figuring out which of those people are in-market, and which are the most likely to buy from you, persists.
The Marketing Funnel Is Stretching – and Shifting
Your website used to sit at the top of your funnel, with tactics like blogging for SEO pulling in steady streams of qualified traffic and net new leads. Today, AI is eating that traffic, or rather, expanding it (hello, zero-click search).
The top of the funnel (TOF) now starts at your ICP + your TAL (target account list). TOF also includes everything that’s happening around your brand but off of your owned properties. Think PR and trade pubs, brand advertising, AI search overviews, LLM chats, Reddit threads, LinkedIn conversations, product reviews, Glassdoor reviews, YouTube videos, and more.
There are plenty of people in your universe who may already be aware of your brand from all of these other channels, but you may have no idea – even if you also know them from your own outbound prospecting.
(I know. The conundrum is real.)
Given all that, by the time a prospect actually lands on your website, which requires a pretty intentional decision nowadays, they’re showing a high level of interest in and engagement with your brand. Congratulations: they are now in your mid-funnel.
READ MORE: Manufacturer Success Story: Laying a Messaging Groundwork for Go-To-Market Success
Use Your Website to Qualify Inbound & Outbound Leads
It’s time to think about your website as a qualification layer, not a brochure or even a lead generator. If someone’s on your site, they already know you. And you probably already know them, if you're doing any sort of outbound prospecting or TAL building (or if you’re using tools like Vector to monitor who’s visiting your site).
My point is: you no longer need your website to do the lift of figuring out who the visitors are and what they’re looking at.
Stop asking for their information and just give them value.
What might that look like? Analyze your available data (look in your ERP!) and your website, and quickly surface the following for your visitors:
- Proof Point Scoreboards: rolling 90-day KPI tiles looking at key metrics like scrap %, uptime, throughput, downtime, run rate, etc.
- Use Cases: social proof and stories of people just like your prospect and the problems you’ve solved for them (even if they’re theoretical or anonymized); use data here whenever possible
- Offers: no more than three; useful, bottom-of-funnel things like teardowns, demos, ROI checks/calculators, comparative checklists
- Next Best Action Modules: contextual and tailored to individual journeys, not a generic “contact form” call to action
Look for Signals to Route to Sales
At this point, you’ll have a better understanding of each website visitor, including whether they’re on your TAL or in your outbound prospecting list. You’ve given them value in the form of hard proof, and you’ve let them raise their hand for an offer that’s matched to their intent.
Now you can pass them off to the sales team with boss-level confidence. This is a truly warm lead who has taken a clear, bottom-of-funnel action like asking for a demo or a teardown.
That action is your signal to move the lead to the next step: to a sales owner, with a clear SLA (service level agreement) in place as to how that lead should be actioned. (Need help here? Check out this article on using RevOps to accelerate growth.)
With automation tools, you can get really specific and define things like: if the lead viewed this page + this page + watched this video, give them X offer. If they viewed that page + 75% scroll of that page + viewed this data sheet, give them Y offer.
You’ll measure success by watching your conversion rates from lead > meeting > close. They should be significantly higher than with your traditional inbound model.
30/60/90 Implementation
Yes, you can do this. We recommend starting with just one product or service line as your pilot. Here’s a sample 30/60/90-day plan:
- Day 0–30: Make your work visible
- Ungate mid-funnel content; stand up two proof blocks with rolling 90-day data
- Define and launch the offers (no more than three)
- Shadow-route signals manually to validate the model
- Day 31–60: Harden & route
- Automate proof block refreshes; add "Next Best Action" module
- Define owners & SLAs per signal; start weekly scoreboard review (ops + sales)
- Day 61–90: Scale & optimize
- Expand to a second page/product family
- Kill low-signal modules; concentrate on the offers that convert leads
Objections You’ll Hear (And the Answers)
You’re going to get pushback. Just like a salesperson, know your objections and be ready for them. You’ll probably hear:
- “We can’t publish numbers.” → Okay, publish windows + variances with footnotes; start with process proofs until your data matures.
- “We need forms to get leads.” → You need meetings, not leads that aren’t qualified anyway. Ungating content will increase your warm lead → meeting rate.
- “We don’t have tools.” → Fine, start with a shared spreadsheet + weekly refresh; the process is what matters most; you can add tools later.
Know What to Measure
Set your success metrics ahead of time so it’s crystal clear if you’re doing well (or not). Here’s what to think about:
- Leading: proof scorecard clicks/views, offer clicks, warm replies, time-to-first-touch
- Lagging: qualified leads created, win rate lift, margin impact
- Sanity check: “Are we booking more meetings with the right firms?”
And remember: proof points beat gated PDFs. Ready to get started? Here’s a checklist you can use to audit your site for mid-funnel appropriateness.
Looking for even more support? Book a 30-minute Working Session and we’ll help you think through how to bring these best practices into your site. No sales pitches, we promise. Just a chance to brainstorm how to bring this to life for your business.
FAQs:
How can manufacturers generate more leads from their website?
Stop chasing raw “leads.” Optimize for qualified meetings. Treat the site as a qualification layer: ungate mid-funnel content, show a simple scoreboard (two 90-day KPI tiles), and offer one next step that matches visitor behavior (teardown, ROI check, or checklist). Route meaningful behavior to a human in ≤48 hours. When time-to-first-touch drops and meeting rate rises, pipeline follows.
Should manufacturers gate content?
Only gate high-value first-party research. Ungate everything else: case studies, use cases, calculators, videos, checklists, white papers, so visitors can qualify themselves via the user experience. Forms belong at the bottom of the funnel (teardown/ROI/demo), not over mid-funnel educational content.
Rule of thumb: if the asset helps a buyer decide “are you real, are you safe, can you deliver?”, keep it ungated.
What proof should we publish without risking IP?
Publish outcomes with context, not secrets. Use rolling windows + variance and a footnote.
Safe proof patterns:
- Scrap / rework: “−1.8% over last 90 days. Source: MES. Owner: QA Lead.”
- Quote speed: “≤24h for BOMs <200 lines (90-day median). Source: CPQ.”
- On-time delivery: “97% (90-day avg). Source: ERP. Owner: Ops.”
- Inspection time: “−42% at QA Cell A3 (90-day avg).”
If confidence is low or data is sensitive, show process proof (the controlled steps, frequencies, owners) until the numbers mature.
How do we route warm website signals to sales?
Define specific behaviors → one next step → human owner + SLA. Keep it tool-agnostic.
Examples:
- QA page (≥75% scroll) + Lead-Time policy, same session → Pricing/lead-time teardown (AE, 24h)
- Pricing + ROI page within 7 days → ROI check (SE/AM, 24–48h)
Track time-to-first-touch (hours) and warm→meeting rate (%). If time to first touch is > 48h, fix routing before adding offers.
Which KPIs show the mid-funnel is working?
Measure what moves meetings and wins:
Leading:
- Time-to-first-touch: target ≤24–48 hours for warm behavior
- Warm lead→meeting rate: target +5–10 pts vs. baseline within 30 days
- Offer clicks / accepts (teardown, ROI, checklist)
Lagging:
- Qualified meetings → opportunities
- Win rate and margin on deals influenced by on-site behavior
Kill rule: if warm lead→meeting rate doesn’t improve in 30 days, change the offer, not the headline.
AI supported the development of this content, including planning, brainstorming, and outlining, but a human did the writing (and editing).
