| TL;DR (Because You’re Busy, I Get It) This post walks you through the exact AI-powered demand gen system we use at Fastmarkit for ourselves and our clients. You’ll learn: → The core problems most demand gen teams can’t seem to solve (and why AI won’t save you without structure) → A breakdown of our real tech stack using tools like Clay, n8n, Appify, LinkedIn, and CustomGPTs → How we create lead-to-pipeline systems that don’t rely on luck or constant manual chasing → Mistakes we see other companies make with AI demand gen and how to avoid them → What it actually looks like to build demand gen workflows that convert (without sounding like a marketing robot) No vague “AI is the future” talk. Just our actual system, built to drive real pipeline. |
Introduction: Overwhelmed, Underperforming, and Still Chasing Leads? You’re Not Alone.
Every single week I talk to CEOs, CROs, and CMOs who are all whispering the same pain into my inbox or sales calls.
- “We have leads, but they’re not converting into actual opportunities.”
- “We’re spending on ads and tools, but nothing feels cohesive.”
- “Our SDRs are buried in manual follow-up that goes nowhere.”
- “Marketing is generating interest, but sales is still cold-starting every convo.”
- “We know we should be using AI, but everything feels like noise or vaporware.”
Same problem. Different company. Every. Damn. Week.
And to be honest, I get it. The world of demand gen is louder than ever. Every platform is selling you a new “AI-powered” feature like it’s the holy grail. There are 42 new tools launching every Tuesday. The dashboards look nice, but pipeline is still dry.
It’s not that companies don’t want to evolve. They’re stuck trying to find Waldo in an avalanche of AI tools, features, and use cases. So much noise and they don’t even know where to start.
That’s why I wrote this post.
I want to take you behind the scenes of what actually works for us at Fastmarkit. Not hypotheticals. Not hype. But the real systems we’ve built for ourselves and for clients – from solopreneurs to SaaS startups to multi-million-dollar companies – who don’t have time to babysit 15 different tools just to run one campaign.
By the time you finish reading this, you’ll walk away with:
- Where to start.
- A clear picture of how AI actually fits inside a working demand gen system
- Tactical examples of the stack we run, how it connects, and why it converts
- A path to replicate or adapt this model to your own business, no guesswork required
I built this to stop reacting and start compounding. If you’re serious about scaling demand gen with clarity and control, you’re going to want to see how this works.
Let’s get into it.
The Real Problem Most Teams Face with Demand Gen
Most demand gen initiatives aren’t just broken by poor processes. They’re strangled by the pileup of mismatched tools and disconnected execution.
- You’ve got a CRM that doesn’t talk to your lead enrichment tool.
- You’ve got SDRs copying and pasting cold emails from a shared doc like it’s 2014.
- Your marketers are drowning in content creation cycles, pushing out ebooks and webinars that collect dust instead of drive intent.
- Your “lead nurture” program is a glorified email drip that no one opens.
- And your follow-ups? They die after the first reply if you’re lucky enough to get one.
That’s not a demand gen system. That’s survival mode held together with Slack messages, Zapier, and vibes.
And now, layered on top of that chaos? AI. But not in the helpful way. In the “every platform has AI now” way. In the “should we be using ChatGPT for this?” way.
And suddenly the team that was already stretched thin is expected to become technologists too. You don’t need another dashboard. You need an operating system that actually works.
So Where the Hell Do You Start?
Spoiler: Not with another tool. Before you plug in anything “smart,” you need to know what’s slowing you down and where the cracks are.
Here’s how we walk our clients through this reset:
Step 1: Audit your existing process
Start with brutal honesty. What’s already working well? Where are deals getting stuck? Which steps are still painfully manual?
Look at both your sales and marketing workflows:
- What happens when someone downloads a guide?
- How is intent being scored and routed?
- What content assets actually lead to meaningful conversations?
- Are your follow-ups aligned to buyer stage, or just automated noise?
And don’t just look at the tools, look at the people. The handoffs. The weird workarounds. The team members quietly doing “extra” steps no one ever documented.
That’s where the real inefficiencies live.
Step 2: Identify the repetitive, low-impact work
This is where AI becomes valuable. The moment your team says, “This is the part that sucks,” that’s your cue to automate.
This applies to both sides of the demand gen coin:
For marketing:
- Designing creatives that align with your brand guidelines
- Repurposing long-form content into bite-sized assets
- Pulling performance data and building basic reports
- Copy-pasting blog CTAs across 14 content pieces
For sales/rev ops:
- Lead list enrichment
- Writing repetitive follow-ups
- Logging activity across platforms
- Compiling call notes and updating the CRM
These tasks don’t require human creativity or strategy. They just eat hours.
And when they’re offloaded, your team finally gets to focus on high-impact work like refining messaging, launching campaigns that actually hit, and engaging leads with relevance.
Step 3: Map what should be automated
Now that you’ve found the gaps, this is where you design real flow.
Smart automation isn’t about speed for the sake of speed. It’s about consistency and orchestration.
You want your system to:
- Automatically qualify and route leads based on real signals
- Nurture leads intelligently, not just endlessly
- Send contextual content that reflects where your buyer actually is
- Trigger follow-ups based on activity or lack thereof
- Keep marketing and sales aligned in one system of record
This is what creates a demand gen system that feels seamless, not stitched together.
Step 4: Plug in AI agents to scale what matters
Once you know what to automate, bring in the AI agents to lighten the load without losing control.
This isn’t about replacing your team. It’s about removing the brain drain from work that doesn’t require their genius.
Here’s where we often deploy AI agents:
- Summarizing call transcripts into shareable internal notes and creating actionable tasks from these
- Writing the first draft of emails, ads, or nurture copy
- Creating personalized LinkedIn messages based on CRM data
- Tagging and segmenting leads based on behavior
- Generating follow-up sequences from existing content
- Building mini-campaigns based on a single source asset (like a webinar or podcast)
This is where you stop working harder and finally start working smarter with tools that adapt to your business, not ones that force you to adapt to them.
When all of this clicks into place, you don’t just “do AI.” You build a demand gen system that runs cleaner, faster, and more intelligently than 90% of the market.
You also make space for your humans to do what only humans can do: connect, sell, and create momentum.
What AI Can Actually Do in Demand Gen (And Where It Falls Flat)
AI isn’t going to magically fix your demand gen problems just because you plugged ChatGPT into your Slack and fed it your last webinar transcript. It’s not some all-knowing oracle that will drop SQLs into your lap while you sip your green juice.
But it can do a lot. When used the right way, it becomes a revenue-accelerating, sanity-saving, time-buying partner that helps your team get out of the weeds and into real momentum.
What AI Can Do Really Well
1. Cut down repetitive execution by 80 percent. You know those tasks your team avoids like the gym after New Year’s? Things like pulling lead lists, formatting outreach, summarizing calls, repurposing content, and building first-pass follow-up messages? AI lives for that. It’s fast, it doesn’t get bored, and it doesn’t have meetings that “could have been an email.”
2. Supercharge personalization at scale. AI doesn’t mean sending the same templated cold email to 5,000 people. When trained well, it can layer in buyer context, segment nuance, and tone specificity so your comms actually sound like a person, not a prospecting intern with a thesaurus addiction.
3. Act like a creative assistant for your marketers. Instead of starting from a blank doc, your team gets structured ideas, outlines, hooks, and repurposed formats. AI is the best brainstorm partner that never says “let me get back to you” or hijacks the meeting to talk about brand fonts.
4. Analyze faster than your team ever could. AI can scan trends across campaigns, summarize engagement data, and even suggest optimizations in real-time. You don’t need to wait for next quarter’s “insights deck.” You can know right now if that nurture sequence is doing its job or just clogging inboxes.
5. Operate as an always-on campaign engine. With the right inputs, your AI stack can spin up mini-campaigns based on content triggers, event attendance, or behavioral cues. Someone registers for a webinar but doesn’t attend? Trigger a recap email with relevant content and a rep follow-up – all before your coffee cools.
Where AI Falls Flat (and Why Your Team Still Matters)
1. Building strategy that reflects actual human nuance. AI can synthesize patterns, but it can’t read a boardroom. It doesn’t know that the CRO you’re targeting just missed Q2 and is panicking. It doesn’t know that your ICP is burnt out from being spammed with six emails after downloading one PDF. It’s your team’s job to understand the why behind the numbers.
2. Navigating nuance in buyer conversations. You can’t hand off real-time objections to a GPT bot and expect it to close the deal. AI can help prep the call, summarize it, and follow up, but humans still need to manage the messy, unpredictable part of business: actual relationships.
3. Creating emotional resonance. AI can draft. You give it the depth. The story. The edge. It can’t pull from that one time you stayed up all night fixing a product bug before a launch. It can’t replicate your brand’s actual voice unless you teach it and even then, it still needs human shaping.
4. Prioritizing what matters over what’s possible. AI will try to do everything. But not everything is worth doing. Just because you can automate something doesn’t mean you should. Your team still has to think like operators, not tool jockeys.
If your strategy is trash, AI will just help you get there faster.
But if your system is sharp and you’ve built clarity, mapped your bottlenecks, and aligned your sales and marketing motions, then AI becomes a force multiplier.
It’s not about replacing your team. It’s about making them a sh*t ton more effective. Less keyboard mashing. More real thinking. More focused execution.
Our AI Demand Gen Stack, Step-by-Step
This is the system we use at Fastmarkit to run our AI-powered demand gen engine. It works for us, it works for clients.
What makes it work is that every tool has a job. Every layer drives towards revenue. And it’s built to save humans from doing repetitive tasks that burn time and brain cells.
🔍 1. Clay – For lead sourcing and enrichment
Clay is where the top-of-funnel begins. It pulls in leads based on ICP criteria and enriches them with job titles, tech stack, recent funding, LinkedIn URLs, you name it.
Why we use it: Because manual research is for people who enjoy self-torture. Clay helps us build smart lists that are ready to go without five tabs open and a migraine.
🔄 2. Smartlead – For cold outbound at scale
Once leads are ready, Smartlead handles multichannel outreach across email, LinkedIn, and custom domains. We personalize everything with variables pulled from Clay, and run smart follow-up sequences.
Why we use it: Because deliverability matters, and this thing knows how to get messages in the inbox, not the spam folder. Plus, the UI doesn’t make us want to throw our laptops at the wall.
🤖 3. n8n – For workflow automation across the whole stack
This is the orchestration engine that runs behind the scenes. n8n connects everything in our stack. Triggers in Clay, outreach via Smartlead, HubSpot CRM updates, lead scoring, follow-up logic, and more.
But here’s where it really gets powerful: We also use n8n to deploy AI agents at the right moments, without needing to manually intervene.
That means:
- An agent can write a lead follow-up the moment someone engages with content
- Another one can summarize a sales call, tag objections, and drop highlights into Slack
- A third can repurpose a LinkedIn post into an email for a nurture sequence – automatically
We treat AI agents like extra teammates. They don’t sleep, they don’t complain, and they don’t need onboarding. But they do free up our actual team to focus on high-leverage work.
Why we use it: Because no one on our team wants to be a human API or play “copy-paste ops person.” And we’re not hiring a RevOps engineer just to stitch together tools when we can automate the whole damn thing with logic, context, and agents that know exactly what to do next.
🧠 4. CustomGPTs – For messaging, repurposing, and tone training
We’ve trained GPTs for different ICPs, industries, and campaign types. They help us generate cold outreach drafts, nurture copy, social posts, summaries, even sales responses. On top of that, we can connect relevant content assets for it to leverage based on the context of the message itself.
Why we use it: Because AI isn’t just faster, it’s consistent. And when it knows your voice, your tone, and your positioning, it can take work off your plate without turning your message into mush.
🧑💼 5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator – For warm-up and targeting
We use Sales Nav to hone in on our ICP, warm them up via profile views and soft touches, and layer that into our outreach so we’re never just cold-dropping into inboxes.
Why we use it: Because intent signals matter. And if we can see they just posted about a relevant challenge, our reply is 10x more likely to convert.
💬 6. LinkedIn – For engagement and credibility
This is where our personal and brand-level content builds authority. We comment, DM, and engage with prospects here while Smartlead handles structured outreach.
Why we use it: Because showing up where your buyers are makes cold outreach feel warm. It’s also the fastest way to build credibility while everyone else is still sending pitch-slaps.
🧩 7. Appify – For internal workflow dashboards
Appify lets us and our clients interact with workflows without digging through raw tools. Want to trigger a nurture sequence, review content status, or approve follow-up templates? It’s all in one clean, no-code UI.
Why we use it: Because no one wants to log into six tools just to approve an email or see what’s in the queue. This keeps it simple, fast, and easy to execute.
🧠 8. Notion – For project management and campaign execution
This is our home base. We manage campaigns, track content calendars, plan strategy, house briefs, and sync everything from different departments to delivery here.
Why we use it: Because Notion feels like an operating system we want to use. It keeps everyone aligned without 42 status meetings.
🔔 9. Slack – For team comms and automated alerts
Slack is our command center for what’s happening right now. It’s not just a communication tool. It’s where our team gets high-signal lead alerts in real time and where marketing, sales, and AI agents all speak the same language.
When a new lead enters our flow, a message like this hits Slack instantly:
- Enriched contact info
- Company size and vertical
- Job title and website
- Summary pulled from LinkedIn
- The exact campaign or channel they came through
Everyone from the SDR to the AE to the strategist sees it. No hunting. No lag time. And more importantly, no silos.
From there, depending on the lead’s quality and source, we can:
- Trigger an AI agent via n8n to write a personalized follow-up with a simple 👍
- Assign to the right rep instantly for human outreach
- Tag the lead as high-fit and route into a warm nurture sequence
- Start internal convos between marketing and sales about which campaigns are bringing in the best leads
Slack becomes more than a message board. It’s the real-time intersection of signals, systems, and human decision-making.
Why we use it: Because velocity matters. When the right people can see the right signals at the right time and act without friction, you stop chasing pipeline and start controlling it. Slack lets us do that, and it keeps our AI automations operating in sync with our human team.
When all of this runs together, the result isn’t more tools. It’s less chaotic. Faster execution. Better outcomes. And a team that’s actually freed up to focus on strategy, story, and sales, not busywork.
5. Making the ICP the Hero – What This Looks Like in Your Business
Let’s talk about what this system actually means for you. Because reading about workflows and tools is inspiring, but if it doesn’t apply to the chaos you live in every day, what’s the point?
Whether you’re running the whole show, leading marketing, or in charge of hitting revenue targets with a team that’s maxed out, here’s how this system makes your life easier and your numbers better.
🧠 If you’re a founder doing five jobs before 10 a.m.:
- Get lead alerts with context, not just a name and a prayer.
- Know who’s in your funnel, what they care about, and who’s following up without asking 12 times.
- Let AI handle the repetitive tasks so you can focus on closing deals, building the business, or, I don’t know, breathing.
- Finally feel like your ops aren’t being held together by panic and Post-its.
📣 CMOs – If you’re in marketing and tired of being treated like a content vending machine:
- Run campaigns that actually influence pipeline and help close deals, not just ones that look good in dashboards.
- Use AI to repurpose the hell out of your best content, write better nurture, and surface high-intent leads without living in spreadsheets.
- Collaborate with sales like you’re on the same team, not playing email tag with a two-week delay.
- Walk into revenue meetings with confidence, not crossed fingers and toes.
💰 CROs – If you’re leading revenue and wondering why “follow-up” is still a to-do:
- See who’s engaged, what they’re engaging with, and when your reps should reach out.
- Route leads to the right person in real time, with the context they need to close faster.
- Automate repetitive messages so your reps stop rewriting the same three emails and actually start having more conversations.
- Watch the gap between lead capture and pipeline shrink like magic but without the magic. Just strategy and execution.
This isn’t a shiny tech stack that looks good in a pitch deck. It’s a fully working system that runs underneath your business like a clean engine, not something that explodes every time you try to scale.
Marketing and sales work together. AI pulls its weight. Your team stops babysitting tools and starts getting results.
Psst. You’re the hero of this post. We’re just showing you how to make the system work for you instead of the other way around.
Final Thought: This Isn’t About Hype. It’s About Growth.
Most teams aren’t struggling because they’re not working hard. They’re struggling because they’re buried in disconnected tools, unclear ownership, and too many manual steps.
AI isn’t a magic fix. It’s a multiplier. If your process is broken, AI just speeds up the chaos. But if your system is strong, AI helps you execute faster, more effectively, and with less drag.
It’s not about adding more tools. It’s about building a demand gen system where sales, marketing, and automation all work together toward one goal: real pipeline growth.
Now go build what actually works. Or better yet, let’s build it together. Book a free discovery call with me.
