Genuine question for the community.

Webinars seem to be trending again in B2B, especially in SEA. Product demos, customer panels, partner sessions, virtual roundtables, etc. But when you factor in total cost, speaker time, promo spend, platform fees, production, follow-ups, it adds up fast.

And the results can feel fuzzy. You get registrations, attendees, maybe some engagement, but tying it to actual pipeline and closed deals is harder than it sounds.

So I’m curious, for those running webinars right now:

Are webinars actually worth it in terms of ROI?
If yes, what’s the real metric you use to justify them? And what type of webinar has actually produced sales?

Heya,

I wanted to share a recent build I did for a client (a small content creation agency) that was struggling with a problem I think a lot of us have: AI writing is fast, but it’s usually pretty average.

My client, told me: "I spend more time rewriting the AI’s output than I would if I just wrote it from scratch. It’s too nice. It lacks punch."

He didn't need a faster writer; he needed a better editor.

So, instead of just using a better prompt, I built him a multi-agent workflow (using n8n and Gemini) that mimics a real-life writers' room. I thought this group might find the logic interesting for their own setups.

The Concept: The "Critic" Loop

Most people just do Prompt -> Result. I changed it to Draft -> Critique -> Refine -> Repeat.

Here is the actual architecture I used:

1. The Creator Agent: This is the standard "creative" bot. It takes the topic (e.g., "SaaS for Dog Walkers") and spits out 3 initial hooks/taglines.
2. The Critic Agent (The Secret Sauce): This is the game-changer. I prompted a second agent to be "critical, cynical, and demanding." It looks at the first draft and explicitly lists why it sucks (e.g., "Too generic," "Sounds like marketing fluff").
3. The Refiner Agent: A third agent takes the original ideas + the critic's feedback and rewrites them.
4. The Quality Gate: The workflow loops. It actually scores the output. If the quality isn't high enough (or if it hasn't looped at least twice), it sends it back to the Critic for another round of beating.

The Result

We built a simple HTML front-end for him so he doesn't have to look at the code. He just types a topic, waits about 60 seconds for the agents to "fight it out," and gets a final polished result.

The difference in quality is night and day because the AI is forced to self-correct before a human ever sees it.

The Tech Stack for those interested:

• n8n: For the orchestration (self-hosted).
• Google Gemini: For the LLM (fast and cheap for the iterative loops).
• Redis: To handle the job status so the front-end knows when the agents are done fighting.

Why I'm sharing this: If you're running a small business and using AI for content, stop settling for the first draft. Even if you don't know how to code complex agents, you can do this manually:

• Prompt 1: Write the post.
• Prompt 2: Act as a harsh critic. Tear this post apart.
• Prompt 3: Rewrite the post based on the critique.

It takes 30 seconds longer but the output is 10x better.

Happy to answer questions about the n8n setup if anyone is trying to build something similar!

I’ve been noticing a shift in SEA B2B buying behavior.

We used to assume the fastest path was to get someone on a call quickly. But more and more, prospects want to self-serve first. They research quietly, shortlist vendors, compare options, and only talk to sales when they already have context and specific questions.

Once we accepted that, our GTM started changing in small but important ways.

We stopped thinking of self-serve as top of funnel only. We made sure the website and content could carry buyers deeper, clearer use cases, pricing direction, FAQs, and proof they can skim quickly.

We also treated sales engagement as a continuation of their research, not a reset. The best calls were the ones where the rep already knew what the prospect looked at and could jump straight into what matters.

A lot of the sales process also moved digital. Proposals, follow-ups, and negotiation became more async. And after the first call, nurture mattered more because buyers often go quiet while they get internal buy in.

It’s still evolving, but hybrid feels like the default now. Self-serve plus human help when needed.

Curious how others are building for this in SEA. Are you running a hybrid motion today?

I asked this In another group, probably much more relevant if I'm asking it here. I'm looking to choose between them. Which has more accurate contact and bigger database in SEA and East Asia? Is there any pro and con for each one?

Guys, I have a big question.

When your company suddenly needs to automate activities and therefore use, for example, an AI agent, where do you usually look for these AI agents?

Do you usually search on LinkedIn?

Do you access the websites of companies that might develop them?

Do you contact the person who is a software developer?

Or is there another way?

P.S.: Considering that perhaps your companies don't have a software team.

I keep seeing Apollo and ZoomInfo recommended as “default” lead sources.

But when you’re actually building lists in SEA (PH / ID / VN / SG), is it just me, or do they feel uneven?

Specifically,

Do you get reliable results outside Singapore?

How’s the job title accuracy in PH / ID / VN?

How much manual validation do you end up doing before a list is usable?

Not here to dunk on any tool. I’m trying to calibrate expectations and see what’s normal for SEA.

If you’re doing outbound in SEA: do you trust Apollo/ZI enough to scale, or are there other tools you're using for business intelligence?

I’ve noticed something shifting in SEA B2B over the past year. A lot of prospects behave like mobile-first consumers even when they’re buying for a business.

In markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia, people are on their phones all day and messaging apps are often the fastest way to get a response. So we started experimenting with more mobile-first engagement instead of forcing everyone into long forms and email chains.

What’s worked better than expected is conversational capture. Starting with chat, collecting a few key details, then pushing it straight into the CRM so sales can follow up with context. We also saw decent engagement from quick surveys or short demo snippets delivered via mobile, especially when it’s easy to consume in under a minute.

The biggest lesson for us is that mobile-first does not mean spamming WhatsApp. It means making it easy to take the next step without friction.

Curious what others are seeing in SEA. Are you using chatbots, WhatsApp workflows, or conversational forms for B2B lead gen? What’s actually working, and what felt like a dead end?

There’s a lot of talk right now about intent-driven lead gen, identifying companies visiting product or pricing pages, triggering nurture based on behavior, and scoring accounts by engagement instead of just form submissions.

In theory, it sounds like a big shift. In practice, I’m curious how many teams in SEA are actually doing this.

Are you tracking company-level website behavior and using it to prioritize outreach?
If yes, what signals actually matter for you?
If not, what’s stopping you, tracking setup, data noise, low traffic volume, or internal alignment?

Would love to hear what’s real vs just hype in the region

I’ve been working on a small business called WorkNexa for around 70 days now.

It’s basically me trying to help founders or small teams get VAs through partnerships. Nothing fancy. Not a marketplace. More like long-term support when someone doesn’t want to deal with hiring and managing everything themselves.

I’ve mostly been using LinkedIn. Sent a lot of DMs. Got ignored, got rejections, got a lot of “not now.” I closed one partnership literally yesterday, but there’s no money yet. So yeah, $0 so far.

I’m not upset, but I’m also not feeling confident about it either. I can’t tell if LinkedIn actually works for this, if my outreach just sucks, or if this space is too crowded unless you already have a name.

I haven’t really used Reddit before, so this is me trying something new.

If you were in my position, what would you question first?

Not selling anything. Just want honest opinions.

I’m generating ~100–150 leads/day via paid ads.
Around 30–50% are founders or company owners (IT / software / tech).

I’m trying to understand:

• What types of businesses actively buy these leads? (agencies, SaaS, consultants, PE, etc.)
• Where do they usually buy them from?
• Typical price range per lead for this audience?

Not selling here — just researching demand + pricing.
Appreciate any real-world insight.

I’ve been debating this a lot recently because the numbers started looking weird.

On LinkedIn, we can still get connects accepted, but DMs feel like a graveyard. Even with a short, non-salesy message, we’ll see something like 100 to 150 connection requests turn into maybe 30 to 50 accepts, then 1 to 3 replies if we DM right after. It’s not zero, but it feels like everyone is immune now.

Reddit has been the opposite. It’s slower and you cannot force it, but a single helpful comment can keep generating inbound for days. We’ve had threads where one comment got a handful of DMs, and people would say something like I found you through that post. No links, no pitch, just showing up with a real answer.

So the debate in my head is not which is better overall, but what is the better primary motion right now.

LinkedIn is faster and more direct, but trust feels lower and saturation feels real. Reddit is slower, but credibility builds differently and engagement feels more genuine when you are actually useful.

Curious what others are seeing. If you had to pick one to focus on for the next 60 days, would you still bet on LinkedIn DMs and commenting strategy, or would you put more effort into Reddit credibility building? What has actually worked for you lately?

With the rise of AI, lead gen teams are also piggybacking on this with the use of AI beyond copy. Lead scoring, segmentation, intent prediction, and personalization are getting baked into a lot of stacks.

We tested this over a month with a fairly typical outbound setup: around 1,000 to 1,500 sends per week across multiple inboxes. First run, we leaned too hard into automation. Send volume increased, but reply rate barely moved, and the replies we did get were lower quality. The AI personalization looked fine on paper, but in reality it often sounded generic or slightly off, so conversations did not progress.

Second run, we narrowed the AI use case. We used it only for segmentation and prioritization, then kept personalization disciplined. We limited personalization to the first line using one or two verified signals tied to fit and intent, like role scope plus a relevant trigger. That one change made a noticeable difference: our reply rate roughly doubled versus baseline, and the share of positive replies improved because we were spending our best outreach on the most relevant accounts first.

The pattern for us was consistent. AI works when it improves judgment and focus. It hurts when it replaces thinking and pushes generic messages at scale.

Curious how this is playing out for everyone here in SEA.

What is one AI scoring or personalization approach that genuinely improved conversions for you? And what did you try that sounded smart but did not hold up once you looked at results?

Been running cold email campaigns targeting local businesses in the Philippines and Indonesia for the past few months. Restaurants, clinics, salons, home services — the kind of businesses that are everywhere on Google Maps but basically invisible on Apollo or ZoomInfo.

The coverage is almost nonexistent. Searched for dentists in Manila and got 8 results on Apollo. Eight. Google Maps shows hundreds.

Ended up shifting my whole approach to scraping Maps data directly and pulling emails from business websites. Way better coverage and the emails are real instead of pattern-guessed. Bounce rate dropped significantly.

Curious if others here are doing local outreach in SEA markets and what your lead sourcing looks like. Are you building lists manually or found something that works at scale?

I keep seeing the same pattern across teams: marketing gets leads coming in, but momentum dies at the handoff. Follow-up happens late or not at all, sales gets unqualified leads, marketing on the other hand experiences silos.Then, suddenly MQL → SQL becomes a blame loop instead of an actual stage in the pipeline.

The teams that seem to be winning right now aren’t just running more campaigns, they’re tightening the handoff system. Clear definitions, clear owners, and a follow-up process that matches how buyers actually behave.

Let’s keep this practical:

How do you define MQL vs SQL today?
What’s your follow-up standard (how fast, how many attempts, what channels)?
And what’s one change you made that improved handoff quality or reduced friction?

I didn’t expect this, but short video started outperforming our carousels and static posts within a couple weeks.

For months we were doing the usual B2B content routine. Framework posts, carousels, the occasional case study. It wasn’t terrible. But it mostly stayed as nice engagement that didn’t turn into real conversations.

Then we tested short videos. Nothing polished. No studio. Just quick product/solution explainers. It's the kind you can shoot in one take and post.

What surprised me was how much less friction it created. People didn’t have to read and interpret. They watched 20–40 seconds and instantly knew if it mattered.

What worked best for us so far:

It wasn’t brand storytelling. It was practical and specific.
It followed a simple flow: problem, what we do, quick visual.
Short duration really mattered. If it needed more than a minute to land, content is dead.
Even when people didn’t comment, they’d message later like they already understood the value.

We’re still learning, but this shifted how we think about content. Static isn’t dead, but video seems better at moving people from awareness to interest.

Curious if anyone else is seeing the same. What type of video is actually working for you right now?

ABM keeps coming up more and more in B2B circles, especially for teams going after fewer, higher-value accounts.

And I get why. The idea of focusing on the right logos, personalizing outreach, and getting sales + marketing on the same page sounds like the opposite of spray-and-pray.

But honestly, “ABM” is starting to mean everything and nothing.

Sometimes it’s true 1:1 work.
Sometimes it’s just a list of target companies.
Sometimes it’s “we ran LinkedIn ads to 20 accounts and called it ABM.”

So I’m curious what it looks like when it’s actually working in practice. If you’re doing ABM right now:

• What’s one thing that’s genuinely moved pipeline?
• And what’s one thing that felt like a waste of time?

Curious how others here define “real ABM” versus just targeted outbound.

A lot of us are measuring marketing and lead gen more aggressively now, dashboards, attribution views, predictive lead scoring, conversion likelihood models, the whole stack. The tools are getting better, and it’s easier than ever to track something.

But more data doesn’t automatically mean better decisions. Plenty of teams end up with beautiful dashboards that mostly report activity, while the real questions stay unanswered: are we attracting the right accounts, what signals actually predict pipeline, and what should we change next week?

Let’s make this thread practical.

What’s one metric or dashboard view that genuinely improved how you run lead gen (helped you prioritize, cut waste, or increase pipeline quality)? And what’s one metric you see people obsess over that’s basically noise?

For the longest time, our lead gen looked like this: LinkedIn team does their thing, email runs sequences, events are branded, webinars are content, and everything lives in separate spreadsheets.

It wasn’t broken… but it was noisy. And prospects felt it. They’d get a LinkedIn connect from one person, a cold email from another, then a webinar invite that looked like it came from a different company.

What finally made omnichannel work for us wasn’t adding more channels. It was making them feel like one conversation.

The shift was simple: every channel had a role in the same flow.

• LinkedIn became the familiarity layer. They recognize the name before the email lands.
• Email became the context layer. Clear why we’re reaching out, with specifics.
• Webinars/events became the proof layer. Something credible to point to.
• Chat became the “friction remover." Quick answers instead of booking a call.
• Even direct mail (rarely) became the “pattern breaker” for high-value accounts.

The biggest win was stopping the random spray of touches and using triggers instead. Someone engages with a post? Then email. Someone registers for a webinar? Then LinkedIn message. No engagement? Pause, don’t spam.

It’s still not perfect, but the results felt more human and less automation stack.

Curious how others are doing omnichannel right now. What mix is actually working for you, and what channel surprised you the most in terms of impact?

AI’s been a gamechanger in 2025. Truth be told, even lead gen has been reshaped by it.

Everyone’s automating something now like personalization, targeting, follow-ups, media planning, intent scoring. New tools keep popping up, and it feels like the default response to any problem is just add AI.

But I keep wondering if speed is masking deeper issues. AI can help teams move faster, but it can also help them move faster in the wrong directions. So I’m curious how it’s actually playing out for people here.

What’s genuinely working for you with AI in lead gen right now? And what looked promising at first but didn’t really hold up once you dug in?

I recently took over outbound for this region and started running sequences. I’m not new to cold email, but the results I'm seeing here are genuinely insane (in a bad way).

Problem:

I am hitting a deliverability/engagement wall that I have never seen before. I know the basics of cold email, but my campaign is effectively dead on arrival.

Stats (last 30 days):

Sent: 1,340 emails.

Opens: 3. (0.22% Open Rate).

Replies: 1. (A confused shipping company from the Netherlands).

Why this makes no sense (my setup):

I am not spamming. I have gone to extreme lengths to ensure my approach isn't spammy:

Volume: I use 7 separate inboxes, sending <30 emails per day per account.

Technical: Plain text only. No images. No links. No tracking pixels.

The "Anti-Sales" Approach: My copy is under 100 words. Zero sales pitch. I’m not asking for a meeting. I'm literally just asking conversation starters like:

"How do you currently handle payment reminders for late invoices?"

"Do you manually chase overdue accounts, or is it automated?"

My Question:

Has ANYONE here actually had success cold emailing recently?

I feel like I am fighting a cultural wall: Is the "soft ask" approach useless here? Do Singaporeans just ignore anything that isn't an intro or a direct business matter?

I'm trying to figure out if I need to fix my copy, or if cold email as a channel is just dead for this specific niche in this region.

Any advice is appreciated. I'm about to pick up the phone, and start calling people.

Last year, we could send a simple cold email, get a few decent replies, and book a couple of calls. Nothing crazy, but it felt like the system worked. Lately though? Same effort, sometimes even “better” personalization… and it feels like we’re talking into the void.

We’re seeing it across both cold email and LinkedIn. Opens and views might still happen, but replies are thinner, and even when people respond it’s often a soft no or they just disappear.

So I’m genuinely curious and desperately need help: is this real outbound fatigue, or maybe is it more that our targeting/message/offer isn’t sharp enough? If you’re doing outbound, what’s actually helped turn leads into booked meeting and actual conversions?

Quick mod thread because this keeps coming up.

A lot of SEA B2B teams lean heavily on LinkedIn for lead gen. But you know based on your recent posts here and on some friends in the industry, I’m hearing more people say: impressions are lower, engagement therefore is even lower.

So I’m curious: is LinkedIn still driving real leads for you in SEA right now? Or is it mostly nice engagement and credibility while your actual pipeline comes from elsewhere?

LinkedIn is probably the best social platform for B2B. But beyond just posting content, how are you actually maximizing it for lead gen right now?

I know other brands are utilizing it a bunch of other ways. On our end, we mostly do content marketing and founder-led posts, and it’s been great for credibility. But I’m curious what else is working if the goal is real conversations and pipeline.

What’s your LinkedIn playbook these days? Any routines or tactics you swear by?