What is B2B Sales? Definition, Strategies & Trends 2024

Sales are the foundation of success for every B2B company. As founders and entrepreneurs, it is imperative to delve deeply into marketing and sales if one aims for long-term success. Regardless of the services and products: B2B sales are fundamental to becoming visible to the target audience and to making one’s offer appealing to business customers.

But how do I conduct B2B sales and successfully acquire customers? There isn’t one royal road to success. Various strategies will lead you to success.

In this article, we will take a closer look at:

• What characterizes B2B sales,
• What B2B sales strategies exist,
• How you can find the right strategy, and
• What trends you should prepare for in 2024.

What is B2B Sales?

B2B stands for Business-to-Business, i.e., business relationships between two companies or organizations. Unlike Business-to-Consumer (B2C) sales, where companies sell directly to end consumers, B2B sales focus on the needs and requirements of business customers. B2B sales are often more complex than B2C sales because of the significantly longer B2B sales cycle, more decision-makers, and larger order volumes involved. However, in contrast to B2C sales, it offers more opportunities to directly address potential customers and build long-term customer relationships. Exactly these are the two main pillars of B2B sales:

1.  Identifying and contacting potential customers and
2.  Creating trust among prospects and customers.

There are various approaches to achieve this.

B2B Sales: These Approaches Exist

The range of approaches in B2B sales spans from cold to warm, more precisely, from cold calling to “warming up” the target group by conveying information about the company and its offerings through methods such as posts, emails, or lectures. Specifically, the strategies in B2B sales can be divided into four approaches.

⚠️  By the way:  There is also the option to address customers with paid advertisements. However, we will focus solely on organic lead generation, i.e., sales without paid ads.

Cold Calling

The good old cold acquisition is the most traditional strategy in sales. Cold calling involves directly contacting potential customers by phone without having established a prior relationship. This means the target person has never initiated contact with the company before. Although it’s unclear whether the conversation partner is even interested in the offer, the uncertainty and fear of rejection make cold acquisition unpopular among many entrepreneurs. However, targeted research of the target group increases the likelihood that the contacted individuals find the offer appealing.

Social Selling

With the rise of social media, a new approach in B2B sales has established itself. Social Selling refers to the use of social networks like LinkedIn and Instagram to engage with the target group and sell one’s offer. The increasing user numbers on social media platforms clearly show: Social media are a goldmine for companies. This is exactly where Leadtree comes in: We support our customers in B2B sales on LinkedIn by increasing reach and utilizing it for lead generation.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective way to digitally reach potential customers and indirectly make contact with them. Through targeted email campaigns, companies can send relevant information to their target group. This could include information on special offers, company news, or inspiring case studies and learnings. The goal is to capture the recipients’ attention and motivate them to act with a call-to-action button, such as registering for a webinar or purchasing a limited product.

Personal Contact (Trade Fairs, Networking Events)

It doesn’t always have to be digital. Personal contact with the target group can also be part of a company’s B2B sales strategy. Opportunities for this include trade fairs, conferences, and networking events. In personal conversations, entrepreneurs can build relationships and create trust. With lectures or an own exhibition stand, visitors can be made aware of one’s offer, answer questions, and convince potential customers of the offered value.

How do I reach B2B customers? Successful Strategies

In B2B sales, you have various options to reach your target group. You’ll be most successful if you focus on one strategy and execute it correctly.

The right strategy for your target group

The selection of the appropriate B2B sales strategy depends on the needs, preferences, and behaviors of your target group. A technology-oriented target group is better reached via digital marketing channels, while personal meetings at trade fairs or classic cold calling may be worthwhile for more traditional industries.

Ultimately, it doesn’t hurt to test different sales channels and sales techniques. However, the main focus should be on one strategy. Before you decide on your main strategy, you should weigh the pros and cons of the different approaches.

✍️  Fact is: Digital sales channels are now relevant for every company in the B2B sector, especially for tech and SaaS companies. There’s hardly any B2B customer who isn’t on social media. Other sales channels remain important but are not suitable as the sole sales strategy. But let’s take a closer look at the respective advantages and disadvantages of the sales strategies.

Digital sales channels are now relevant for every company in the B2B sector, especially for tech and SaaS companies.

Cold Calling

Advantages:

• You can make direct contact with potential customers without waiting for incoming inquiries.
• You receive quick feedback on your products or services.

Disadvantages:

• The method can be perceived as intrusive or annoying.
• You must be prepared for rejection or negative reactions.
• You and your sales team need a clear guideline to conduct effective conversations and convince potential customers.
  

Conclusion:

Cold Calling is the most direct sales route but difficult to control.

Email Marketing

Advantages:

• Emails can be sent quickly and inexpensively to a large number of recipients.
• You can tailor emails to the needs and interests of the recipients, making them more relevant.
• With automated email campaigns, companies can efficiently send regular messages.
• Interactions with customers can be automatically tracked and analyzed.

Disadvantages:

• Emails may end up in spam, affecting the campaign’s effectiveness.
• Poorly formulated emails are easily overlooked or deleted in a crowded inbox.
• There’s no direct interaction with recipients – you can only motivate them to act through your text.

Conclusion:

Email marketing can be automated but is very passive.

Personal Contact (Trade Fairs, Networking Events)

Advantages:

• Personal encounters at events allow direct interaction, which can strengthen trust and foster long-term customer relationships.
• Events provide the opportunity to directly demonstrate or present your products or services, which can encourage potential customers to make a purchase.

Disadvantages:

• Participating in trade fairs and networking events can involve significant costs, including booth rent, travel expenses, and marketing materials.
• Personal meetings are often limited to a small number of potential customers. The reach is not comparable to digital strategies.
• Relevant trade fairs and networking events, if they occur, only take place a few times a year, making them unsuitable as a continuous sales strategy.

Conclusion:

Events are a great way to engage directly with the target group. However, they are only a bonus and not a sales strategy that can stand alone.

Social Selling leads to top-of-mind awareness among your target group. This means: Customers think of you first when looking for a service provider within your industry

Social Selling

Advantages:

• Social media offer a tremendous reach.
• By sharing relevant content, answering questions, and participating in industry discussions, you can demonstrate expertise and gain the trust of potential customers.
• Posts, comments, likes, and contact requests are ways to engage with the target group.
• Social Selling can be automated with pre-planned posts and sales-oriented messaging strategies.
• Interactions and engagement with the target group on social media can be measured.
• Social Selling leads to top-of-mind awareness among your target group. This means: Customers think of you first when looking for a service provider within your industry. You remain permanently present, while with other methods like email marketing and cold-calling, it quickly becomes: out of sight, out of mind.
  

Disadvantages:

• Inappropriate or clumsy interactions on social media can damage a company’s or personal brand’s image and deter potential customers, leading to a loss of credibility and trust. Therefore, a well-thought-out strategy is needed for Social Selling.
• Social media is a daily affair. Effective Social Selling requires continuous effort in content creation, interacting with followers, and relationship management. Proper implementation is also crucial, as a faux pas during social media interactions can negatively affect your image.

Conclusion:

Social Selling offers a high degree of automation and the greatest reach among all strategies. However, this B2B sales strategy is also time-consuming.

The effort for Social Selling should not be underestimated. You only see success with consistency. Delivering regular content and interacting with a variety of users can quickly become time-consuming and distract you from your core business and other important tasks around your business. That’s why Leadtree takes care of it all for you. Your benefits: You gain more leads and visibility through Social Selling, present your company professionally, avoid blunders, and save a lot of time.

Efficiency is Key

Besides acquiring new customers through B2B sales, core business activities like taking care of existing customers, scheduling appointments, and operational implementation should not be neglected. Therefore, it’s important to allocate sufficient time for B2B sales but not to let the sales process become a time sink. The keyword here is efficiency. By maximizing resource utilization, productivity can be increased, and the sales process can be made less time-consuming. An efficient process enables companies to achieve better results and penetrate new markets more quickly.

Saving Time in Sales

How do I optimize my B2B sales cycle?

Efficiency in sales can be increased through various measures, such as working with lead lists and automating recurring tasks like follow-up emails or automatic appointment scheduling. CRM software (Customer Relationship Management) helps manage and maintain customer relationships more effectively.

Another method to increase the efficiency of your sales processes is the use of templates. Whether you’re writing to potential customers or calling them, whether it’s the first contact or a follow-up: You don’t want to have to rethink what you want to say each time. Not only is this exhausting for you, but it’s also off-putting for the conversation partner. An unstructured message or unclear statements make an unattractive impression on the recipient and can prevent a business closure. With a strategically formulated template, your intention comes across clearly. Sales psychology aspects also play a role here, enticing the prospect with convincing formulations. Well-thought-out templates for customer approach and sales conversations lead to significantly better results in the sales process.

Digitalization in B2B Sales: Opportunities and Challenges

Digitalization is everywhere, including in the B2B sales process. This brings opportunities but also new challenges.

The opportunities…

• More reach: Through digital channels such as websites, social media, and email marketing, B2B companies can significantly increase their reach and reach potential customers worldwide.

   

• More efficient processes: Automating sales processes using CRM in the B2B sector and other tools allows companies to work more efficiently, saving time and resources.

   

• Personalization: With data analysis, companies can implement a personalized marketing and sales strategy development, such as through individual sales funnels in B2B and personalized follow-up messages.

   

• More customer interaction: Digital communication channels offer companies the opportunity to interact with their customers anytime and through various channels. Likes, shares, comments, and mentions are ways for companies, customers, and prospects to connect and exchange.

   

…and the challenges in digital sales

• Personalization: Correctly read; personalization is not only an opportunity but also a challenge. Due to the possibilities of individual addressing and the many entrepreneurs and teams that present themselves particularly personally on their website and social media, B2B customers are used to personalization. To be successful as a B2B company, you must keep up. This requires many skills, such as handling software, tools, data analysis, or content creation. No entrepreneur naturally has the know-how to personalize messages on a scalable level.

   

• Time effort: Where automation saves time, personalization requires more time. Companies need to take time for active relationship building, expanding and maintaining the network, and authentic communication. Off-the-shelf content convinces no one anymore. The aim is to make the exchange with the target group as positive as possible. Especially as a founder of a start-up with a small team or even as a solo entrepreneur, there simply isn’t the time to acquire all the necessary skills for efficient sales.

   

• Outsourcing: The time effort for digital sales can be significantly reduced through outsourcing. However, due to the variety of providers on the market, the choice can be difficult. Acting without consideration runs the risk of investing money in the wrong provider. Often, you have to pay first to find out what you’re getting for your money. In other words: You’re buying a pig in a poke. Companies should therefore ensure that the service provider matches their offer and needs.

   

• Merging with B2B Marketing: In the past, the marketing department took care of advertising, and the sales team picked up the phone. Today, in the B2B sector, marketing and sales are inseparably linked. Marketing strategies are combined with the sales process and vice versa. Therefore, it’s important to be open to this new interplay and to move away from the classic division. For solo entrepreneurs, this means being competent in both areas, while in teams, the different departments must work closely together. This is the only way to successfully digitalize in B2B sales today.

Trends in B2B Sales 2024

It has already become clear: B2B sales are clearly moving towards digitalization. Behind this are primarily technological innovations that can make the sales process easier but also challenging. If you want to keep up in the long term, you should definitely keep an eye on the following trends. This is what B2B sales have in store for the future:

Social Media

Social media in the B2B sector, especially LinkedIn, will continue to gain importance for sales. This means: Authentic and knowledge-based content becomes more important to achieve higher reach and engagement.

Social media in the B2B sector, especially LinkedIn, will continue to gain importance for sales.

Account Based Marketing (ABM)

In this context, ABM, Account Based Marketing, is also important. ABM focuses on jointly targeting individual companies or accounts for lead generation and customer acquisition through coordinated marketing and sales efforts. The personalization of content and close collaboration between marketing and sales teams are crucial success factors for ABM.

Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Sustainability and social responsibility will be central themes in B2B marketing in 2024. Companies that take clear stances on environmental and social issues attract customers and employees who share these values.

⚠️  By the way:  We at Leadtree also find sustainability important and plant a tree for every booked appointment we achieve with our LinkedIn lead generation for you. Find out more about us and our commitment here.

Decision-making based on data and analysis

Data and analyses will continue to be important. Companies use advanced analytics tools to gain deep insights into customer behavior and create personalized content.

Brand Building

Companies are increasingly focusing on highlighting their brand and value proposition. This creates visibility, awareness, and high demand. For solo entrepreneurs, but also employees, personal branding is becoming increasingly important. The target group wants to know who is behind a logo and slogan. This also applies to LinkedIn: A meaningful profile is just as indispensable here as a well-thought-out content and sales strategy that reflects the branding and continuously brings it closer to the target group.

AI and Machine Learning

AI cannot be missing among the trends in B2B sales. Artificial intelligence in marketing is indispensable. Intelligent algorithms enable even easier and more efficient design of marketing processes, including content creation, data mapping, and predictive analytics.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions about B2B Sales on LinkedIn

How do I conduct B2B sales?
A successful B2B sales strategy is based on three pillars: identification of the target group, selection of sales channels, and planning of the sales process. The success in sales depends on the goals you have set and the channels through which the respective target group can be reached.

Why is LinkedIn important for B2B sales?
LinkedIn is one of the leading platforms for professional networking and offers a unique opportunity to reach potential customers in the B2B sector. With over 800 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is a valuable tool for lead generation, maintaining business relationships, and brand presence.

LinkedIn is one of the leading platforms for professional networking and offers a unique opportunity to reach potential customers in the B2B sector.

How do I find B2B customers? 
Searching for potential customers on LinkedIn can be done through various methods, including the use of search filters, targeted searches for companies, industries, or specific positions, and participation in relevant groups and discussions.

How do I build a successful LinkedIn presence for B2B sales?
Building a successful LinkedIn presence for B2B sales requires professional profile design, regular updating of content, sharing relevant posts and articles, and active interaction with the network through comments, likes, and messages.

How can I use LinkedIn for lead generation?
LinkedIn offers various features for lead generation, including publishing relevant content and using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for targeted searches for potential customers.

You see: LinkedIn is not just nice to have, but a goldmine for lead generation and an indispensable tool to make your brand known and position yourself as an expert. However, this doesn’t work without significant time effort and important skills around effective content and sales strategies for social media. If you want to do everything right and save valuable time, you should rely on a specialized provider.