The turbulent 2020/21 has become the engine of radical changes in all spheres of life. Due to the pandemic, we’ve seen businesses adjusting to the new reality – closing offices, going online, restructuring their teams, and finding more and more digital-based ways of dealing with customers.
All these changes have impacted B2B sales. For instance, about 57% of B2B tech companies claimed their sales cycles had become longer.
Will this tendency continue in 2024? And what are other changes that will apparently take place in B2B sales this year? We’ve prepared 12 hottest trends for 2024 that you should know to keep up with the times.
1. Сustomer-centric sales model
The most important trend of 2024 to consider in B2B sales is a precise focus on the customer. Companies that want to stay adrift are adopting customer-first sales strategies, where the customer, not the salesperson, makes the nucleus of the process. And this is not only about personalization you know much about. This is about everything, at each stage of the sales pipeline.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
2. Real-time omnichannel sales
The average customer has become more unpredictable and is now more likely to use various channels to look for a product or service. Considering this, you should increase the number of digital touchpoints with your prospects to catch them everywhere.
Another trait of modern customers is that they’ve become a bit more impatient with customer service. About 90% consider immediate responses to their questions a deciding factor when making a purchase. And you can’t neglect this fact in 2024, as customer experience is one of the crucial elements of sales growth for your business.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
However, no matter what channel your customers choose, you should ensure not a single point of data will be lost. And if you ask me, what’s the best way to organize all your interactions with a customer under the same roof in 2024, I will answer, ‘What about trying a CRM?’
3. Focus on customer success
Another thesis about modern customers is that they’ve become super demanding. They’ll think thousands of times before making a purchase decision. The reason is clear: they are too far behind the screens to test drive your product, so the best thing you can do is give them a feeling they’re already using your solution successfully.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
4. AI personalization
I’ve just mentioned that adopting a customer-centric approach is not only about personalization. But personalization is still one of the most important trends. To say more, in 2024, we expect companies to spread the power of personalization to the whole buying journey. How?
With artificial intelligence.
AI personalization presupposes applying machine learning to customer data for enhancing customer interactions. With its algorithms, you can trace not only customer profiles but their purchase history, buying behavior, and even some psychological traits. No wonder AI adoption in sales is forecasted to grow 139% between 2020 and 2023.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
Here are some AI-personalization examples that can help you adopt this trend in 2024:
- Personalized ad targeting. With the help of machine learning, you can determine a variety of factors such as customer firmographics, buying behavior, and history and match advertising requests to the right people at the right time.
- Personalized websites. AI can help you modify the content of your websites depending on the visitor. Again, machine learning will analyze many data points, including browsing history on the site, to adjust the content to the visitor’s needs in a most accurate way.
- Personalized chatbots. With AI, you can make conversations with your customers more natural and human-being, all owing to natural language processing (NLP).
- Customer sentiment analysis. You can use AI to better identify the true sentiment of prospects by learning their specific idiosyncrasies or expressions, so the systems will know when they are satisfied or not. This allows your sales team to be well prepared for any objections and always have the right answer in your pocket.
5. Social selling
The concept of social selling isn’t new.
With the extreme rise of social media, it became obvious that by selling your product directly, you often lack one important thing – proper brand awareness and recognition. Social selling, however, allows you to gradually warm up your prospects by posting valuable content, showcasing your expertise in online groups, answering people’s questions, etc.
In other words, you’re becoming a company that rings the bell for prospects, the one that has a reputation as an industry pundit.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
This way, they will easily recognize your brand among thousands of companies inhabiting the market, so when they need a product or service like yours, they’ll know what company to choose.
6. Video content
Nearly 90% of sales professionals report the importance of accessing video viewing data to qualify leads, engage prospects, or influence deals. And there’s no surprise why video content has gained popularity as a selling technique during the last few years and remains the top trend for B2B sales this year. Video is a lucky mix of visualization, information, and communication with the audience.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
You can leverage video for demos, use it as a part of a social selling campaign, or create and develop your own video channel where you’ll share your expertise on the topics related to your industry and product. But refrain from long guides. Keep your videos informative yet brisk and value-bringing.
Here’s an example of short video content we here at Snov.io regularly launch to help our customers use our product like gods:
7. Smarketing
In one of our recent posts, we’ve discussed the term ‘Smarketing’ — a successful blend of two words, ‘sales’ and ‘marketing,’ which reflects the trend of bringing sales and marketing teams together, syncing their work, thus optimizing the overall sales process.
For instance, a marketing team can consult sales reps about the information on the market and competitors, while a sales team can share the data about the ideal customer profile and traits of a perfect lead.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
And as for data reporting, in 2024, it becomes another B2B sales trend to consider.
8. CRM sales data reporting
Gone are the days when companies could gather all data in Google spreadsheets. Now there comes a need for a single platform where you can keep the full portfolio of your prospects and customers, see how they’re moving through the sales pipeline, and, most importantly, track all their interactions with your brand. So, if you haven’t adopted a reliable CRM software for data reporting yet, this is the right time to think about one.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
For example, Snov.io CRM provides you with a user-friendly interface and intuitive functionality for reporting your customer data, information about deals and campaigns. On top of that, you can use the platform absolutely for free.
9. Clever sales automation
There’s another reason to implement a CRM into your sales process – it can work as a sales automation tool, which is a total necessity when your company is selling at scale.
Sales automation itself isn’t something new. Businesses have been automating their sales processes a lot. Nevertheless, it didn’t save many from the misconception that automation is the killer of creativity and personalization. So 2024 is marked by another trend: companies will try to implement clever sales automation.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
For example, with Snov.io Email Drip Campaigns, you can personalize your email messages with the help of variables, while integrating Snov.io with Hyperise allows enriching your emails with personalized images and videos.
10. Focus on privacy and security
In times when it’s getting hard to draw the line between real and digital life, people are becoming cautious about their security and privacy. And not without reason. Only in the first half of 2021 about 1,767 personal data breaches were publicly reported. In this scenario, the focus on privacy and security in B2B sales is one of the burning issues of 2024.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
Elaborate on new features (passwords, restrictions, limits) that will strengthen your customer’s security, and don’t forget to onboard your clients on the added functionality. Finally, ensure your support team can timely handle all privacy-related questions and concerns.
11. Sales coaching
No matter how powerful the intelligence of your technology is, it can’t deal with the emotional aspects of sales better than the human brain. It’s high time you put effort into training your sales team so that they can upgrade their soft skills and fill the gaps AI technology still can’t.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
And don’t forget about improving your own skills. Despite the pandemic, 2024 promises to be busy in international sales events and courses.
12. Creativity
And finally, one of the burning trends in B2B sales we can expect in 2024 is creativity. With the rapid changes in the world, it has become evident that businesses should look for new fresh ways of selling their products or services. It’s a matter of competitive advantage as fortune smiles upon those who work smarter and quickly adjust to changes. And let’s not forget that creativity is the engine of growth hacking.
How can you follow this trend in 2024?
Wrapping up
The world crisis has taught us the main truth: we should be flexible to adjust our business processes to the changes. But there’s another lesson worth learning. We should all be open to fresh ideas and solutions.
Following the trends we’ve provided above will help you stay at the forefront of innovation. If there’s any other burning trend I haven’t mentioned, I’ll be glad if you share it in the comments.
And if adopting a reliable CRM or sales automation tool for your business has already become one of your number one goals for 2024, Snov.io offers both in one package. Stay sales trendy!
Hello, Natalie! A really well-written piece, and the way you’ve highlighted the developments that will be beneficial in 2022 is incredible. Coming from a marketing background, I’ve learnt a lot today and will be definitely sharing this blog with my friends.