Contents
- 1 B2B Sales Strategy: Table of Contents
- 2 What Is a B2B Sales Strategy?
- 3 B2B Sales Strategy That You Should Know to Generate More Sales in 2024
- 4 Which Is the Right B2B Sales Strategy for You?
- 5 Generate More Revenue With the Right Sales Strategy in 2024
- 6 B2B Sales Strategy FAQs
- 6.1 1. What is the most effective B2B sales strategy for my small businesses?
- 6.2 2. Which is the best sales strategy to proactively reach out to prospective customers?
- 6.3 3. How do I measure the success of my sales strategy?
- 6.4 4. What are some of the common mistakes I should avoid when developing a B2B sales strategy?
If you’re looking to generate more quality leads, close more deals, and drive revenue in 2024, you’ve come to the right place.
Our “No-Fluff” guide covers:
- The best B2B sales strategies to help you hit your sales targets in 2024.
- An innovative hybrid approach that’s driving great results.
- How to select the right approach tailored to your specific business needs.
Ready to transform your sales approach?
Dive in, and don’t skip any section – your next big sales breakthrough could be just a paragraph away!
B2B Sales Strategy: Table of Contents
- What Is a B2B Sales Strategy?
- B2B Sales Strategy That You Should Know to Generate More Sales in 2024
- Which Is the Right B2B Sales Strategy for You?
- Generate More Revenue With the Right Sales Strategy in 2024
- B2B Sales Strategy FAQs
What Is a B2B Sales Strategy?
A B2B sales strategy is a comprehensive approach that guides how you can generate sales for your B2B business.
It will help you:
- Position your product or service
- Approach potential customers
- Nurture relationships
- Convert prospects into long-term clients
In our blog, you will learn about 4 such comprehensive approaches.
Insider Information: One of them will be a hybrid approach that combines the best of others to create a powerful and effective B2B sales strategy.
B2B Sales Strategy That You Should Know to Generate More Sales in 2024
These are the 4 best B2B sales strategies that you’ll learn in this blog.
- Outbound Sales Strategy
- Inbound Sales Strategy
- Account-Based Sales Strategy
- Inbound-Led Outbound Sales Strategy (Hybrid approach)
Let’s take a detailed look at each!
1. Outbound Sales Strategy
Outbound sales strategy involves reaching out to prospects to discuss products or services rather than waiting for prospects to find you.
Some of the popular outreach sales strategies are:
- Targeted Outreach with Cold Emails
- Strategic Networking with LinkedIn Outreach
- Quick Qualification with Cold Calling
- In-Person Connections with Offline Events
Let’s see how each works.
Targeted Outreach with Cold Emails
Cold emailing gives you a strategic way to reach out to a specific group of people within your ICP.
You can send highly personalized and relevant emails to start a conversation that can potentially turn prospects into customers.
Here are a few best practices that you should follow to launch high-converting cold email campaigns:
- Keep your email copies short–around 100 to 125 words maximum.
- You should always verify your email list to reduce bounce rates and maintain your email deliverability.
- Thoroughly research your prospects and tailor your emails to make them personalized and relevant to their needs.
- Always send follow-up emails to improve your chances of getting a reply.
These are just a few of the best cold emailing practices to follow; there are many more.
However, when launching cold email campaigns, it is difficult to remember all of these.
If you don’t want the hassle of remembering all of this, you should use all-in-one cold email automation software like Saleshandy.
Saleshandy enables you to automate your prospecting and outreach efforts from the same platform.
Here’s what Saleshandy has to offer:
- You can create unlimited campaigns to reach out to your segmented prospects.
- Easily scale your campaigns by adding unlimited email accounts at no additional cost.
- You also get multiple features like email warmup, sequence score, sender rotation, etc., that can help improve your email deliverability.
- It has an inbuilt B2B database – Lead Finder, which has a database of 700M+ professional profiles from 60M+ companies across the world.
- It offers cost-effective agency-led features, allowing you to onboard an unlimited number of clients at no extra cost.
- You can also use the white labeling feature to provide a completely branded experience.
New Feature Addition: You can now create and send personalized video messages as Saleshandy integrates with video personalization tools like Sendspark, Pitchlane and Weezly.
There is so much you can do with Saleshandy.
The best way to see how it can help you with targeted outreach is to sign up for a free trial and experience it firsthand.
Strategic Networking with LinkedIn Outreach
LinkedIn outreach is another great way to reach out to your prospects with personalized messages cost-effectively.
You might ask, “But why LinkedIn? Why not Meta, Twitter, or any other social networking platform?”
That’s because around 82% of B2B marketers achieve their greatest success from LinkedIn.
So, here is a short step-by-step process on how you can use LinkedIn to your advantage:
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile to show your expertise as it will help you to build a good impression on prospects.
- You can use advanced filters in LinkedIn search to find relevant prospects.
- Before you send them a connection request you should start by engaging with their posts. This will help you build a rapport with them and make them more likely to accept your connection request.
- Once you have built a good relationship with them, send a connection request with a personalized note.
- After connecting with them, send personalized messages relevant to their needs. You should focus on starting a conversation with your prospects rather than pushing your solution.
- You should slowly take the conversation in the direction of what their challenges and pain points are and start making your sales pitch.
- Alternatively, you can use InMail as well to reach out to prospects outside your network.
By following these steps, you will be able to strategically network with potential customers and build a working relationship with them.
Note: To make your LinkedIn outreach more efficient, you can use a LinkedIn automation tool.
Next, let’s see how you can use cold calling as an effective B2B sales strategy.
Quick Qualification with Cold Calling
You can adopt cold calling as your B2B sales strategy to reach out and qualify your prospects quickly.
You have to be dynamic in your approach and take the conversation based on how your prospects respond to you.
The process here is quite simple:
- Identify potential customers for your business and get their contact information. You can use a B2B data provider to do the same.
- After you have created your list, pick up the phone and start calling.
- Start by introducing yourself and letting them know that you are cold calling them and if it’s the right time to connect.
- You then have to take the conversation based on how your prospects are engaging with you.
- Train yourself and your team to handle objections and rejections.
Cold calling, when integrated with an outbound dialer, can be a super effective outbound sales strategy when you do it right.
In the next subsection, you’ll learn how offline events can be a great way to generate leads and sales for your business.
In-Person Connections with Offline Events
In offline events and conferences, you can interact directly with prospects and talk to them about your business and how you can help them.
Here’s what you should do.
Find relevant events your ideal customers will likely attend and register for them.
You can then research about the people who would be visiting the event, use social media platforms to find key prospects.
Next, prepare for the event; you can consider hosting a small booth or putting up a presentation.
This will help you to attract leads.
At the event, be proactive, build genuine relationships, and engage in meaningful conversations.
Important Note: Always exchange your contact information with potential leads.
You can later use the various outbound methods we discussed to reach out to them to keep the momentum going.
Now that we have seen and learned how the outbound approach works let’s take a look at how you can generate leads using inbound sales strategies.
2. Inbound Sales Strategy
An inbound sales strategy is a customer-centric approach where you provide value and attract prospective customers.
Think of it like offering free samples in a crowded place. Those who like what you have to offer will inquire more, and some will buy your product.
Some of the highly effective inbound B2B sales strategies are:
- Content Marketing for Consistent Conversions
- Organic Visibility with SEO
- Viral Growth with Social Media Marketing
- Influential Engagement through Podcasts and Webinars
Let’s see how you can put these strategies to use!
Content Marketing for Consistent Conversions
The most easiest way to provide value to your target audience is by creating content around topics to which they are searching answers for.
That’s exactly what you do in content marketing!
You create various forms of content, such as blogs and videos—both short and long-form—and distribute them on platforms that your prospects frequently use.
Here is an example to help you understand better.
Let’s say you are a lead generation agency specializing in outbound services.
Your target audience will be businesses looking to improve their outbound sales performance.
So you would create blogs on topics like “How to Generate Leads for IT and Tech Companies,” where you would primarily focus on generating leads and sales using outbound methods.
A Small Secret: We actually have a blog on “How to Generate Leads for IT and Tech Companies.” If you’re in the IT and tech industry, you can read it to find focused strategies.
You can also create videos on those topics that you embed in your blogs.
Furthermore, you can create infographics, social media posts, and short videos and distribute them on social media to increase your reach and engagement with your target audience.
Creating such content will attract a relevant audience and guide them through the buyer journey.
This includes creating awareness about your solution, generating interest and desire, and ultimately pushing them to take action and choose your solution.
Organic Visibility with SEO
Anytime you hear someone talk about content marketing, SEO will also pop up in the same conversation!
Why?
SEO helps rank the quality content you create higher on the search engine results page (SERP).
You can say that SEO and content marketing are quite inseparable!
There are 3 types of SEO:
- On-Page SEO: Here, you will optimize each webpage with relevant keywords, quality content, etc., to help it rank higher on SERPs.
- Off-Page SEO: Your focus here is on activities outside your website like link building, social media promotion, etc., which will boost authoritative signals for your website.
- Lastly, Technical SEO: You will focus on the technical part of your website, such as optimizing it to improve site speed, mobile-friendliness, and navigability.
Next on the list is social media as an effective B2B sales strategy!
Viral Growth with Social Media Marketing
Social media is a very powerful tool when it comes to B2B sales.
We have already discussed how you can use social media (LinkedIn) as part of your outreach sales strategy.
Here, you’ll learn how to use it to generate inbound leads for your business.
Depending on where your target audience frequents the most, you can use platforms like Twitter (X), Facebook, and even Instagram.
The key to success in social media is to consistently provide value and engage with your audience!
Position yourself as a thought leader and an expert in your niche.
You can do this by actively participating in discussions, engaging by responding to comments, sharing relevant content, etc.
This will help improve your brand awareness and also build trust and credibility among your audience, encouraging them to explore what you have to offer.
With the right approach, you can create a complete lead-generation engine with social media!
Influential Engagement through Podcasts and Webinars
The last strategy we’ll be seeing under the inbound sales strategy is using podcasts and webinars as a way to generate interest among potential customers.
You can use podcasts and webinars to connect directly with prospects in real time and share valuable information and insights.
The goal here is to show that you are an expert and an authority in your field. These platforms allow you to address common pain points and provide solutions.
What better way to do it?
You can use social media and SEO to find what your ideal audience is looking for. Based on this, come up with a topic you can discuss and share your expertise on.
Once you have prepared everything necessary, you can start promoting your podcast or webinar through your existing channels, such as email, social media, and your website, to attract the right audience.
Engage with your audience as much as possible, conducting polls, Q&A, etc., throughout your session.
Finally, give an exclusive offer to the attendees to take the next step.
To make the most of your podcasts and webinars, you “SHOULD” repurpose them into blogs, videos, social media posts, etc.
This way, you can still engage and promote your brand and value.
This concludes some of the effective inbound sales strategies you can use to attract B2B clients for your business.
Next, we will see a unique and interesting strategy you can use to connect with high-intent prospects.
Suggested Read: Inbound vs Outbound Sales? Which is best
3. Account-Based Sales Strategy
You’ve heard about Account-Based Marketing (ABM), but what about Account-Based Sales (ABS)?
It’s less talked about, but it’s a game-changer, especially if you’re looking to close deals with high-value accounts.
In ABS, you’re focusing on quality over quantity. Instead of casting a wide net, you zero in on specific, high-potential accounts.
You research them thoroughly, understand their pain points, and tailor your outreach to match their needs.
That’s where all-in-one cold emailing tools like Saleshandy come in.
With Saleshandy, you can easily find the right contacts for these accounts and send personalized, strategic cold emails to engage them effectively.
And the best part?
It’s a collaborative effort across your sales and marketing teams to build long-term relationships with key accounts.
Now, do you see the ingenuity of this approach?
With this approach, you can proactively reach out to high-intent users and quickly nurture and convert them into paying customers.
If you thought this was a genius B2B sales strategy, the next one would be more mind-boggling!
4. Inbound-Led Outbound Sales Strategy
The last B2B sales strategy we have saved up for you is the inbound-led outbound sales strategy.
So what exactly is this?
Well, in plain and simple language, it is a strategy that puts together all the above strategies you have seen – outbound, inbound and account-based sales.
So how does it work?
You collect all the inbound leads and prospects generated through the inbound sales strategies and by identifying accounts that visit your web pages.
You can use tools like RB2B, 6Sense, etc., to identify accounts.
You then reach out to them using the outbound sales strategies like cold emailing, LinkedIn outreach and/or cold calling.
That’s it, as simple as that!
Inbound-led outbound can be your game-changer to reduce your sales cycle time.
How?
Well, by proactively reaching out to prospects who have shown interest in your business, you are basically connecting with warmer leads who are more likely to convert.
It is much easier and faster to move them through the sales pipeline.
Overall, the inbound-led outbound B2B sales strategy fills the gap that each of the other strategies has.
With all the best B2B sales strategies in 2024 covered, let’s see which best suits your business’s needs.
Which Is the Right B2B Sales Strategy for You?
Now that you have seen what all the sales strategies can bring to your table it can be quite easy to get carried away and implement all of them.
But remember, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
Which Strategy is Right for You? | Product-Led Growth (PLG) | Sales-Led Growth (SLG) |
Outbound Sales | Less Focused | Highly Effective |
Inbound Sales | Highly Effective | Supportive |
Account-Based Selling | Less Focused | Highly Effective |
Inbound-Led Outbound Sales | Effective | Effective |
Following sales strategies randomly can negatively affect you and put you in a position where you would have spent a lot of time and resources and got nothing in return.
To make the right choice, you should align your strategies based on your business’s growth model.
If your business follows a Sales-led Growth (SLG) model, where success relies heavily on direct sales efforts and high-touch interactions, you should focus on strategies like outbound sales and account-based selling.
Alternatively, if your business is fueled by the Product-Led Growth (PLG) model, where the product itself is the primary driver of customer acquisition and retention, an inbound sales strategy will likely be more effective.
But what about the inbound-led outbound strategy? Where does this fit into?
Well, that’s the beauty of this approach: It works perfectly for both SLG and PLG models.
You can start with one or two strategies that are most relevant to your business. Once you have built a lead engine with them, you can move to explore other options.
Generate More Revenue With the Right Sales Strategy in 2024
Your sales success lies in choosing the right B2B sales strategy, and the right sales strategy is one that is aligned with your business and target audience.
One way to reach your goals faster is to take a comprehensive approach to sales and combine inbound and outbound sales strategies.
Inbound methods, such as content marketing and SEO, can attract warm leads, while outbound strategies allow you to proactively reach out to potential prospects.
You should also consider using the right automation tool depending on what strategy you chose to help you scale your lead generation process.
You’ll be well on your way to a successful year with the right approach.
B2B Sales Strategy FAQs
1. What is the most effective B2B sales strategy for my small businesses?
Well, in our opinion you can use a combination of inbound and outbound strategies to create an effective B2B sales strategy. You can use content marketing and SEO to attract relevant visitors to your website and use cold emailing to reach out to your prospects.
2. Which is the best sales strategy to proactively reach out to prospective customers?
Cold emailing is the most cost-effective and highly scalable B2B sales strategy for reaching out to prospects proactively. Alternatively, you can also try LinkedIn outreach to reach out to your prospects.
3. How do I measure the success of my sales strategy?
You should adopt the following key metrics to track the success of your B2B Sales strategy:
- Leads conversion rate
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Customer Retention Rate
- Sales Cycle Length
By monitoring these metrics you can assess how your strategy is performing and help you identify areas of improvement as well.
4. What are some of the common mistakes I should avoid when developing a B2B sales strategy?
Here’s what you should be doing:
- Clearly define your ICPs and buyer persona.
- Aligning your marketing and sales team.
- Personalizing sales communication to make it more relevant to the prospect.
- Make sure to set up a follow-up plan.
- Focusing on building a relationship with the prospects.