Abbey is a digital marketer, copywriter, and lead editor. She has worked on over 200 client campaigns and WebFX, and she specializes in marketing strategy analysis and industry-specific digital marketing plans. Outside of writing and editing, you’ll likely find her taking pictures of her cat, making a new playlist, or tending to her houseplants.
Following current sales trends can help you stay ahead of competitors and learn what customers want. To close more sales in the coming year, you must incorporate trends and advancements into your strategy.
On this page, we’ll cover 15 different sales trends. These trends will be divided into three categories:
General sales trends
B2C sales trends
B2B sales trends
We’ll look at five trends in each category. Keep reading to break down each trend in more detail, or call 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about improving your sales approach through digital marketing!
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What is the fastest-growing sales trend today?
Before we dive into our list of trends, let’s take a moment to highlight the most important sales trend of the year.
In 2024, personalization remains the fastest-growing sales trend. Customers don’t want a sweeping approach with ads or marketing materials — they want to feel seen by companies.
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelSenior Web Strategy Consultant at WebFX
Sales professionals need to lean into their prospects’ underlying needs more in 2024 and further relate to what will make each individual feel confident choosing your company over anyone else. This level of awareness will set a salesperson apart during the process and deliver the personalized experience prospects are seeking when finding that perfect partner that highly aligns with their needs.
About 27% of consumers consider personalization important for building brand loyalty.
42% of marketers are personalizing content to build long-term relationships.
It’s crucial to remember how personalizing your marketing and advertising can impact sales. If you want to make the biggest impact during a sales pitch, all your content should be about the individual.
General sales trends for 2024
Let’s start by going over five trends that apply to sales across both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies. Those trends are:
Customer relationship management (CRM) involvement is growing
Companies must sell the problem
Company culture matters more than before
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the sales world
Personalization continues to dominate sales
Keep reading to learn more about each one!
1. Customer relationship management (CRM) involvement is growing
A CRM is a system for handling all aspects of customer relationships. CRMs are becoming more popular across all industries, but they can be particularly helpful for sales.
As personalization and customer service become more prominent, companies are choosing CRM services to help them manage customer relationships. With an effective CRM, you can:
Organize and store customer data, including their contact info, purchase history, account details, and more
Follow up with leads through one platform
Integrate your email services to monitor communications
Message and call leads through a trackable interface
A CRM like Nutshell can integrate with your existing sales software.
2. Companies must sell the problem
Before, selling was all about listing your features and benefits and proving why your company is the best. Now, you want to outline the problem and paint your product or service as the solution.
This step requires a strong understanding of your target audience’s challenges and how your product suits them. Again, clients want to feel like you know them. If you show that you understand their problems, your product will look like a natural next step.
When offering a demo or pitching, be sure to address the following questions:
What challenges does this client face?
Are there any industry-specific needs that our product helps with?
How does our product help this client?
3. Company sales culture matters more than before
A charming sales team is always a plus, but what makes a good sales culture?
Your company’s sales culture is founded on your values, which tell your story. If you want people to warm up to your company and spend their funds with you, you need to tell them who you are. Your sales team is often your first impression with leads and existing customers.
Be sure to outline your company values and culture and communicate that with your leads. They want to know who they’re working with as much as they want to be seen.
4. Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the sales world
AI is a standard part of many marketing practices. As technology advances, so do the opportunities for sales teams.
With AI software, your team can boost productivity by automating repetitive tasks. You can:
Set appointments
Send notifications
Record customer data
Send emails to leads
You can even use AI to track your leads and improve your customers’ experiences.
5. Personalization continues to dominate sales
As we’ve already mentioned, personalization is the most important sales trend across the board right now. To expand more on what we said earlier, businesses and consumers alike are responding far more positively to personalized sales efforts than they are to generic ones. That means you need to up your personalization game this year.
How can you do that? One of the best ways is to segment your audience into different groups based on things like their location, demographics, interests, or behavior. Then you can create separate approaches for marketing and selling to each group.
That way, each group gets targeted with sales efforts that are closely customized to their specific needs. As a result, they respond more positively to it.
B2C sales trends for 2024
Now that we’ve gone over sales trends that apply equally to all businesses, let’s take a look at some trends that are of particular importance to B2C companies. If you sell directly to consumers, these are the trends for you to pay attention to:
Sales cycles are growing faster
Providing customer references
Influencers run the show
Social selling is a must
Buyers are more informed
Read on to find out more about each one!
1. Sales cycles are growing faster
Something many B2C companies have been experiencing lately is faster sales cycles. As it becomes easier to gather more information in less time, and as people’s attention spans decrease, it seems it’s leading consumers to make purchases much faster than they used to.
That seems like a good thing for businesses, and it is — in some ways. On the one hand, that means you make more money in less time. On the other hand, it also means you need to increase the speed at which you produce products. And for your sales team, it means you have to reevaluate the pace at which you approach the sales process.
Where once you might have waited longer to send out a specific marketing material, you might now send it a little earlier to make sure you account for the faster sales cycle. Of course, this all depends on what you’re seeing at your business, specifically.
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelSenior Web Strategy Consultant at WebFX
Oftentimes people are ready to pull the trigger faster with these deals. With this, it’s important we are presenting the right information at the right time to align with the immediate needs of the prospect.
2. Prospects are seeking customer references
Another thing some B2C companies are seeing is requests for customer references. Of course, this doesn’t apply to every company. If you sell products, people can probably find reviews for them online. But for certain industries, that’s not the case, especially if you provide services rather than products.
In that case, your leads may ask your sales team for references. The thing is, this isn’t always something you can provide.
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelSenior Web Strategy Consultant at WebFX
With industries like home services, we often see people asking for references so they can ask current customers their experience. This is outside of the salesperson’s control, so we have to be strategic with the process up until this happens.
When that happens, you’ll have to find other ways to satisfy your leads. Arguably the best way to do that is to have testimonials on your website, or to set up a way for customers to leave reviews.
3. Influencers run the show
If you aren’t already using social media for your business, it’s time to catch up with other marketing and sales teams. Influencer marketing can help you reach a wider audience on social media and put your product or services in front of prospects.
Influencers can:
Boost your sales
Improve brand awareness
Heighten your social media approach
Influencers also promise a strong return on investment (ROI). Businesses can make up to $5.20 for every dollar invested in Instagram influencer marketing. If you want to market your services and connect with your audience, connect with an influencer.
4. Social selling is a must
Currently, 90% of companies use social media. If you aren’t taking advantage of social selling, you are missing out on more revenue and connections with your audience.
Some key benefits of selling on social media include:
Brand awareness: As you post online and build your brand, you can expose more people to your company. Even if they don’t convert immediately, they will remember you when they need your service.
Lead quality: Social media helps weed out leads who are only browsing your services. When a lead contacts you through a social platform, they are likely looking for more information.
Connection: You can use posts, comments, and direct messages to reach out to leads and make contact.
YouTube is one platform where sales teams can answer questions, detail product or service offerings, and build culture.
5. Buyers are more informed
A final B2C sales trend to note is the fact that buyers are becoming more and more informed. This is partly fueled by the accessibility of AI, but it’s also driven by a general increase in Internet literacy. This increased knowledgeability amongst consumers is part of why they’re moving through sales cycles more quickly.
Due to being more informed, buyers are also more critical of marketing and sales efforts. They know more about your industry, and they know to ask questions they might not have asked in past years. By the time they reach your sales team, they’ve probably already done their research.
What does this mean for you? Nothing drastic — it really just means you need to be prepared for more knowledgeable consumers, meaning your sales efforts will need to be more compelling than ever.
B2B sales trends for 2024
Finally, to conclude this page, let’s go over some sales trends that are specific to the B2B world. The B2B sales trends we’ll look at include:
Companies are getting decision-makers involved early
Prospects respond to seeing the financial impact
Existing customers are going to be higher priority
More touchpoints are necessary
Clients are wanting to meet the team
Keep reading to find out more.
1. Companies are getting decision-makers involved early
One big thing many B2B companies are doing is making a point of getting key decision-makers involved in the sales conversation as early as possible. You don’t want to spend weeks or months persuading a company representative, only to learn that they actually have very little say in the final decision.
As early as you can, try to get in contact with the people at your target companies who will actually have the power to make the decision to buy from you. That being said, be careful how you approach this. You don’t want your initial contact to feel as though you’re trying to go over their head.
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelSenior Web Strategy Consultant at WebFX
Salespeople should start the process by gaining an understanding of the prospect’s internal decision making process and where their specific contact ranks in making the final decision. How we communicate involving leadership is tricky as we don’t want to make our contact feel we are going above them. We want to feed into their underlying need and ask how we can help that person sell this decision to leadership.
2. Prospects respond to seeing the financial impact
Another big B2B sales trend for 2024 is that prospects are growing more and more interested in seeing the tangible financial impact that your products or services will have for them.
Don’t approach each sale with vague platitudes about how you can “help them increase revenue.” Instead, gather information from them about their current metrics, and then explain in detail how your business can impact those numbers. This fits nicely in the same vein as personalization.
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelSenior Web Strategy Consultant at WebFX
Most businesses want to understand what specific financial impact they will gain from any type of investment they make. Sales professionals should start asking for average lead value, cost per lead, average deal size, current number of deals they see, budget, etc. so that they can craft a picture of HOW this investment is going to grow their revenue. Having the numbers in front of business owners like this will make them question, “Can I afford NOT to do this?”
3. Existing customers are going to be higher priority
Finding new sales is not always the answer — 49% of marketers have shifted their objectives to focus on growing business with existing accounts. Instead of pushing new sales, this trend encourages teams to look at their existing client base and expand their services.
You can accomplish this step with two strategies:
Upselling: Show your customers the premium or higher-value option that could fulfill their needs even more.
Cross-selling: Point your buyers towards complementary products that will enhance their experience. This strategy offers customers a more comprehensive solution.
4. More touchpoints are necessary
It’s normal not to make a sale on first contact with a lead. It can take you a few times to warm them to your company and show your complete line of benefits and services. You can expect to meet with each lead more than once.
Part of building customer relationships is having regular touchpoints, starting as early as pre-closing. Communicate with your lead, be there to answer questions, and keep the line open. This process will pay off as you build accounts and relationships.
5. Clients are wanting to meet the team
Finally, many B2B companies are finding that their prospects want to meet the team before becoming clients. But we’re not talking about the sales team. We mean the team that will actually manage each client’s account.
After all, even if a prospect has a fantastic experience with your sales team, that doesn’t mean they’ll get the same treatment from the people who actually handle their account after they convert. Introducing those people to them beforehand can help put their minds at ease and encourage them to take that final step.
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelSenior Web Strategy Consultant at WebFX
Another selling trend is that people are impressed with sales, but want to know how we are going to set them up with the best team going forward. While our sales culture can shine through and be what they want, we have to be confident in expressing to them that the ongoing account management team is just as good as (if not better than) the experience we delivered during the sales process.
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Tackle 2024 sales trends and more with WebFX
As a leading digital marketing agency, WebFX can help you stay up to date with trends in any agency. We use the latest industry information to help you attract new leads, close more sales, and earn more revenue.
We have worked in 200+ industries so far, and that number is only rising. Our complete suite of digital marketing services will take sales industry trends into account to give you an upper hand over competitors.
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Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Abbey is a digital marketer, copywriter, and lead editor. She has worked on over 200 client campaigns and WebFX, and she specializes in marketing strategy analysis and industry-specific digital marketing plans. Outside of writing and editing, you’ll likely find her taking pictures of her cat, making a new playlist, or tending to her houseplants.
