As 2025 rolls in, it’s important to look back on what worked this year and what will change in 2025.
At lemlist, we found out that the most important B2B sales trend in 2025 will be to choose quality over quantity at all times.
We’ve also found 5 other B2B sales trends you won’t want to miss out on.
What happened in 2024?
Before we get into new trends, it’s important to recap and remember where we are coming from.
During 2024, automation and ChatGPT continued to become stronger. Although maybe a bit too much.
While cold emailing tools and automation got stronger, many sales reps may have focused too much on reaching as many people as possible and spending as little time as possible, however, this came at the expense of proper personalization and started to disregard leads’ needs.
This caused cold emailing to take a serious hit as it began to seem completely annoying and impersonal.
On the other hand, it did lead to a slight uprise in cold calling. Success rate has gone from 2% to 4.82% in 2024, and is predicted to continue to increase slowly but steadily.
So essentially, 2024 was the year in which automation became too much and people began to muss a more human touch and approach in sales.
Although, we must say, not all use of tools and automation has had a negative impact! In 2024 sales teams have leveraged even more the use of multiple tools to mke every step of the sales process much more efficient and controlled.
As you can see, the star of 2024 has been automation and AI.
We predict that 2025 will continue to perfect the use of tools in the sales process to streamline efficiency.
But there are 5 trends that you won’t want to miss in this upcoming year.
1. Combine automation tools with a human touch
In 2024, salespeople reported they were overwhelmed with too many tools, however, going back to manual sales would probably feel like going back a couple of centuries, and you definitely don’t want to fall behind.
So, what is the key?
Choosing a tool that will take care of as many tasks as possible, such as:
- Task management. Whether the tool takes care of specific tool for you (such as sending automated follow-ups) or with task reminders
- Tools with native integrations to make sure you can seamlessly connect all of your different tasks (for example, integrating your CRM with your automation tool and calendar).
- High-level personalization
Using tools efficiently gives you a significant advantage when you can easily take care of any task without having to switch from one overcomplicated tool to another or having to wait for availability or permissions.
It’s also important to ensure that the set of tools you pick easily integrate with each other, if not, you’re likely to spend more time going through mistakes and filling in existing data than actually closing your deals.
But don’t over do it!
Now, bear in mind, that although relying on different tools will still be a common trend during 2025, most sales reps are relying on multidisciplinary tools. Meaning that the tool isn’t limited to one action.
Don’t lose your human touch!
Being as human as possible in your interactions, involves being transparent.
You want to make sure your leads know you are an actual person and not just one more bot sending mass emails left and right.
Why do we say it’s important to stay human?
Because of automation, in 2024 buyers felt completely disconnected because they would receive multiple emails in one day that all looked pretty much the same: Minimal personalization and pushing sales without taking the buyer into account at all.
Now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use automation in 2025, but you will have to refocus the way you use automation tools (if you haven’t yet). You can do so by implement a few simple tips:
- Start by segmenting your leads (yes, you can do this with AI too).
This will ensure that your leads are classified in groups so, even if your emails are automated, they will still be highly targeted.
- Don’t try to be the fastest in make the sale.
Chances are you’re going to lose your leads attention if you shift into an aggressive and pushy stance too soon.
- Try a tool that keeps a human touch even when using AI
If you want to know what we mean, try out the lemlist free cold email generator below.
2. Don’t limit yourself to one channel
Businesses tend to expand themselves differently. So not all business people will be as active on the same channel, nor will they choose the same channel to conduct business.
However, trying to figure out what channel your leads will prefer for your campaigns is completely ineffective.
When running a multichannel campaign, you’re ensured to reach your leads in the channel which they use most, you will also make sure that they easily associate you when they see you in different channels.
With lemlist you can run multichannel campaign with advanced conditions. This means campaigns can run one way or another depending on the data you have or how your lead reacts.
For example, if you have a leads’ phone number, if they open an email, or connect with you on LinkedIn.
By including LinkedIn steps in your sequence, you’re adding an extra layer of social proof to your messages, as your leads are only on click away from learning exactly who you are without you having to bombard them with information.
Although, if you’re going to use this technique make sure you’re active on LinkedIn, if not you’ll seem insincere, untrustworthy, and inexperienced.
Check out how to build your LinkedIn strategy to make your LinkedIn outreach successful.
You should also bear in mind, that the tone or target business may vary depending on their industry. For example, LinkedIn can be considered a much more relaxed environment than emailing.
You can also include cold calling steps in your campaigns and combine them with cold emailing, as sending an email before a cold call can increase your success rate by 40%, especially when paired with personalized videos or perhaps a personalized LinkedIn voice message.
The concept of cold calling has been redefined over the past year and will continue to evolve in the next year too.
Cold calling is no longer just calling random numbers with your same boring old script hoping to be able to get through the first sentence. By using automation tools, AI dialers, voice assistants, and AI-powered research tools you’re guaranteed to increase efficiency and have a safer approach by having the correct data to reach out to your leads.
As we predicted in our LinkedIn poll, quality will be more important than quantity. So sales reps will no longer call everyone on the list. Rather there will be a lead qualification process set first, to then decide which leads are qualified for a call. This will ensure a higher success rate, while also saving valuable time and resources.
Most importantly, cold calling with a natural and targeted script will allow you to stay human and engage with your buyers by understanding their needs, pain points, and offering valuable solutions.
3. Influencer marketing
All through 2024, phishing has become a greater threat than ever before, which has caused cold emailing to take a serious hit.
Most email recipients are afraid to open emails from senders they have never heard of and are inclined to delete them without so much as a quick glance.
However, people will continue to trust in people they know and in their recommendations and advice.
For this reason influencer marketing will continue to grow rapidly during 2025. Why?
Influencer marketing will continue to grow because it leverages subject mater experts, thought leaders, and other influential people within an industry.
The favorite platform continues to be LinkedIn, with over a billion users around the world, it is still the platform where professionals can find quality leads and industry leaders. You can also find quality content on Youtube ir private Slack groups.
The content influencer marketing pushes is basically LinkedIn posts, videos, podcasts, reviews, webinars, tutorials, and other collaborations between brands and influencers.
If you’re really wondering if influencer marketing actually works, Alex, at lempire, spills the details of a campaign Taplio run recently.
Another tip is to turn your team into influencers! Make sure your company is active on social media such as LinkedIn as an inbound content strategy.
This will mean that their visitors can contact them directly when they have doubts and having actual product experts will add an extra layer of trust with potential clients.
4. Rely on data and insights
In 2025, guesswork is officially over as a major trend will be to rely on real data and insights by using predictive analytics and behavioral analysis.
Sales reps that rely on behavioral data, are said to outperform other sales reps by 85%.
By using behavioral analytics, sales reps can keep track of leads who are more likely to convert based on their previous interactions with your business, for instance attending a webinar, visiting your website, downloading a resource, engaging with your content, etc.
For example, by tracking how much time a lead spends on your pricing page, you’re able to know that your lead is interested and considering how your solution fits their budget.
If you’re not ready to invest in a separate behavioral analysis tool just yet, you can always rely on lemlist and use the Website visitors or Intent signals filters in the database.
Predictive analytics tools will analyze leads’ past behaviors, firmographic data, and buyer intent signals by using AI algorithms. This will help you identify and qualify warm leads and rely on a warm outreach strategy, which is more likely to offer higher conversion rates.
By using predictive analytics, you’ll be able to map out your buyers’ journey and how they move down the sales funnel until closing the deal. This allows sales reps to anticipate what leads’ will need at any given time.
Using this type of data offers many benefits for your business:
- Target the correct leads
- Better lead qualification ad segmentation
- Higher targeting and personalization
- Investing your time and resources wisely
- Keeping your KPIs high
- Essentially, closing more deals
5. Thought-leadership and resources
You don’t want your presentations to be long emails talking about yourself and how great your business is, but how can you prove all this then with short and simple messages that focus on them?
Simple. Establish yourself as a thought-leader and add social proof to your messages and other interactions so your leads can easily access your library of knowledge. Kind of like a digital portfolio that you can use to build trust, credibility, and authority.
Buyers typically rely on reps that have bold insights and opinions, who follow industry trends, and offer advice and valuable resources they can use and relate to.
To establish yourself as a thought leader, it is not enough with just posting regularly on LinkedIn (although it works when combined with other strategies!).
Establishing yourself as a thought leader requires having a large variety of resources you can send out. These resources can vary depending on the stage of the sales funnel your leads are:
| Stage | Content Type |
|---|---|
| TOFU | Industry reports, blogs, videos |
| MOFU | Case studies, webinars, guides |
| BOFU | ROI calculators, demos, benchmarks |
When you build your resources strategy, first you’ll have to do research on industry trends and common pain points.
Doing your research will ensure that you can accurately answer all of your buyers concerns, and that you have material based on accurate data to make your sale.
Some of the formats you can use are:
- LinkedIn posts
- Webinars
- Blog posts
- Podcasts
- Different online reviews
- Playbooks
- Masterclasses
- Newsletters
- E-books
- Success stories and case studies
Although all of these are great options you should definitely implement in your content strategy, a very popular trend in 2025 will be the use of videos both on YouTube or LinkedIn, and TikTok in some cases.
Videos can help you give advice and tutorials (among others) in a more relaxed and engaging tone.
Here’s an example of the types of videos you can use:
By offering your leads valuable content you’re able to educate your leads while you build trust with them, and all the while attracting inbound leads.
Tips to implement B2B sales trends in your business
Although keeping up with trends makes it more likely that buyers will consider you industry leaders, you don’t want to be an exact replica of every other business out there. So it’s important to give your strategies a twist to make them your own.
There are some simple tips you can implement to make sure that you’re following trends consciously:
- Think about your needs
Think about the leads you need and where you can find them. Not all platforms will be as successful, and maybe your budget is tight so you can’t post quality content on too many platforms.
On the other hand, if you do wish to hit as many platforms as possible, consider a proper allocation of your budget so that every piece of content you put out there has the same quality.
Additionally, when attracting inbound leads and building your resource strategy, it’s wise to consider what formats your buyers will be more interested in. It make no sense in spending money to make videos on TikTok if you’re not going to reach the correct audience.
- Consider your style
When building your brand, the tone you set is one of the first things you need to consider.
For example, will you be fun and laid back or take a more serious and professional approach? This decision will impact every trend you follow, as you need to be cohesive throughout your entire strategy so that everything you do aligns with your brand.
- Make trends your own
We can’t stress this one enough.
The only way to establish yourself as a thought leader, attract quality buyers with your outreach efforts, or partner with the right influencers is to be transparent at all times.
If buyers or leads think you are doing too much or acting too laid back, chances are they won’t trust you because they will consider they’re being scammed.
So just be honest.
- Test and measure
Just because it’s trending, it doesn’t mean it is 100% certain to work for your business or industry.
If something isn’t working, or you need to take a slightly different direction, don’t be afraid to do so.
How will B2B sales be different in 2025?
In 2025 we’re getting back to basics.
Leaving behind overcomplicated strategies, instead find a real connection with your leads and take the time to nurture them.
Essentially, quality will remain over quantity:
☑️ Better tools
☑️ Better leads
☑️ Better data
☑️ Better outreach sequences
☑️ Better customers
