Mikko Honkanen

What a year! We can all agree 2020 wasn't exactly what we expected. However, looking ahead with renewed optimism, we're continuing tradition and predicting the most important sales trends in 2021.

Things have changed, but sales activity hasn't stopped. The pandemic forced many companies to rethink their strategies, and we saw remote sales become common almost overnight. Going forward, sales and marketing teams will be more creative and resourceful, building on the lessons learned in the last few months. As a result, companies will refine their strategies with a focus on a new digital customer journey with multiple touch points and channels across various channels.

A renewed focus on the digital journey that puts the customer at the center. That's the premise in which we're predicting next year's sales trends—and here they are:

It’s well documented that target marketing campaigns, like account-based marketing (ABM), deliver better results and higher return on investment. The rationale is very straightforward. ABM concentrates most resources on the highest-value prospective customers possible, using highly targeted, personalized campaigns to win over particular accounts.

As attractive as it sounds, ABM might not be worth your time without the right setup. And, that includes heavy reliance on data. In this article, we’re going to see how you can segment your target audience and create small account clusters so you can drive sales with targeted marketing.

Let’s get into it.

Ask a librarian how they classify books and you better have some free time. Grab a coffee, sit down, the reply will be long. Library classification is a precise, systematic method for coding and organizing library materials so people can find its books quickly and easily.

Successful business-to-business sales and marketing activities also require a methodical classification of accounts and the decision-makers within those accounts. When you group companies according to specific attributes, you can uncover unique ways to identify the particular needs of each group. You’ll serve each group of companies better.

At Vainu, we believe there’s a right way of doing sales. One that uses data in every step of the sales process to be truly relevant for prospects, to listen, and to provide value. However, are we practicing what we preach?

You had everything figured out. Your goals for 2020 were set, your sales playbook was locked in, and you’d even trained the team and got them operating smoothly.

How do you continue selling in the current situation? Will companies invest or scale back their sales activities? What effect do all-remote sales teams have on productivity?

A long and firm handshake. This gesture used to signify the end of a long sales process. At that moment, the prospect and the salesperson developed a solid relationship, even a friendship, after meeting in person several times at each other’s office, and more often than not, for a good amount of after-work cocktails.

A company’s industry, number of employees or location doesn’t reveal much about its needs and interests. This type of company information is often referred to as firmographics. It has significant value to salespeople who target companies in a specific industry or a chosen size-range as it allows them to quickly filter promising prospects out of a longer list of potential customers. However, firmographic data doesn’t reveal enough details about a company's organization and current situation to help you find those hidden gems you should go after right now.

If you’re a salesperson in forefront you combine firmographics, technographics (data showing a company’s online profile and technical tool-box, etc.) and insights from buying signals when sales prospecting.

For most companies, there are millions of sales prospects available. For decades, salespeople have struggled to prioritize certain prospects over others.

Fortunately, modern technology makes it easier than ever before to master sales prospecting. Though it’s taken a long time to reach the point we’re at today, we are now at a point where predictive and prescriptive lead scoring technology can recommend the right companies for you to reach out to, the right time to approach these companies and the right way to get in touch with them.

This article is the first chapter in our ebook: The Ultimate 60-Page Guide to Sales Prospecting. Here we take a look in the rear-view mirror and review the history of B2B sales prospecting.

Scaling has probably been one of the most rewarding – but also challenging – things I’ve had to do as the co-founder of Vainu. While the rush of bringing on ambitious new team members or opening offices in new countries never gets old, getting to the point where our organization had a process in place for how to scale has been, admittedly, a challenge at times.

Perhaps what is the most important thing to do — and what takes the most precision — is finding that right mix of the right people to help accelerate your company’s growth and carry your vision forward.