14 Best B2B Sales Channels to Drive Growth and Revenue in 2025

“Spray and pray” is a classic sales mistake, yet it’s one that’s so frequently committed. Spreading yourself thin across too many B2B sales channels will burn through your budget for mediocre results. It pays to narrow down your options and make the most out of them.

Still, choosing the best B2B sales channels isn’t easy. To help you out, we go over the 14 best channels for sorting through the noise, closing more deals, and driving sales growth.

Why it’s best to focus on a few B2B sales channels (especially at first)

Focusing on the right B2B sales channel improves your efficiency, effectiveness, and, ultimately, your bottom line. Here’s why:

• Quality over quantity – Targeting the right channels that align best with your audience means you connect with higher-quality leads, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
• Maximized resources – Concentrating your efforts on a few high-performing channels ensures better resource allocation.
• Better customer insights – Starting with a smaller number of channels allows you to run a deeper analysis, which helps you improve your targeting and messaging.
• Higher conversion rates – Optimizing for specific channels leads to better messaging, engagement, and sales potential.

Tl;dr: The right B2B sales channels help you work smarter, not harder.

14 effective B2B sales channels for sales growth

Sales channels play important roles like building brand awareness, nurturing leads, closing sales, and establishing authority in your industry. Knowing and understanding each channel’s strengths and drawbacks will help you use them for maximum impact.

Cold email

Good for: Building sales pipeline

With 4.37 billion people using email, cold emailing remains an effective way to connect with prospects, especially for nurturing prospects over time with follow-ups and well-crafted content. 

It’s also easy to scale, which means you can reach hundreds or even thousands of prospects without a huge marketing budget. For B2B, it’s the perfect balance of low cost, high impact, and measurable results.

Here are some tips for cold email success:

• Personalize beyond just the name – Generative AI makes it easy to hyper-personalize each message. For instance, AiSDR goes deep in personalization by supplying multiple options: LinkedIn personalization, HubSpot customization, and even intent signals.
• Craft thoughtful subject lines – With AI, you can also create laser-focused subjects: “I saw [Company] is expanding, here’s how we can help” or “Improving [specific process] at [Company]”.
• Automate nurturing sequences – Instead of just sending follow-ups, you can set up strategic, well-timed sequences. The AI will ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

AI-driven SDR solutions like AiSDR can help streamline your outreach, automate follow-ups, and personalize at scale, freeing up more time for strategic engagement.

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Cold calls

Good for: Building pipelines

Cold calling still packs a punch, particularly when you want to quickly establish a rapport and get instant feedback. 

That said, the cold call success rate in 2024 is only 4.82%. And even though it takes a lot of calls to hit gold, AI-assisted research can boost your chances of connecting before you even pick up the phone.

Maximize your chances of cold call success by covering all these bases:

• Research your prospect – Know who you’re calling and what their pain points might be. 
• Prepare a strong opening – Start the conversation with a hook that catches the eye and something that shows how your offer is relevant.
• Keep it concise – Stick to key points and move the conversation toward the next step (e.g. setting up a meeting).
• Use active listening – Ask open-ended questions and listen attentively. 
• Handle objections gracefully – Be prepared with responses to common objections, but don’t push too hard. Be empathetic and solution-oriented.
• Track your calls – Keep detailed notes of every call or use a tool like Apollo to analyze and build on what’s working.

The key here is focus and perseverance. There’s around a 75% chance that a prospect will pick up on your first attempt, and three calls are optimal to successfully connect with a lead. 

LinkedIn social sales

Good for: Building brand awareness and authority

LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B sales, offering a treasure trove of decision-makers and professionals. Standing out on the platform can be a real challenge, though. 

Here are tips for succeeding on LinkedIn:

• Optimize your profile – Make sure your LinkedIn profile is professional and complete and clearly highlights how you can help a business.
• Engage with content – Share relevant articles, comment on posts, and participate in discussions to build visibility and trust.
• Personalize connection requests – Mention why you’d like to connect and how you can offer value.
• Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Navigator adds advanced search capabilities to help you pinpoint decision-makers, industry influencers, and potential clients.
• Don’t pitch immediately – Be helpful first. Share useful content, engage with posts, and be genuine before initiating sales conversations.

But before jumping in, ensure your audience is active on LinkedIn. While it’s particularly popular in the tech sphere, other industries are often less represented on the platform.

Webinars and online industry events

Good for: Building brand awareness, authority, and pipelines

Webinars are excellent for positioning yourself as an expert while providing value. They’re an educational, non-salesy way to engage with prospects and build trust.

Use these tactics to get the most out of your webinars and events:

• Offer valuable, actionable content – What’s your audience struggling with? Give useful insights that solve common problems. 
• Promote in advance – Use email, social media, and other channels to build anticipation. Provide clear registration instructions.
• Engage during the event – Encourage interaction through screen sharing, polls, Q&A sessions, and chat. 
• Follow up with resources – After the webinar, send attendees a recording, slide deck, or additional resources to nurture the relationship.
• Have a clear CTA – Whether it’s scheduling a demo, signing up for a trial, or downloading additional resources, make the next step as frictionless as possible.

Research suggests that 57% of webinar registrations come from email, so don’t skimp on email promotion.

To boost registrations, start promoting at least 4 weeks ahead. This can increase sign-ups by 12%.

And don’t forget to send reminder emails the week before the event. 59% of registrations happen during that time.

Inbound marketing

Good for: Building brand awareness, authority, and pipeline

Inbound marketing draws in leads by creating helpful, relevant content that addresses their pain points. It’s a great way to nurture relationships and turn visitors into loyal customers.

These tips can help you reach your inbound sales and marketing goals:

• Create sales personas – Understand your target audience’s pain points, behaviors, and preferences to build a sales persona that drives content creation that speaks directly to their needs.
• Use lead magnets – Offer free resources such as (eBooks, white papers, and templates) in exchange for contact information to build your email list.
• Nurture leads through automation – Set up email drip campaigns to continue nurturing leads and move them through your sales funnel. AiSDR can automate the nurturing sequences for you using your buyer personas and campaign goals as a guide.
• Focus on content distribution – Share your content on social media, industry forums, and relevant websites to extend your reach.
• Measure and optimize – Use analytics to track which content performs best and refine your strategy based on the data. Hotjar and Crazy Egg provide heat maps, session recordings, and surveys to show how visitors interact with your content.

Keep your content focused on your audience’s needs — not just your products. The more you educate and assist, the more trust you’ll build with potential leads.

SEO

Good for: Building brand awareness and authority

Falling under the umbrella of inbound marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) offers a cost-effective strategy that increases your visibility and generates consistent, high-converting leads over time. It also improves your brand authority and supports other marketing efforts.

Here are some tips to optimize your SEO returns:

• Target long-tail keywords – Use specific, high-intent keywords related to your industry (e.g., “B2B SaaS for healthcare”) to attract qualified traffic. Use an SEO assistant such as Ahrefs or Semrush to find keyword opportunities and track rankings.
• Focus on high-quality content – Create informative, valuable content that addresses your audience’s questions. Blog posts, case studies, and guides can all drive traffic. Use BuzzSumo for content ideas and ClearScope to optimize for target keywords.
• Optimize for local search – If relevant, use local SEO tactics to attract businesses in your region. Manage your listings with Google Business Profile and track local SEO performance using BrightLocal.
• Improve user experience – Ensure your website is easy to navigate, fast loading, and mobile-friendly to reduce bounce rates and improve rankings. Use Screaming Frog to identify site issues and Google PageSpeed Insights to optimize page speed.
• Track website visitors – Run targeted outreach at people who visit your website, such as visitors to your pricing page who didn’t convert into a demo. AiSDR lets you track all visitors, shows you which pages they checked out, and allows you to easily add them to a retargeting campaign.
• Build backlinks – Partner with industry publications, write guest blogs, or create shareable content to acquire backlinks from reputable sources. Use Ahrefs for backlink analysis and BuzzStream to manage outreach for link-building.

Above all, focus on keyword-rich content that answers your ICP’s specific questions. SEO takes time, but the results pay off!

(And from time to time, you might see certain ads go viral, which can give you a huge SEO boost.)

Analysis of a Cold Email About SEO Services

Content marketing 

Good for: Building brand awareness and authority

Content marketing overlaps with SEO and inbound marketing, but it’s so impactful that it merits its own section here. Content positions your company as a trusted authority, pulls prospects in, and nurtures leads.

Here’s the backbone of a good content marketing strategy:

• Know your audience – Create content that solves specific problems for your audience. Make sure it resonates with their pain points and interests.
• Diversify content formats – Use a mix of blog posts, case studies, infographics, videos, and podcasts to reach a wider audience and keep things engaging.
• Promote your content – Use email marketing, social media, and paid ads to promote your content and drive traffic to your website.
• Repurpose content – Turn seminars and videos into blog posts, press releases, and social media posts to maximize value.
• Use CTAs strategically – Each piece of content should have a CTA that guides the user toward the next step in the buyer’s journey.

Your main aim should be to create shareable content that provides value. The more helpful and engaging your content, the more your readers will spread the word.

The Power of Excluding Yourself from Your Marketing

Email marketing

Good for: Lead nurturing 

Email marketing is a powerful method that offers businesses an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent. Email sends targeted, valuable content directly to your lead’s inbox, which helps build stronger connections and drive conversions.

With AI, ROI can increase even further by up to 70%. AI lets you customize messages on the fly to offer content tailored precisely to each individual’s behavior, preferences, and needs.

Here’s how to do email marketing well:

• Segment your email list – Categorize your audience by factors like industry, job title, or stage in the sales funnel. This allows you to send targeted, relevant messages.
• Personalize emails – Use the recipient’s name and customize content based on factors like preferences, company performance, and competitor news. You can also use certain AI tools like AiSDR to factor in your past interactions. 
• Optimize for mobile – Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly, as many recipients will read them on their phones.
• Use compelling subject lines – A/B test subject lines to increase open rates. Make sure your subjects are engaging but not misleading.
• Include clear CTAs – Every email should guide the recipient toward the next step, whether it’s scheduling a demo or downloading a resource.

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to stay top of mind and drive conversions.

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Online advertising

Good for: Direct sales conversion

Online ads let you reach a broad audience quickly while precisely targeting your ideal customers.

The downside? Ads can get pricey fast. And without the right set-up, you’ll quickly burn through your budget.

Use these tips to protect your online advertising budget:

• Set up your targeting carefully – Use demographic targeting, interest-based targeting, and retargeting to ensure your ads reach the right audience. Don’t just cast a wide net hoping to catch people. Tools like SimilarWeb can help analyze competitor traffic and audience insights.
• A/B test ad creatives – Experiment with different images, headlines, and ad copy to see what resonates best with your audience. The value of A/B testing is unlocked through iteration over time, so keep monitoring and testing various approaches.
• Use landing pages – Direct traffic to highly relevant, optimized landing pages where visitors can take the next step in their buyer journey.
• Track and optimize performance – Use tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Ads Manager to monitor and refine your ad performance.
• Budget strategically – Allocate your ad spend based on channels and campaigns that drive the highest ROI.

The overall strategy is to start small with your ad spend, test different creatives, track performance, and adjust based on what works best.

Affiliate programs

Good for: Expanding sales reach

With affiliate marketing, you partner with businesses or influencers who promote your product on your behalf. Since you only pay for actual sales, it’s a cost-effective, performance-driven way to expand reach and grow your customer base without upfront costs. 

Here’s how to do affiliate marketing well:

• Choose the right affiliates – Partner with influencers, bloggers, or businesses whose audience aligns with your target market.
• Provide clear incentives – Offer competitive commissions or bonuses to motivate affiliates to promote your products.
• Track performance – Use affiliate management software to monitor sales, clicks, and conversions generated by each affiliate.
• Create high-quality promotional materials – Make it easy for affiliates to market your products by providing banners, templates, and product descriptions.
• Build long-term relationships – Cultivate a mutually beneficial partnership by regularly communicating about your affiliates.

Affiliate marketing is a key channel in industries like e-commerce, health and wellness, and technology.

Partnership programs

Good for: Expanding sales reach

B2B partnership programs allow companies to expand their sales reach and bolster credibility by leveraging the networks and trust of partners. 

One famous partnership is Starbucks and Spotify’s strategic alliance where they provide a combined offering like integrating Spotify playlists into Starbucks stores. In B2B sales, an SDR agency may use an virtual sales assistant like AiSDR to launch and ramp up client outbound faster. 

Here are some tips to get you started on your partnership program:

• Find the right partner – Look for companies with services or products that complement your offering without being direct competitors. Ideally, choose partners who are flexible, patient, and open to giving feedback. They’ll help you iron out any rough edges in your program.
• Open up the program for applications once you’ve worked out initial kinks – Create a landing page or form where interested parties can sign up to be a partner. However, you should take this step after you’ve fine-tuned the progam’s initial terms.
• Co-market your solutions – Team up on joint marketing efforts like webinars, content co-creation, and bundled offers.
• Measure success – Set clear KPIs to track the success of the partnership and regularly review performance.
• Maintain strong communication – Keep an open line of communication to ensure your goals stay aligned.
• Formalize the agreement – Create a clear partnership agreement outlining goals, roles, and revenue-sharing structures.

Partnership programs are a great way to grow together and reach new audiences while building lasting, win-win relationships that drive revenue for both sides.

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Conferences and networking events

Good for: Building brand awareness, authority, and pipeline

Face-to-face interactions at conferences and networking events create valuable opportunities for building lasting relationships. These events allow you to learn from industry experts, connect with key decision-makers, and showcase your products in person.  For example, conferences play a crucial role in industries like tech, healthcare, and finance by fostering partnerships and staying updated on industry trends.

Here are some tips to prepare and succeed in conferencing and networking:

• Network strategically – Look for people who fit your target customer profile and ask open-ended questions to build rapport.
• Follow up promptly – After the event, send personalized follow-up emails to turn your new connections into meaningful relationships.
• Set goals – Define what you want to achieve from each event, whether it’s scheduling meetings, gathering leads, or building relationships.

If you do employ this channel, don’t just stick to business. The art of small talk will help you build rapport and build personal connections.

Trade shows

Good for: Building brand awareness, authority, and pipeline

A trade show booth takes conference networking one step further. A booth is a unique opportunity to showcase your product, meet key decision-makers, and network with potential customers in your industry.

Follow these practices to maximize your trade show ROI here:

• Plan ahead – Research the attendee list and plan who you want to meet. Set up meetings in advance if possible.
• Create an engaging booth – Your booth should stand out visually and clearly communicate your value proposition. Use interactive elements like a live demo station where attendees get hands-on experience with your product.
• Be prepared to demo your product – Have demos ready and be prepared to answer questions. Focus on how your product can solve specific attendee challenges.
• Have a lead capture system – Use digital tools to quickly collect attendee information, ensuring you don’t miss any potential leads.
• Send timely follow-ups – After the show, follow up promptly with personalized emails. Mention something specific you discussed to jog their memory and keep the conversation going.

Popular B2B trade shows planned for 2025 include:

• CES for tech innovation
• HIMSS for healthcare technology
• NRF for retail trends

Other major B2B events are the Adobe Summit for digital marketing in Las Vegas and the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit in Orlando.

But before you choose to go to a trade show, you should confirm that not only do you fit the trade show industry, but that the target participants match your target audience.

E-commerce

Good for: Direct sales conversion

Economic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, higher buyer expectations, and talent shortages will make it tough to scale and stay competitive in 2025.

​​An e-commerce platform addresses many of these challenges by offering a centralized, streamlined solution to improve sales processes and customer engagement. 

Here are some e-commerce pointers to help you thrive:

• Optimize your website for conversions – Use your platform’s tools or a third-party add-on to ensure your site is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and mobile-responsive.
• Offer multiple payment options – The more payment methods you provide, the easier it will be for customers to complete their purchases.
• Use upselling and cross-selling techniques – Suggest complementary products or upgrades during checkout to increase the average order value.
• Provide detailed product descriptions and images – Make sure your customers have all the information they need to make a purchase decision, including high-quality images, specs, and reviews.
• Offer exceptional customer service – Make returns easy, respond quickly to inquiries, and ensure a smooth buying experience to build trust and loyalty.

With the right approach, an easy-to-use e-commerce platform can make shopping a breeze for your customers and help build lasting relationships for your business.

How to choose the right B2B sales channel

Choosing the right B2B sales channels is key to reaching your customers and driving growth. 

Your ideal mix depends on your industry, audience, and business model.

For example, if you’re in SaaS, it might make sense to prioritize content marketing and webinars. Alternatively, if you’re a manufacturing business, focusing on direct sales and trade shows might create more impact. 

Here’s how to choose the best channels for your business:

• Map out your buyer’s journey – Understand the stages of your buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration, decision) and choose channels that align with each stage.
• See what competitors are doing – Look at your competitors’ strategies across different channels for insights on what may work for your business.
• Assess each channel’s potential – Evaluate how each channel will help achieve your goals (brand awareness, lead generation, or sales). Tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot can help you track metrics and assess ROI.

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