Can you imagine modern business without automation? Today, every company is searching for different ways to boost performance and automate the workflow. The sales industry is doing the same. It goes without saying that sales representatives handle a variety of tasks and actual sales take up most of their working day. Using the right marketing and sales automation tools, they can spend less time on repetitive tasks and be more effective.
In this insightful review, we’ll find out what sales automation is, define its main benefits for business owners, and look at examples of top sales automation tools that can help you be more effective.
What Is Sales Automation?
Let’s begin with the basics. Before we start discussing all the types of sales automation tools, we should define what sales automation is and why it is so important for businesses that are engaged in this niche.
The purpose of sales automation is to mechanize some manual tasks with the help of AI and digital tools. Thanks to such software solutions, sales managers can be more effective because they won’t be engaged in time-consuming and repetitive tasks. As a result, sales reps have more time to focus on the development of the right business strategies and enhancing sales processes.
What Are Sales Automation Tools?
This is a type of software that allows business owners to automate sales processes. Thanks to online sales automation tools, one can make sales processes more solid. Moreover, business owners can easily improve the quality of some tasks while spending less time on them.
However, the types of sales automation tools are absolutely different. Some of them offer end-to-end experience whereas others specialize in certain tasks (lead research, meeting planning, etc). All in all, such tools are a powerful solution that allows business owners to have all the information about sales at hand.
What Benefits Will You Get When Using Sales Automation System?
The automation of manual and time-sapping sales tasks using the corresponding software has lots of benefits for your business:
- They can improve the productivity of sales reps.
- They allow you to spend more time on really important things like building the right business strategy or ways to push up sales.
- They can improve the quality of your sales processes.
- They improve customer satisfaction by reducing response time.
- You’ll have a more thorough sales organization.
- You’ll be able to use your budget more efficiently.
- You’ll identify potential clients faster. Such tools provide lots of features that allow users to define the right criteria to detect potential clients.
- Customer information will be at hand. You’ll be able to generate statistics that can help you find out more about your clients.
- You’ll have access to call and email analysis.
All in all, multi-featured sales automation tools will definitely make the life of your sales team easier.
How We Evaluate Sales Automation Tools
If you are looking at your sales statistics and realizing that it is far from perfect, it is time to choose the right sales automation tools. In such a scenario, all the necessary information will be at hand. As a result, you’ll be able to determine your sales problems and develop the right development strategy. However, not all sales automation solutions can be used for every purpose. A lot depends on your needs, your business goals and the type of products that you sell.
To choose the right tool, you need to follow these guidelines.
Define what you want to automate
Look at your sales processes and define what particular processes you should handle manually and which of them should be automated. Here are a few examples of the processes that you can handle faster with the help of a powerful sales automation platform:
- Qualifying and nurturing leads;
- Scheduling follow-up calls;
- Sending reminders;
- Scheduling offers;
- Sending emails to all your customers.
Create a list of the most important options
Remember that the modern market is overloaded with a variety of CRM and automation programs, but you will hardly find one multi-featured solution. So the first thing you need to do is to define what product features you need the most. For example, if your sales team works remotely, the main factor you should pay attention to is mobile functionality. So your goal is to properly figure out the most important options for your particular business.
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Choose a few tools and compare them
Once you define what particular programs you need most of all, you can download the trial versions of the best sales automation tools and compare them. Our sales automation software comparison below will help you narrow down your list to a few contenders. As a result, you’ll be able to see which of them is best for your business needs.
Overview of the Best Sales Automation Tools for 2020
If you can’t make the right choice, we hope that this comprehensive review of sales automation tools 2020 will help you finally find the right product.
CRM solutions – Nimble CRM
The success of your business is contingent on customer satisfaction. So Nimble CRM is the best tool that can help you smarter work with your clients. This CRM tool is built inside your Office 365 and comes with a variety of superb features that can improve your productivity. Nimble CRM can save you precious time and allows you to focus on more important tasks.
This tool comes with the following features:
- You can unify your contact data by combining communications, inboxes, and contacts with more than 160 apps.
- Users can locate contact information and get a 360-degree view of their clients.
- You’ll be able to send group emails in a matter of seconds.
- A Stay in Touch Reminder allows you to be aware of everything that goes on in your company.
- Monitor the tasks of the whole team.
- You’ll get a detailed view of all your upcoming events and meetings.
This is a powerful and multi-featured tool that will help you plan absolutely every move. To put it simply, you’ll be able to monitor every stage of your sales funnel and automatically assign tasks to every team member.
Lead generation tools
Lead generation means collecting information about the visitors of your website so you can contact them and persuade them to become your standing customers. Here are a few superb tools that might help you achieve those goals faster:
- Zoominfo – the best lead generation tool that allows you to enrich your target accounts with contact data. The software comes with the tools that can help support your sales needs (lead scoring, territory planning, making targeted outreach, sales prospecting, etc.) Simply put, it is a must-have solution that allows you to increase your sales productivity and reach more clients.
- Winmo – a powerful advertising database that aims to help users connect and close more business deals. It is a powerful advertising database that allows you to contact the right person at the right moment. The solution comes with advanced filters that allow you to target by revenue, industry or territory.
- Leadiro is a must-have tool for B2B businesses that need to have instant access to contact data with email addresses.
Email automation tools
If you want to access more business contacts, you need to build your email lists. In such a scenario, these tools will come in handy:
- LeadGibbon – a powerful tool that allows you to buy leads for your database. This tool has a refreshed database that can help provide you with up-to-date information. In other words, this tool allows you to choose unique leads by industry, position or type of company. It is a must-have tool for those who need to find people that matter for your business needs.
- InsideView. With this program, you’ll be able to clean your accounts and leads in real-time. As a result, your sales and marketing team will always have the most up-to-date information.
- Contact Enhance – a powerful tool that allows you to improve your existing contacts and always keep your contact records up-to-date. It is an all-in-one solution that allows you to find out more information about your potential clients. This tool can provide you with information across more than 50 fields.
The best lead list building tools
When it comes to lead listing, this sales automation tools list might come in handy:
- LeadIQ. The main goal of this tool is to empower sales teams to work smarter. Its functionality allows you to create lead lists and research prospects faster.
- Toofr – a fast and inexpensive tool that can help you find the right email address for your leads.
- SellHack – a powerful sales prospecting program that allows you to spend less time searching for prospects. With this program, you’ll be able to control your pipeline smarter.
Qualifying sales automation tools
- Socedo – a must-have solution for B2B marketers that allows users to grow their audience on social media.
- LeadLender software is a cloud-based solution for small and large businesses. Its main mission is to serve the needs of both inbound and outbound marketing. When using this tool, you’ll have a chance to see what visitors respond to your online campaigns. No matter what device you use, you’ll easily identify all these visitors.
Researching automation tools
- Hootsuite – a must-have tool for those who want to have all their social networking accounts at hand. With this tool, you’ll be able to plan your social media posts, or publish one informative post on all your social networking accounts simultaneously.
- Feedly is a relatively new aggregator app that can be used for different mobile devices and browsers. Thanks to this tool, you can monitor all the news from different online resources.
Overview of the best presenting solutions
- Zoom is a popular software-based conference room tool that is widely used by millions of users from all over the globe. Its main mission is to help users host webinars, online courses or video demonstrations. With this solution, you won’t face any difficulties during virtual meetings or conferences.
- TimeTrade – a powerful online appointment tool. When using its extensive set of features, you’ll be able to meet your clients everywhere, on mobile devices or search engines.
What are the best closing sales automation programs?
- HelloSign – a brand new tool to collect important signatures and send your company’s documents from its web interface. With this solution, you’ll be able to upload documents (Word or PDF) and create your own templates. It is very simple to share the documents with your clients or colleagues!
- DocuSign – a powerful tool that processes millions of documents every day. With this program, it is so easy to automate business logic and streamline the process of signing documents.
- TimeTrade – a superb program that allows users to schedule appointments through the use of multiple channels such as SMS, mobile apps or web.
Prospecting workflow and automate tools
These are mostly used to streamline sales efforts. With the help of these tools, sales reps will be able to get ready for sharp sales executions:
- Accent Accelerate. The program comes with a wide array of tools that allow sales reps to increase win rates. As a result, sales specialists will be able to better understand too complicated sales situations.
- DealSheet is a multi-featured tool that can bring clarity to the opaque market. It allows law companies or other advisors to demonstrate their experience to potential clients. With the help of this tool, investors will be able to find the advisors with the best dealership experience in their niche.
What are the best sales automation tools for small businesses?
The choice of sales automation programs is huge, but it doesn’t mean all of them can meet your needs. Here are a few solutions that can be used for small businesses:
- Outreach.io. This sales automation platform includes four components (a system of social, email, voice and text communication). Thanks to this tool, you’ll be able to extract the information about your clients and update all the records.
- Salestool.io – a popular lead builder that includes a variety of options allowing sales reps to find prospects and easily convert them to paying clients.
What are the best scheduling tools for sales reps?
You probably know that scheduling sales calls are not profitable for your business. This is where the use of scheduling apps might come in handy:
- Calendly – an automated scheduling tool that can save your precious time. The program syncs to your calendar of choice and allows you to set different time duration.
- Clara Labs takes automation to a new level. It is a powerful virtual employee that is run by machine intelligence.
- X.ai – an AI persona that can help you schedule meetings like a personal assistant does.
Tips to Consider When Choosing the Right Sales Automation Tool
Such aspects as design, features, list building or pricing policy do matter when it comes to choosing the best tool. Here are a few aspects that should be taken into consideration:
- Pricing policy. You probably know that not all tools are free. Some of them have a limited set of free features whereas others require a monthly subscription. Before you buy a subscription, you should check the number of options that are offered by the app. There’s no need to pay for all of them if you know that you don’t need them.
- Workflow construction. Every program works differently. So the best thing you can do is to download a test version and decide whether it meets your demands.
- Integration with other CRM tools.
- Ease of use. You shouldn’t spend hours trying to understand how to use the program.
The number of social media users is rapidly growing. That’s why the demand for a powerful CRM tool also increases. By choosing Nimble CRM, you’ll get a powerful cloud-based solution developed for streamlining the main business processes. The main goal of this platform is to allow business owners to control all the incoming processes, assignments and notifications.
To put it simply, it can help make sales process automation easier. When using Nimble, you’ll be able to engage with your potential clients and gather more data that might help you sell more. All in all, it is a superb solution for those who want to increase productivity and care about customer loyalty.