The right sales automation platform can rock your bottom line

The key to managing your sales strategy lies in a solution that can efficiently automate your processes. The need to streamline sales systems led to the birth of sales automation tools and the use of artificial intelligence (like chatbots). As the number of SaaS companies increases, choosing the right sales automation platform becomes even more essential for success.

Just five years ago, only 25% of Fortune 500 companies used sales automation, and in just two years, that number increased to 59%—a sweeping 34% difference. Why? Because it’s clearly adding to their bottom line and people are catching on. Here are a few ways to tell which sales automation platform suits you best:

Powerful datasets

You should consider a comprehensive tool that can serve many departments within the organization—such as integrated sales, marketing, and support in a single platform. The more information you have, the easier it is to spot trends. The right sales automation platform will be able to produce wide-ranging data sets—which leads to an increase in sales through predictive analytics. A recent survey by Ascend2 stated that 84% of companies found their automation was successful at meeting targets, and 33% found it “best-in-class” (i.e., very successful).

Identifying future outcomes based on the data collected by your sales automation platform can work wonders for revenue. On the contrary, a tool that doesn’t collect enough information will lead to inaccurate predictions. This can result in a poor allocation of resources, a lack of funding, or unexpected expenses.

Outreach capabilities

Simply put, a sales automation platform increases your pipeline. In fact, B2B marketers who implement the strategy can grow their sales-pipeline by 10%. Sales pipeline management is important because it is meeting customers at every touch point along the buyer journey. The right tool can help nurture your sales pipeline and further your outreach. It can assist with tasks like:

• Capturing more leads
• Moving people more quickly through the pipeline
• Managing relationships more efficiently
• Closing more deals
• Spending less time mid-funnel

It’s all about creating lead generation capabilities and nurturing those leads. As Howard Sewell, President of Spear Marketing Group and a top 50 influencer of B2B marketing in the US, stated in his blog:

“Effective lead nurturing can educate, cultivate, and maintain brand awareness over time with a group of prospects that aren’t quite ready to talk with a rep. But where lead nurturing often has the most impact – on conversion rates, funnel velocity, and demand generation ROI – isn’t mid-funnel, but rather immediately when a lead enters the system.”

A sales automation tool can help sales teams reach the right people faster and can guide them through the entire process.

Lead generation

One of the major issues facing businesses today is identifying leads. In fact, 78% of B2B marketers state that generating quality leads is their biggest challenge. That’s because as content marketing becomes more of a trend, the amount of content and competition can be overwhelming for consumers. If you have 1,000 impressions on a social media post, do you know which of those users are ready to buy? Or even speak with a sales rep?

The right sales automation platform plays a critical role in lead generation because it can use behavior-based tracking to categorize your leads. They can then be quickly passed to sales in real-time for efficient follow-up. Tools like social monitoring and email tracking are just part of the recipe for creating the proper data for identifying hot leads and meeting people on their terms. Check out more effective B2B sales techniques.

User support

Consumers want their questions answered immediately, and if you don’t, they go somewhere else. The quicker, the better. A recent study by Harvard of 29 B2C and 13 B2B organizations found that companies who followed up with people within a few hours were 60 times more likely to win the business than those that responded within 24 hours. Therefore, user support and real-time responses are vital to increasing sales and revenue.  

Sales automation enables a business to achieve super rapid follow-up by providing insights via tracking and real-time notifications. It helps drive revenue by immediately identifying who has a question about what and where. The second a lead seems interested a sales rep will be pinged on their phone and can instantly respond. It’s one of many benefits of sales process automation.  

Advanced messaging

Automation can also drive customer behavior. Advanced messaging strategies allow you to send instant push-notifications that consumers receive in real-time. This can either be sent directly to their desktop or mobile device, and users are never required to download anything or click on any links. People can stay engaged through multichannel campaigns that are sending the right messages at the right time, through artificial intelligence.

Email drip campaigns are also a form of advanced messaging that is successful, and the numbers prove it. Segmented (drip) email campaigns have an open rate that is 14.32% higher than non-segmented campaigns. That’s because it’s hyper-focused marketing that is enabled through sales automation strategies.

The bottom line

Generating revenue in a highly competitive landscape is about being creative and informed. Automation allows you to collect large amounts of social data that can help a business make better decisions. A sales team that is equipped with the right sales automation tools will have stronger outreach and lead generation capabilities. This is true for sales automation for small businesses and enterprises-level companies alike.

Consumers also anticipate quick and customized responses. The faster a sales rep can reply to a potential lead, the more likely the sale. Sales and marketing automation not only allows for real-time messaging, but a savvy salesperson can set up campaigns that are triggered by social behavior. A tool with this type of intelligent design leads to faster conversions and stronger, more sustainable revenue growth. That means, the right sales automation platform can rock your bottom line if you know how to use it… and use it right!

Do you have any additional criteria that helped you select the right sales automation platform to meet your needs? Let us know in the comments section below!