To create sales, you need customers. It's that simple. Yet, acquiring new customers can be difficult and expensive. So how can you best cultivate customer interaction so that they return time and again?
Sales engagement is vital. This post will outline the basics of sales engagement and how to get started. Then we'll share our three favorite sales engagement platforms in 2022. Ready to start generating more leads and profits?
What Is Sales Engagement?
Sales engagement is the process of interacting with potential and current customers to create opportunities for sales. It involves building relationships, providing value, and understanding customer needs.
What Is The Importance Of Sales Engagement?
Sales engagement is necessary because it helps create a relationship between the customer and the company. When customers feel engaged, they are more likely to be loyal and return for future purchases. For a company to maintain a positive relationship with its customers, it is essential to have an effective sales engagement strategy in place.
Regular engagement lets you learn more about customer challenges and provide them with the best possible solutions and customer service. This, in turn, will help to increase customer loyalty and encourage them to return in the future.
What Is A Sales Engagement Platform?
Sales engagement platforms are gaining popularity as a way to streamline and improve the sales process. These platforms aim to help salespeople do their jobs more effectively by automating repetitive tasks and providing CRM-like features.
In addition to basic CRM features, many sales engagement platforms also offer tools to help with specific aspects of the selling process. For example, some platforms include built-in email templates or integrations with popular email providers. Others provide tools for automating repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or scheduling appointments.
Sales engagement platforms provide a way for sales teams to manage their interactions with potential customers. This can include everything from tracking email correspondence to scheduling calls and demos. By keeping all this information in one place, salespeople can avoid missed opportunities and better keep track of their pipeline. By providing a central location to manage customer interactions and offering helpful features for streamlining the sales process, these platforms are helping salespeople sell more effectively.
What To Look For In Sales Engagement A Sales Engagement Platform
There are a few key things to keep in mind when looking for a sales engagement platform. You'll want to ensure the platform offers a wide range of features that can help you close deals and manage your pipeline. Finding a solution that integrates well with your other sales tools is essential to avoid disruptions in your workflow. When looking for a sales engagement platform, it's necessary to consider the most essential features of your strategy and select a complementary solution.
Some key features to look for include:
- Sales pipeline management: The ability to track leads and opportunities through the sales funnel, from initial outreach to closed deals.
- Email integration: The ability to send and receive emails from within the platform and automatically track email opens and clicks.
- CRM integration: The platform should integrate with your CRM system, so you can easily transfer data between the two systems.
- Reporting and analytics: The ability to generate detailed reports on sales activity, lead conversion, and more.
- Collaboration tools: The platform should include collaboration tools so you can collaborate with your team members online.
- Social media integration: The ability to connect with customers on social media, view social media insights, and schedule posts.
- Mobile apps: The ability to use the platform on the go with features like mobile CRM and push notifications.
When choosing a sales engagement platform, it's important to consider your organization's needs and budget. There are various options on the market, so be sure to do your research before making a final decision and pick a platform that offers excellent customer support if you run into any issues.
Our Favorite Sales Engagement Platforms In 2022
Instantly
Instantly is ideal for B2B sales leaders, business owners, marketers, freelancers, and agencies who want to do more with less time by automating their cold email marketing efforts. Using AI-powered cold email campaign management Instantly increases your email deliverability and response rate. Here are some other features Instantly has to offer:
- Learn what works best for your company by looking at campaign-specific data.
- You can keep track of your email marketing campaign with in-depth information on critical metrics such as opens, clicks, and reply rates.
- You can add and link an infinite number of email accounts to send cold outreach communications as your company or agency expands.
- One comprehensive dashboard to manage each of your email accounts from various providers.
- The Automated Warmup function keeps your cold emails out of recipients' spam folders. Instantly improves your email deliverability by gradually increasing the number of emails you send from each email address.
- Starts at $37/month.
Pros: Intuitive UI/UX and clean dashboard, and affordability.
Cons: N/A
HubSpot Sales Hub
HubSpot's Sales Hub is a feature-rich CRM that includes sales analytics, engagement, and configure-price-quote (CPQ) capabilities. Highlights from the platform include:
- Automated the sales process so reps can spend more time on other tasks.
- Sales Hub gives you a complete insight into your sales team's performance with analytics that aid in providing a consistent customer experience.
- Streamlined outreach that keeps customers at the heart of everything you do.
- CPQ support will help you close more deals faster.
- Starts at $50/month with a freemium option available.
Pros: Very responsive customer support.
Cons: Somewhat disorganized UX
Hippo Video
Hippo Video was designed with your sales, marketing, and support teams in mind to help them better connect with your prospects and customers. It helps businesses deliver more engaging and compelling video content that drives actual results. The Platform is a powerful video marketing tool that enables businesses to create, share, and track all video content. HippoVideo also provides valuable insights into how viewers interact with videos, so businesses can continually optimize their video marketing campaigns. Here are the key features:
- Email Tracking/Automation
- CRM Integration
- Content Management
- Workflow Management
- Sales Coaching and Insights
- Starts at $30/month with a freemium option.
Pros: Awesome Chrome extension.
Cons: Reporting leaves a little to be desired.
Key Takeaways
If you're in sales, you know how important it is to stay connected with your customers. A sales engagement platform can help you do just that. By automating key sales activities, sales engagement platforms make it easier for sales professionals to stay organized and focused on customer needs.
Let’s recap the benefits of using a sales engagement platform:
- Connect with prospects through personalized communication at scale.
- Improved efficiency and productivity of your sales team
- More consistent and personalized communication with prospects
- Greater insight into prospect behavior
- Increased visibility into pipeline health
Are you ready to increase your sales? Sign up to Instantly.ai to get unlimited email warm-up and sending accounts with one subscription.
