If you’re looking for ways to efficiently manage more leads and drive conversions at scale, then a sales engagement platform may be exactly what you need. Nine out of ten sales orgs consider sales engagement platforms (SEPs) critical to their team’s success, with 87% of sales organizations adopting their use.
But what exactly is sales engagement and how can using a SEP give your business a competitive advantage? In this article, we’ll cover:
- What is Sales Engagement?
- Why You Need A Sales Engagement Platform
- Our Sales Engagement Platform Top Picks of 2022
Let’s get started!
What is Sales Engagement?
Sales engagement involves all the points of contact that a seller or sales rep will have with prospects. This interaction could be digital, in-person, by phone, and so on.
Sales engagement gives teams insights about the prospect’s journey such as messaging, timing, follow-up, and many other factors that shape the buyer experience. These engagement insights are key to improving sales cycles and optimizing outreach, which is where SEPs play an integral role.
Sales engagement software is becoming a key part of sales departments and is expected to be a $5 billion dollar industry by 2023 from just $700 million in 2019.
Why Use a Sales Engagement Platform?
SEPs are often complementary tools to CRMs (customer relationship management platforms) and usually have four key elements:
- Sales content management
- Outreach automation and personalization
- CRM integration
- Analytics and key metrics
SEPs allow reps to save critical time by processing more leads per hour and perform high-quality personalized outreach at scale with automation tools. Key engagement metrics like open rates, reply rates, and follow-ups provide sales teams with valuable insights to optimize their sales cycle.
The key benefits of using a SEP are:
- You’ll be more organized: instead of switching through tabs and managing communication on multiple platforms, SEPs allow sales reps to keep their channels organized on one platform.
- You’ll close deals faster: the automation and personalization tools in SEPs make communication quicker and allows sellers to close more deals at a scale not otherwise possible.
- You’ll have a competitive advantage: SEPs come with templates and tools that allow businesses to generate more leads than competitors that are not already using SEPs.
- You’ll be able to know what needs optimizing: the data that SEPs provide allow sales teams to pinpoint which areas of their pipeline need improvement as well as predict future numbers based on current data.
Thanks to the level of efficiency, reach, and key metrics that SEPs provide, it’s no surprise sales reps spend most of their day on these platforms.
7 Best Sales Engagement Platforms
Email continues to be the core channel of communication with prospects, which is what most SEPs are built around. Here’s a list of our top SEP picks to help you scale your outreach.
Instantly.ai
Instantly.ai is a sales engagement tool designed to scale your email outreach campaigns with unlimited email sending accounts, smart email warm up, and powerful automation tools.
Instantly users have access to an intuitive and visual dashboard with several sections that include:
- Leads: import your list of leads through Google Sheets, CSV file, or manually add prospects.
- Sequences: create email and follow-up sequences with a range of options like smart send and email rewriting to avoid spam.
- Scheduling: schedule emails to be sent periodically at the best dates and times of day that result in the best reply rates.
- Analytics: access and analyze sent emails, open rates, reply rates, and more to monitor campaigns and scale up.
You can link an unlimited number of emails to your account from any established email service provider and send thousands of emails per day.
Instantly’s automated email warm up saves time and boosts the deliverability and sender reputation of each individual account, making sure emails land in the right inbox and stay out of spam.
Key highlights:
- Automation tools to mimic optimal email sending patterns, perform follow-up sequences, and warm up emails.
- Smart features such as smart send and email rewriting to make outreach more unique and avoid spam.
- Built-in email merge tools for personalized messaging at scale.
- Add an unlimited number of sender email accounts.
- 14-day free trial.
Interested to learn more how Instantly can help scale your lead generation and sales to new levels? Click here to find out!
Yesware
Yesware is a multi-channel SEP designed to help with email outreach. Like Instantly, Yesware has tools to help users create email templates that can be personalized and sent out in bulk. Follow-up messages can be scheduled and sent periodically until a recipient replies. Once a contact replies they are automatically removed from follow-up sequences.
Yesware can be integrated with Gmail and Outlook and allows users to keep track of open rates, link clicks, and if attachments were viewed. Top-performing emails can be saved as templates and shared with teams for reuse.
Key highlights:
- Built-in calendar booking feature that can be attached to cold emails.
- Can be integrated with Salesforce to keep data on one CRM.
- Email analytics.
- Multi-channel personalized outreach campaigns.
Close
Close is a CRM with a range of sales engagement tools to keep sellers in touch with customers through automated email sequences, phone calls, SMS, and automated Zoom schedulers. Data is collected from each outreach channel, giving teams detailed insights on which channel to focus on for which prospect.
Each action reps take is logged into the CRM, giving a detailed history of the sales process and buyer’s journey. If a prospect doesn’t reply through email but engages more by phone, sales reps can focus on that form of communication moving forward.
Key highlights:
- Analytics tools to track CRM metrics and sales.
- Built-in email sequences, sales dialers, and SMS sending tools.
- Can be integrated with other sales tools and CRMs.
Hubspot Sales Hub
Hubspot is a comprehensive CRM with a wide variety of integrated sales engagement tools across hubs that range from sales and marketing to content management.
Hubspot gives enterprises a customizable pipeline to track every step sales teams take with prospects. The platform shows where each customer stands in the sales process and the history of interaction.
Most major social media and email channels can be integrated with Hubspot to centralize outreach, engagement, and customer relationship management.
Key highlights:
- Create and send email campaigns that include follow-ups through the Hubspot CRM.
- Track key metrics such as open rates, click rates, and customer engagements.
- A wide range of results-based email templates for cold outreach and follow-up.
Salesloft
Salesloft is a SEP that helps sales teams generate sales and gather information more easily. The platform is built more for larger enterprises running account-based marketing campaigns.
While the platform has a robust set of tools, it is relatively complex and unintuitive, but capable of accommodating large sales teams and navigating complex workflows. Users also have access to helpful guides and support for every stage of the sales process.
Key highlights:
- Cold email tools with email scheduling and follow-up reminders.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration.
- Post-sales tools that focus on customer retention and re-engagement.
Groove
Groove is a SEP that was built to work with Salesforce. It offers multi-channel automated sequences for LinkedIn, cold calling, and emails. Templates can be created from sequences that produce the best results to then be reused for future campaigns.
Groove has automated follow-up tools that integrate with Salesforce to update records and add new campaigns. It can automatically log email communication with leads and includes all the well-known features of email outreach SEPs such as email tracking, open rates, and analytics.
Key highlights:
- CRM automation tools that update information on sales leads.
- Export Salesforce data to Gmail or Outlook for better flexibility.
- Multi-channel support across email, LinkedIn, and mobile.
Pipeline
Pipeline is a sales-based CRM platform with tools that focus on customer interaction. The platform was built with small to mid-sized enterprises in mind with tools to help businesses close deals faster.
Pipeline allows sales teams to internally share information and use the permission feature to delegate tasks. Reps can view open and content download rates from email campaigns and internally chat and share results with team members.
Key highlights:
- Internal chat features and integrations.
- Email marketing tools with data analytics.
- Social media and other business app integration possibilities.
Key Takeaways
Sales engagement software is a hot industry in the sales world, allowing reps and teams to perform outreach at scale, make better decisions backed by data, and effectively close more deals. When choosing the right SEP for your business, consider:
- If the SEP in mind has the communication channels to help you achieve sales goals.
- What performance and campaign analytics the SEP offers.
- What automation tools and templates are there to streamline lead generation and customer communication.
Check out how Instantly can be the perfect fit in boosting your sales!
