Are you a sales rep tired of doing the tedious sales-related tasks that are not even part of the process, day in and day out? I get you.Research shows that sales professionals spend just 35.2% of their time, actually selling. The rest of the work week goes into managing their CRMs and doing a bunch of non-sales (and non-revenue generating) activities such as dealing with internal policies and approvals and researching target prospects to approach for sale.No matter how efficient and productive your sales team is, doing these tasks manually is dated and risks your startup being left way behind by your competition. If you have a growing prospects list, coordinating interactions, corresponding with clients, making notes, documenting data, and following up can turn into a challenge to scale.So what’s the solution?Sales automation. Tools that can streamline your sales process and automate repetitive tasks like sending emails, scheduling meetings, etc., can help a sales rep focus on what they are paid to do—selling. Sales automation tools can also reduce the percentage of human errors in the sales process and generate high-quality leads while saving you time and resources.In the digital era, sales automation, if implemented with the right software—can be the answer to all your selling problems.In this blog, I will discuss sales automation and its benefits before introducing you to 27 new-age sales automation tools that you should be using in 2022—that will help you bring in more customers without clocking in more hours.Let’s get started!
What is sales automation?
If you’re thinking cyborgs, think again. Sales automation is basically creating a synergy between sales reps and technology to sell better. Using the software, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital tools, sales automation allows human sales professionals to speed up manual, time-consuming sales operations. It enables the sales team to concentrate on crucial duties like forging connections and nurturing leads.
Did you know that utilizing sales automation to nurture leads have led brands to see a 225% increase in prospect volume, that ultimately converted to sales opportunities?To further elaborate on why you need sales automation in 2022, I will highlight some of the most evident benefits of sales automation for your business.
Benefits of using sales automation tools
1.Increases efficiency and productivity of sales reps:
No more mundane non-sales activities that eat up your time—automate your sales process so that you can focus on customer interactions that will actually convert them.
2. Improves customer satisfaction:
You can prioritize interactions with your prospects and spend more time in your sales process—understanding and better solving their problems. Now wouldn’t that make your future customer happy?
3. Save time:
No-brainer here. You can work smart instead of working hard—approach high-value prospects and generate better revenue for your organization.
4. Qualify better quality leads:
These tools can help filter out prospects who don’t align with your selling objectives—and help you focus on selling to those ideal customers who need your product or service and are willing to pay for it.
5. Increase data consistency:
Leave no space for errors with a consistent recording of all data related to your prospects and the sales process—all categorized individually to help keep all information at your fingertips!
6. Maintain customer relationships:
There’s a lot of back-and-forth between a sales rep and a customer during the sales process, which means—you need to be top-notch with communication. Automate emails and follow-up comms with these tools.
7. Simplify internal reporting:
No hassle creating manual reports every quarter—acquaint your managers with each customer’s journey status, using CRMs and save time on internal protocols and audits.
8. Speed up your sales process:
The culmination of all advantages is the end goal of using sales automation tools. From prospect to buyer, streamline the journey for your customers and generate more revenue while investing way less time.Now that you’ve read through the benefits of using sales automation tools, are you ready to learn about 27 new-age tools that you should be using in 2022, to automate selling and drive greater profits for your business? Let’s jump into the list, then!
27 new-age sales automation tools you should use to optimize your sales process
Here’s the list:
- HubSpot
It would be a crime not to begin listing sales automation software without the HubSpot Sales Hub. It is a one-stop solution for all your sales automation functions, being used by over 100,000 customers, in more than 120 countries.Top Features:
- Comes with reporting and analytics trackers and sales engagement tools;
- Provides CPQ functionality—that provides you with more detailed prospect data and automates tedious chores so you can follow up efficiently, tailor outreach, monitor engagement, and close more deals more quickly; and,
- You can customize emails, simplify workflows, automate lead nurturing and keep at pace with follow-ups so that no leads are missed, and all steps in the sales process are taken care of efficiently.
Additionally, you can create a Shopify Plus account and integrate it with the HubSpot CRM to increase traffic, strengthen your brand, and increase sales in your current market.Free plan: YESPricing: Begins at $45 per month
2. Copper
Ideal for SMBs and SMEs, Copper streamlines complex workflows with its drag-and-drop-pipelines feature.Top Features:
- Using this sales automation software, your sales teams may build several phases according to business lines;
- They can also create tasks, automate follow-up emails, keep track of all sales tasks, and gain real-time insights into their performance;
- It also allows you a complete view of your relationship history with the customer; and,
- It allows you to qualify leads based on any criteria, through its tag and filter features.
Additionally, it is connected with the G-Suite, thus, saving your sales staff's time that would otherwise be spent copying and pasting significant amounts of data.Free plan: YESPricing: Begins at $25 per month
3. RevenueHero
RevenueHero is a sales automation software that helps you turn more of your inbound leads into sales opportunities.Top Features:
- Enables you to align marketing and sales functions by automatically qualifying and routing leads and booking meetings with them, depending on their priority status in the customer journey; and,
- It includes a solid lead scoring system, instant meetings, and real-time routing. You can also integrate this tool with every other product in your GTM stack and generate as many leads as you would like.
Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send commercial quotes through their website.
4. Freshworks
One of the most popular options across the globe, with over 40,000 customers, the Freshworks CRM, better known as Freshsales, is designed for sales teams in “high-growth” startups—to shorten the sales cycle.Top Features
- Gathering and combining customer experiences in one location can give your team a 360° perspective of your customer;
- You can design your life cycle phases and unique activities based on your business process;
- Define outcomes, monitor interactions, check in at meetings, record phone conversations, make notes, and so on;
- Helps your sales team boost group productivity with its automated capabilities;
- Creating tasks, reminders, and appointments while obtaining a preview of impending activities, making task management simple;
- The Freshworks CRM also aids you in closing deals faster with personalized interactions tailored to the customer’s needs and preferences; and,
- The Activity Timeline feature helps you (and your managers) gauge customer engagement at a glance and helps you figure out what’s working and what’s not.
Additionally, the program enables you to use intelligent workflows to automate your crucial procedures and duties.Free plan: YESPricing: Begins at $29 per month
5. Picreel
Who doesn’t love pop-ups? Picreel is an AI-based popup marketing tool you can use to generate leads and increase sales from the internet. This is the best method to turn traffic into sales if users leave your website without taking action. Top Features:
- Comes with more than 100+ editable popup layouts for various businesses; and,
- Provides an ideal solution for immediate business growth because it includes customization options, A/B testing, and real-time data.
Push your prospects to take action with targeted pop-ups that provide a delightful website experience.Free Plan: NOPricing: Begins at $14 per month
6. Zapier
Zapier is a sales automation tool that allows you to pass information through workflows known as “zaps”, that you can build even if you don’t have a clue about coding.Top Features:
- Facilitates simplified workflows for you and your entire organization;
- Enables you to seamlessly integrate with online apps to ensure everyone is on the same page; and,
- Helps you integrate your web apps with a few clicks and quickly share data with your sales force.
You can start your workflows from any app. Be it Google Sheets, Google Docs, Slack, Quickbooks, or Facebook Lead Ads—Zapier integrates with many leading industrial applications to make sales activities fast and easy for you.Free Plan: YESPricing: Starts at $19.99 per month
7. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is popular automation software that compiles information about your audience, marketing channels, and analytics in one location to help you accomplish your objectives more quickly.Top Features:
- Provides custom domains and assists you in building a website with integrated marketing tools;
- Helps you market your company to the appropriate demographic; and,
- Has features that help you create email drip campaigns, landing pages, ads for social media, postcards and more, and send them to the right prospects.
Additionally, Mailchimp, also has engagement automation tools that allow you to interact with the right customers and push targeted quality content, to convert them.Free Plan: YESPricing: Begins at $9.99 per month
8. Clearbit
Automated updation of customer information is integral to any CRM platform. But automated customization for lead generation? Now, there are not many tools that can boast of this. Then, there is Clearbit.Top Features:
- Enables you to define specific criteria like industry, staff quantity, job description, and other factors so that you develop a sound understanding of your intended audience;
- Helps you to reach your ideal prospects more quickly and effectively; and
- Provides real-time updates when important accounts visit your website, enables you to create customized lists in only a few minutes, and automates outgoing emails.
Clearbit integrates seamlessly with third-party programs like Zapier, Salesforce, Segment, and API.Free Plan: NOPricing: While Clearbit does not have public pricing plans, businesses can establish direct contact, and based on their requirements, Clearbit can send quotes for their services.
9.Engagebay
The marketing automation and CRM tools from EngageBay are primarily geared to assist small and mid-size enterprises in attracting and converting website visitors into clients.With the help of this CRM software, businesses may employ marketing software to develop relationships with customers to keep them. Because it keeps the consumer at the center of your organization, EngageBay is renowned for empowering companies to provide excellent customer service.Top Features:
- Provides you with a 360-degree view of client data;
- Helps you with features like appointment scheduling, email monitoring of your leads, and call recording, all automated;
- Enables you to turn customers into brand ambassadors, control social media, and gather leads on your website; and,
- You can access all of these practical capabilities from a single platform and run tailored campaigns using EngageBay to separate your audience based on their persona, lead score, and behavior.
Additionally, it automates the entire interaction process with your clients, from the first contact to the final payment. Your sales and marketing teams will be aware of their target market and where they are in the sales pipeline.Free Plan: YESPricing: Begins at $10.39 per month
10. Calendly
Calendly is another sales automation tool that has a user base of over 2 million and serves clients like LinkedIn.Top Features:
- Focuses on automating meeting schedules so you don't have to waste time sending emails back and forth for sales meetings;
- Enables you to send a meeting booking link through email or embed it on your website—your invitees can then book individual timeslots or a time with several of your team members using this link;
- Facilitates group scheduling for webinars, workshops, and other events.; and,
- You can alter automated scheduling by adjusting buffers, the minimum schedule notice, daily restrictions, and time zone identification.
Free Plan: YESPricing: Begins at $8 per month
11.Keap
The sales automation solutions from Keap offer data on customer behavior and assist with lead follow-up.Top Features:
- You can learn about consumer preferences and the likelihood of buying. This will facilitate efficient lead targeting and conversion;
- Enables you to follow up with prospective customers via. text and emails to provide updates on deals and promotions; and,
- Helps you track affiliate conversions and provides educational guides in case studies and explainer videos.
Additionally, Keap and Zapier have been merged, giving users access to more than 2,000 apps as integrations.Free Plan: NOPricing: Begins at $40 per month
12. Salesmate
Using Salesmate, you can design, automate, and carry out your sales and marketing processes to enhance the overall customer experience.Top Features:
- The CRM and marketing automation software provides you with a complete gamut of solutions that shorten your sales cycles by automating customer journeys and, consequentially, increasing your sales.
- You can take care of every business process with Salesmate, thereby simplifying them for increased effectiveness;
- You can manage your prospect list, automate marketing campaigns, vastly enhance the sales pipeline, and do much more;
- Enables you to manage your marketing and sales operations and use live chat features built directly into the CRM to engage visitors;
- You can automate your follow-ups to better engage customers on time with Salesmate's email and text sequences; and,
- Provides features that aid you in designing stunning and interactive reports that help you make data-driven decisions.
Since Salesmate is a flexible platform, you may alter it to suit your brand's needs to get the best results.Free Plan: Free trial for 15 daysPricing: Begins at $12 per month
13. Process Street
Automate recurring sales processes with Process Street. Picture your work day without chores like ensuring that the team meeting actually gets finished this time, putting up the next client, or onboarding new employees. Sounds like a dream, right?Top Features:
- Provides you with a no-code platform that transforms those stale old processes, probably written down by founding members at the start of your organization—into dynamic, interactive workflows that document the process as you go each time;
- You can store important documents like employee handbooks and SOPs using the Pages feature, making it simple to keep track of processes and documentation in one place;
- Enables automation and integrations with Zapier, Slack, DocuSign, and many others, saving time and improving the accuracy of your regular chores.
Process Streets wins a place on this list for facilitating accountability and transparency amongst your various team members, altogether helping you run a tight ship!Free plan: YESPricing: Begins at $25 per month (for each user)
14. Crystal
An up-and-coming SaaS tool for sales automation, Crystal promotes adaptive selling, i.e., customizing your pitch to every prospect based on their behavior and preferences.Understanding your audience is essential, especially when you email someone for the first time, bargain with a customer, or engage in any other significant conversation.Top Features:
- You can infer the characters of your audiences from their online behavior by using Crystal's AI—you can then communicate most effectively and increase your chances of conversion; and,
- Helps your sales teams in advancing deals and inspiring clients throughout their lifetime.Some big-name clients of Crystal include Amazon, Dropbox, and Google, amongst other Fortune-500 companies.Free Plan: YESPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send commercial quotes through their website.
15. SalesDiary
SalesDiary is a sales automation platform that offers services for all sales channels. It has solutions for all your sales needs, including primary sales, secondary sales, and modern trade.Top Features:
- The software keeps track of all your orders, payments, and expenses, tracks inventory, and categorizes prices and pricing structures based on the potential of your business;
- You can access standout features like AI-powered route management, competition research, and on-the-spot billing—all at customized pricing; and,
- You can employ a simplified approach to recurring tasks while receiving real-time updates on projects.
Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send a commercial quote through their website.
16. Lemlist
Another sale email marketing tool in this directory, Lemlist helps you conduct automated cold outreach based on selective criteria that you can choose and modify according to your ideal buyer personas.Top Features:
- The unique "Lemwarm" feature automatically sends and receives emails from other Lemlist users, throughout the day; and,
- You may also utilize it for automatic email cold outreach, A/B testing, and intended reporting.
By keeping your email account "warm" and appearing natural to email algorithms, you can avoid being added to spam and blacklists.Free Plan: Free trails for 14 daysPricing: Begins at $25 per month
17. Unbounce
At its core, Unbounce is a platform that optimizes your conversion rates.Top Features:
- It allows you to easily A/B test landing pages to determine which versions are the most effective in customer conversion;
- It is really simple to use and integrate with WordPress websites (through a WordPress plugin);
- You can develop and A/B test pop-ups on your site and use its features for landing page conversion optimization (I enjoy using the popup with exit intent); and,
- You can evaluate the conversion rates of top and bottom bars by mounting them.
Basically, use Unbounce if you want to produce an A/B test pop-up CTAs and landing pages automatically.Free Plan: Free trial for 14 daysPricing: Begins at $80 per month
18. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a web-based sales CRM and pipeline management tool that will let you schedule sales activities and keep track of deals.Top Features:
- Makes it easier for you to use an activity-based selling methodology to turn leads into profitable sales; and,
- You can track interactions, manage transactions and leads, eliminate tedious administrative work, learn from AI, and more.
What makes Pipedrive the perfect tool to obtain insights and data, is its user interface that aids you in accessing the platform from a mobile device and interacting with outside sales apps.Free Plan: YESPricing: Begins at $18 per month
19. Clickflow
With the help of the sales automation platform Clickflow, you can automatically increase your reach via organic search.Top Features:
- You can test various title tags and meta descriptions for your content to determine which versions get more clicks from organic search results (i.e., Google); and,
- By experimenting with different title tags, you can increase the number of organic visitors to your pages and improve their SEO ranks.
Research indicates that better click-through rates translate toward better SEO rankings. You'll therefore acquire more traffic by testing and improving your page titles and descriptions and getting more traffic from the increased conversion rate that results from your improved SEO ranks.Free Plan: YESPricing: Begins at $109 per month
20. LevelEleven
Your sales staff will perform better thanks to the gamification of performance management that LevelEleven brings to the table.Top Features:
- You and your team can utilize LevelEleven to monitor their development because it gives them real-time insight into their daily performance;
- You sales staff get access to individual scorecards, live TV broadcasts, and other important indicators to keep everyone engaged—thus, every sales representative on your team may understand where they are thriving and need to improve by tracking their progress in real-time; and,
- Enables you to develop unique reward programs to encourage each salesperson, identifying the team's performance and critical KPIs, and provides coaching software to empower sales teams to perform better.
Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send commercial quote through their website.
21. Voicent
An enterprise-level sales automation software, Voicent Sales Automation is designed to automate sales pipelines and operations for mid-size businesses and enterprises.Top Features:
- It automatically keeps track of sales transactions, notifies you of the progress of each transaction, assigns leads and deals to particular agents, and evaluates agent performance;
- You may also build role-based permissions with this sales automation software, allowing some agents to generate and distribute emails, campaigns, and contacts while limiting others.
- You can store all information, interactions, context, and progress in one place, using the software's contact and potential management, which is another significant feature.
But unlike other companies, Voicent doesn't collect monthly or yearly fees; instead, it sells lifelong rights to businesses, making it special and wonderful.Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send a commercial quote through their website.
22. Revegy
Revegy is the perfect tool to run ABM strategies for prospect sales.Top Features:
- It streamlines, automates, scales, and monitors account management procedures to perform the critical task of account planning for enterprises;
- The platform gives sales teams insightful data to improve client interactions, at every step of the sales process; and,
- Helps you identify customer pain areas, find high-value leads, and take advantage of opportunities with critical accounts.
Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send a commercial quote through their website.
23. Outreach
Identifying itself as a “sales execution” platform, the primary objective of Outreach is to automate sales procedures while increasing sales rep productivity.Top Features:
- Enables you to facilitate more meetings with prospects, and shorten the sales cycles;
- Its platform CRM's 360 view lets users see all important metrics and everything sales-related in one place on the dashboard, including the number of engaged prospects, team schedules, and today's agenda;
- It includes meeting schedules, an effective sales dialer, email tracking, and even sales texting capabilities; and,
- You can automate sales workflow procedures, using task prioritization tools that are integral to enhancing the efficiency of sales reps.
However, the lack of connectivity with the LinkedIn Sales Navigator account is a major drawback.Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send commercial quotes through their website.
24. Bombora
Bombora demands a hefty monetary investment, but its payback is astounding.Top Features:
- You can discover critical information about your prospects, i.e., intent data that can multiply your chances of selling manifold—thus, your sales reps can engage their top accounts immediately with relevant action;
- You may discover which of your potential customers' enterprises are actively looking for the solutions you are providing; and,
- You can access information such as the size of the business, the location, the industry, and the key decision-makers, all of which can help you make a strong strategy to make a case about your product or service to your future customer.
Get ahead with buyer-led marketing with Bombora!Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available for businesses that send a commercial quote through their website.
25. Leadiro (now DemandScience Intelligence)
Leadiro (now known as DemanScience Intelligence) wins a place on this list owing to its massive directory of contacts that lets one access leads in emerging markets, with the contact details of companies from more than 98 countries available in its database.Top Features:
- Helps you identify potential prospects using advanced data selection through firmographic and demographic profiling;
- You can use a variety of criteria to generate your list, including job title, function, and type of experience, company name, cities, states, countries, and more; and,
- You may create and save numerous campaign audiences using Leadiro. Then, filter buyer personas and separate data into particular prospect lists.
To maintain the authenticity of the contacts, ones only with 95% validity scores and higher pass the platform's strict selection process and are added to its live database.Additionally, this tool also integrates with both SalesForce and HubSpot.How does Leadiro maintain such a huge database? The platform uses technographic intelligence to map the information on the technology installation bases of millions of businesses.Free Plan: YESPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send commercial quotes through their website.
26. Uplead
Uplead is a sales prospecting tool was developed to maintain data accuracy and build you a clean prospecting list. Now, you don’t need to tear your hair out when half the emails you send bounce right off.Let’s face it; inaccurate prospecting lists can be frustrating.Top Features:
- Focuses on efficiency and provides you with access to countless verified B2B contacts and their email addresses—you can plug those into your sales tools to generate fresh leads;
- You have access to more than 50 search filters, that can help you find contacts and businesses that fit your buyer profile; and,
- Enables real-time email verification that guarantees you qualified leads.
Make lead prospecting easy with Uplead!Free Plan: YESPricing: Starts at $99 per month
27. Boxxstep
Being a buyer-centric platform that aligns the concepts of both selling and buying, Boxxstep is a sales automation software that allows you to understand better your customer’s perception of you and close deals quickly and easily.Top Features:
- You can use the program to locate, comprehend, and assist all consumer committees; and,
- You can also use this tool to perform functions like relationship mapping, figuring out how to help them through shared action plans, and prospect analysis.
Additionally, Boxxstep may be integrated with your CRM for a sales process that is much more customer-focused.Free Plan: NOPricing: Customized pricing plans are available to businesses that send commercial quotes through their website.
Final Thoughts
It is also compulsory to mention that sales automation needs a strategy—before you begin purchasing tools left and right and then a year later, you see no results and zero ROI.There’s no “one-size-fits-all” plan here. You need to talk with your sales team to determine which sales automation software can truly help them. Identify their weak spots and utilize these tools to strengthen your sales process.Sales automation helps your sales reps do more sales-related tasks, which in turn, has the potential to bring in more revenue. It maximizes your limited resources and helps you scale up your business. So what are you waiting for? Invest in sales automation today!
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