Being successful in the sales world of the digital age is no easy task, especially if you’re not utilizing digital sales tools. These are digital tools that are designed specifically for sales businesses to offer a better service to the end-user. To be in with a chance of beating your opposition, you need to be familiar with customer relationship management tools (CRM), sales acceleration, sales intelligence, sales analytics, sales gamification, and more tools, all created with streamlining and customer service in mind. Throughout this article, we will present 10 sales tool categories for you to dip your feet into.
What Is a Sales Tools?
A sales tool is a digital platform that allows you to offer a greater service to the end-user and make the sales professional’s life a lot easier. Sales tools are vital for generating data and letting sales professionals choose which leads will yield the most benefit. Further, they streamline back-office operations to save time and allow staff to focus on tasks that add value to the business. As well as the clear practical benefits of investing in sales tools, LinkedIn has found that, in 2020, 47% of sales personnel left their positions for opportunities with improved technology.
Sales Acceleration
These digital sales tools aim to streamline the sales process and provide more conversions, shorten the sales cycle, and close more deals. This is done by speeding up back-office tasks effectively and efficiently. Although this is a category in its own right, some companies label sales acceleration software as the term used to describe all tools that enable salespeople to reach their targets.
The end goal of sales software in general is indeed the same, and some of the tools bundle other categories together. For example, Apviz has a digital sales tool that is perfect for companies in the business of watch, jewelry, cosmetics, and garment sales. Their tool allows high-end 3D image generation, easy visualization of the customer’s needs, and an integrated CRM to put the customer at the heart of the design process. Website-embedded tools like this are perfect for speeding up the sales process and boosting sales.
Marketing Automation
These tools automate marketing tasks like email, social media posts, and lead generation. Through these activities, the marketing automation software will generate a database of potential new client’s contact information. This usually takes place when the customer exchanges details with businesses, so you don’t need to worry about breaches in privacy laws.
Sales Analytics
Sales analytics software refers to tools that allow businesses to track, evaluate, and enhance sales performance with ease. Having access to a world of analytical data also allows for predictions in trends and lets businesses make effective changes. Usually, sales analytics software is implemented simultaneously with CRM software. Reports can be collated on several areas at the click of a button and viewed in easy-to-understand bite-sized chunks – a process that surpasses the old methods of trudging through spreadsheets manually.
Video Conferencing
In the wake of the last year, more and more businesses are making video calls to demonstrate products and hold meetings with both clients and colleagues. When businesses have remote workers on their team, video conferencing helps remove any communication errors. You can share files with your colleagues and clients in no time, share your screen, and hold large conferences. There are issues with connectivity to contend with but, in this day and age, internet speeds tend to be high enough to cope with a video call.
CRM Software
CRM stands for customer relationship management and provides businesses with a means to keep track of their existing customers and improve relationships, which in turn improves sales and boosts retention. This is arguably the most important software to invest in and is extremely easy to implement. The majority of CRM solutions are SaaS platforms that can be accessed via a pay monthly subscription and are installed remotely.
e-Signature and Document Tracking
Quite simply, an e-signature is a digital alternative to signing on the dotted line. This type of software helps to streamline the administration side of the business and keep all important documents in one place. As well as saving time, this type of software can also create a paperless office which will save you money in the long run.
The tracking side of the software allows businesses to track client email addresses. However, with the introduction of GDPR in the European Union, it can be difficult to implement because businesses need permission to track email addresses. The entire initiative is an attempt to keep people’s personal details safe and secure.
Account-Based Marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM), is the term used to describe personalized marketing. Using ABM, businesses can create targeted marketing strategies that are then tested against a specific set of KPIs. Essentially, instead of tailoring your marketing strategy to a large number of prospects, you craft it specifically with a handful of high-value clients in mind. You can then use evaluative software to measure performance and make changes where necessary. To find success with ABM, you need to know your audience inside out and be able to categorize them fully.
Sales Intelligence
This is an umbrella category that refers to the use of software to allow sales professionals to gather and understand information on future and existing clients. With sales intelligence software, you will be able to carry out searches to find company data and contact data. It does this by using technographic, firmographics, and buying signals all in real-time. Although it sounds like a glorified phone book, it’s much more than that. This type of software provides additional information about a contact including their digital footprints, purchase history, and current contracts.
Customer Service
As the name suggests, these tools help businesses to manage their inbound and outbound communication channels to provide efficient customer service. In this day and age, customers contact a business through social media, email, live chat, and more – the customer service software allows users to see analysis including their response time. Having access to analysis tools is a great way for businesses to make effective changes. In recent years, the use of chatbots has grown exponentially and creates an avenue for further leads to be generated.
Sales Gamification
If you run sales competitions to boost morale, then you’re already using sales gamification. This software adds recognition to your business through competitions. Managers can customize the sales gamification software to determine which metrics their sales team will be measured by. The majority of sales gamification tools provide real-time rankings based on data pulled from the CRM system. Allowing your team to view the ranks across the whole team will create a cutthroat competitive culture, and you’ll be able to see your sales soar as a result.
Using sales tools is imperative to succeed in the sales industry of 2021. The primary aim of all of the sales tools is to streamline processes to save time and offer a better service to the end-user. There are hundreds of different tools out there, so you will need to carry out some further research to find out which one works for out. The investment in software will be worth it in ROI.
