Sales automation helps you streamline recurring activities and create a more efficient and effective sales process. It actually does the opposite of making sales more mechanical, freeing up time and energy for humans to do what they do best. Curious to know how sales automation can help skyrocket your revenue? We put together these essentials of sales automation with the help of our partnerHubspot for Startups:
Ditch the dull tasks
Hubspot defines sales automation as the mechanization of manual, time-consuming sales tasks using software, artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital tools. You may wonder how machines can possibly handle something as personal and psychologically driven as sales. Well that’s the thing about sales automation: it’s not about replacing people, it’s about supporting people.
Yes, machines are taking over certain tasks: the most repetitive and uninspiring ones that sales reps and managers usually have to do every day, week or month. Think of sending follow-ups, adding leads to customer relationship management (CRM) tools, booking appointments with prospects, and digging up pitching material. This frees them up to focus on closing sales with a human touch.
Grow faster
Saving sales staff from having to do mind-numbing tasks is great, but the number one reason to automate your sales is simple: it helps your business grow faster. There are many ways sales automation benefits your business, sales team, and bottom line. According to Hubspot, sales automation:
- increases the productivity and performance of your sales reps.
- turbocharges your efficiency.
- improves the accuracy and accelerates your sales process.
- ensures your sales leads don't fall through the cracks.
- streamlines the quality of your sales tasks.
- reduces response time which can increase customer satisfaction.
- keeps sales data consistent across your sales organization.
- allows efficient use of otherwise scarce resources (like a small sales team or budget).
Rather than making your job irrelevant, sales automation helps make your team more effective. It frees up time and helps you reach your goals faster.
The catch: do it right
Concerns about sales becoming too impersonal or roboticized aren’t completely off the mark. There is such a thing as over-automating your sales. Blasting out templated emails by the thousands is a surefire way to make customers feel like just a number. Not only will it backfire in terms of sales figures, but you could ruin your reputation.
The secret to effectively using sales automation is to identify gaps in your sales process to improve upon and using automation to streamline strategically. Sales automation software can be used to personalize emails with company and contact details, tailored to the type of interaction the prospect has had with your company so far. The time and energy that is freed up can be used to personally prospect and nurture leads. This creates connection and trust, as well as ensuring that customers are receiving the information they are looking for.
The bottom line: only automate where it adds value. Keep in mind which sales strategies make sense for your customers or prospects. We want to give the customer more of what they’re asking for, not stop listening to them. The idea is to segment, customize and engage more, not less. Done right, sales automation will not only help you attract new customers, it will make it easier to nurture your relationship with current customers and keep them happy too.
CRM you soon
Of course in order to automate sales, we need the right tools. One tool is particularly important: your customer relationship management (CRM) tool. The CRM tool helps keep all the sales processes together. You use it to organize, track, and nurture your leads and customers. The CRM will log prospect activity, rep outreach, and contact data and information. It also feeds data into the other sales automation tools and software your reps and managers use, such as:
- Prospecting software that searches for and identifies prospects
- Lead enrichment tools that provide comprehensive lead profiles
- Contacts from marketing software or lead sources
- Email templates and sales email automation
- Meetings and sales calls
- Reporting and lead scoring
And more! When you combine with inbound marketing software, the sales team gets high-quality leads to successfully close more win-win deals. And you can monitor, measure, tweak and refine it all better too. But you don’t have to take our word for it: check outHubspot for Startups and let the results speak for themselves!