In many ways, a company will only be as successful as its sales force. A talented sales team will track down helpful leads, build trust with prospects, and ultimately close deals.
However, this process involves many time-consuming processes. It can be higher if teams could stop doing manual tasks and focus on what really matters: sales. This is where sales automation comes in.
But what is sales automation and how does it help your salespeople? More importantly, what automation strategies may help increase your lead conversion rate? Let’s discover!
What is sales automation?
Sales automation software uses artificial intelligence (AI) and is primarily used to perform manual tasks on behalf of the sales team. This is an umbrella term for many different tools, including lead generation, CRM, sales analytics, and email marketing.
Thanks to artificial intelligence-based technology called machine learning, which may learn and adapt on its own, these tools can perform sales tasks without human supervision.
Automation tools can handle a number of tasks throughout the sales process, including:
- Collecting data to generate leads
- Automate follow-up messages for recent leads
- Data entry support, e.g. entering customer contact details
- Planning sales conversations with potential customers
Automation tools streamline processes by eliminating manual activities and increasing the sales effectiveness of teams. What’s more, sales teams will be grateful for the elimination of tedious tasks. They will feel more enthusiastic about their work and perform higher.
Of course, sales automation software is not just designed to automate manual tasks. The tools can even provide actionable data evaluation, helping you streamline your sales process. Teams can learn more about individual customers and tailor their offers more effectively.
6 Sales automation strategies
We hope you now know the answer to the query “What is sales automation?” There’s no denying that automation tools are useful. However, like any other technology, they require the right approach for use effectively.
With this in mind, here are some automation strategies to get you on the right track:
1. Use the customer search function
The means of manually collecting leads is time-consuming and often involves failures. Your sales teams will have to employ customer outreach tactics corresponding to cold calling or emailing.
Often, leads don’t respond, and email providers may even block messages from being sent. By using sales automation functions related to prospecting, teams significantly shorten this process.
When acquiring customers, a sales automation platform scans the Internet for potential customers who are more likely to have an interest in the brand. They then create a list of potential leads that sales teams can pursue.
When using this feature, sales teams should determine how often they wish to receive recent lists. It’s useful to have a long list of prospects, but make sure your teams aren’t overloaded.
2. Set up a lead scoring system
An effective sales team at all times knows the best prospects to pursue. But without automation, this process is much harder. Sales staff will need to analyze and evaluate each lead individually. This process might be very time-consuming and involve many administrative tasks. This means less time spent on actual selling.
The best lead generation software can conduct lead scoring for you. The software will analyze customer data and evaluate it based on lead scoring criteria. It will then assess their interest and overall likelihood of conversion. 
To discover high-quality leads, you first need to determine a lead scoring model. This should include the following information:
- Demographic information: What is the age and gender of the lead? Where are they positioned?
- Online engagement: How did the lead interact with your brand? Have they signed up for sales emails, browsed content on your website, or signed up for a free trial?
- Lifestyle information: What careers do your goal customers have? What are their interests and hobbies?
Once you have established your scoring system, you should select a goal rating. When prospects meet or exceed this rating, your automation tool will recommend them to your sales teams.
3. Improve your lead nurturing
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Once you’ve got established your list of potential customers, it is time to pursue them. Lead nurturing can take time because your teams have to build relationships with customers. Typically, this process is intended to take care of regular communication by sending follow-up emails or sharing interesting content. Fortunately, sales automation can streamline this process through personalization.
It’s no secret that modern customers to expect experiences tailored to their needs. As much as 89% decision-makers imagine that personalization will be critical to their success over the next three years. Consider how you possibly can automate personalized experiences throughout the buyer’s journey.
Some tools do this customer segmentation features that will let you divide your prospects into groups based on aspects corresponding to stage in the funnel or level of interest. You can then send highly targeted leads based on their position in the customer journey. What’s more, the tools can robotically send messages at key stages, corresponding to when a lead moves from one segment to a different.
Consider the different stages of your journey and the form of content that will increase customer satisfaction. Data from previous campaigns, analytical insights and competitor campaigns can aid you find the right message.
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4. Monitor your success
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Lead nurturing might be a means of trial and error. Sales automation tools provide data and increase accuracy, but you continue to have to confirm that you are on the right track.
The best automation tools offer automatic reporting. This enables sales teams to trace the successes and failures of lead nurturing campaigns. To get the most out of this feature, it’s price identifying a set of metrics that indicate whether you are on track to satisfy your sales goals. Below are some examples of metrics you possibly can track:
- Email click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of consumers who clicked on links in email campaigns. A high CTR means that the content is engaging your potential customers and you are successful increasing the variety of clicks on emails.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC): The amount of cash your company spends on acquiring recent customers. Effective lead nurturing tactics should take less time and resources and lower CAC.
- Conversion rate: Percentage of consumers who accomplished the kit determined in advance actions. Once customers develop into accustomed to your brand, they need to move through your sales funnel and your sales conversions will increase.
5. Use chatbots
In the past, chatbots had a status for being unhelpful. Fortunately, technology has improved significantly in recent years. Modern chatbots they use artificial intelligence and machine learning and can conduct intelligent conversations with customers.
Users can ask questions and the bot will use data from various sources to supply intelligent answers.
They are a type of sales automation technology that may help sales teams in many ways. For example, a chatbot can improve lead generation by collecting contact information. The technology can even help close deals by using customer data to recommend potential products.
Sales reps should consider how they will use chatbots in the buyer’s journey. This may include A/B testing alternative ways of presenting the bot to get the maximum variety of user interactions. For example, does the bot load when the user lands on the page or when they click a button?
6. Increase your reach
Today’s customers are in every single place, using email, social media and smartphones. To make the most of this, your company ought to be similarly ubiquitous. Of course, managing multiple platforms concurrently is difficult for sales reps. However, the same difficulties do not apply to sales automation software.
Sales managers should consider how automation may help them build more practical outreach strategies. Below are some examples of how you possibly can profit from automation.
- Set up email automation: The software can configure email automation to trigger based on specific user behavior. For example, you possibly can set a trigger that sends a welcome message when a user creates an account on your site.
- Integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system: Your sales analytics might be integrated with your CRM software to record all customer interactions. This information can aid you get a more complete picture of your sales funnels.
The best sales evaluation tools it may well even alert sales reps when customers perform certain actions.
- Create more personalized messages: Data from CRM tools might be used to focus on ads to people using different platforms. This way you possibly can automate highly personalized messages via social media, email and SMS.
- Get detailed analytics: Most automation tools come with built-in sales analytics software. By running awareness campaigns, you possibly can collect helpful audience insights and campaign comparison data. You’ll learn how you can higher interact with qualified leads and run more practical campaigns.
Make the most of automation
Sales automation software won’t be phased out anytime soon. Instead, more and more firms will profit from this revolutionary technology. And after all, sales won’t be the only department; Automation elevates almost every aspect of business. To stay ahead, it is best to implement this technology sooner fairly than later.
Here we answered the query: “What is sales automation?” We’ve also looked at some basic strategies to aid you implement automation successfully. Why not reflect on your current sales tactics and see how technology can aid you?
One thing is certain, once you introduce automation, you will never go back to it. So automate yourself!