How to Choose the Best Sales Engagement Tools for B2B Sales
The very competitive nature of B2B sales makes the effective engagement of buyers a challenging task. This increasing trend of virtual sale channels demands the appropriate deployment of tools to manage communication, engage customers, and ultimately provide better conversion rates.
Sales engagement tools are built to improve the way sales teams engage with prospects through organization of strategies, automation of follow-ups, and timely and consistent engagement. This article identifies some best sales engagement tools and how you can leverage them in the improvement of your B2B sales effort.
The Importance of a Varied Sales Engagement Strategy
B2B buyers often consume several pieces of content before actually talking to a sales representative, so engaging them through omnichannels is highly important. A multichannel sales engagement strategy helps ensure that your prospects experience your brand across several touchpoints. This really helps boost the chances of conversion. For instance, potential buyers may notice your brand on an ad via social media, go to your website for further research, then get follow-up messages over email or SMS.
Using a plethora of sales engagement tools enables you to connect with buyers wherever they are most engaged, thus ensuring continuity through all touchpoints. It also allows engagement tracking to tune your sales team in perfect strategy and outreach optimization.
Top Sales Engagement Tools for B2B Sales
Different types of tools can support an efficient sales engagement strategy. Here are the best sales engagement tools currently at the disposal of a B2B sales team:
1. Social Media Management Software
Social media is one of the most critical channels to engage prospects. It lets the sales team keep track of multiple platforms from a single interface, maintains the same message across all platforms, and tracks buyer interactions comprehensively. This is where popular tools such as HubSpot, Hootsuite, and Zoho Social help immensely in gaining understanding of engagement metrics to definably optimize content and strategy.
2. Email Outreach and Marketing Software
Email is still considered one of the best channels to reach prospects. The sending of personal emails to hundreds or thousands of prospects is automated through email outreach software: Apollo, HubSpot Sales, and reply.io. Building targeted email campaigns with detailed tracking of open rates and click-throughs is possible through the use of email marketing tools like Drip, HubSpot, and Mailchimp.
3. SMS Software
With SMS, the communication is fast, clear, and serves well for short messages with a distinct call to action. Podium, Brevo among a few, offers the ability of sending automated bulk SMSs, engaging prospects, and follow-ups on time with updates or offers to sales teams.
4. Software about Reporting and Analytics
Tracking and, therefore, analyzing the performance of sales campaigns is very important to make decisions based on facts. Reporting and analytics tools would include the use of Google Analytics, HubSpot, Zoho, and Power BI, providing extensive data on campaign performance that helps the sales team really zero in on what’s working and where improvements are needed.
5. Knowledge Bases
Self-service to research products is preferred by many buyers in the B2B space. Knowledge bases, empowered through platforms such as ZenDesk, Notion, and Zoho, allow sales teams to supply information that is easy to access and which answers common questions, guiding prospects further along their decision-making process.
6. Customer Feedback and Survey Applications
It is necessary to comprehend customers’ needs for which customer feedback is required. Survey tools like SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, and AskNicely can provide customized surveys, which yield efficient input about customer satisfaction and areas of improvement.
7. Video Engagement Tools
Video content is some of the most engaging and effective means to communicate complex information in an easily digestible format. With tools such as Vidyard and Loom, sales can very easily record and send videos that add a personal touch to enhance a buyer’s experience by reinforcing key brand messaging.
8. Live Chat and Assistance Software
They want everything almost instantly in today’s digital world. Live chat software like REVE Chat and Intercom help the sales team respond to the prospects immediately and clear all confusion, hence converting them into customers.
Improving Sales Engagement with Forward
The mere thought of choosing the right mix of sales engagement tools is daunting, which is why platforms like Forward make such choices easier. They integrate with your existing tools to create a seamless, centralized hub for all sales activities. Forward’s Deal Central provides one source of truth for all your deal content, interactive mutual action plans, real-time collaboration, and more that arms your sales team to fully engage buyers and shorten sales cycles effectively.
With Forward, your sales team will have engagement tracking across the board, personalized buyer experiences with microsites tailored to their needs, and predefined templates that save much time without sacrificing anything in customization and precision.
Conclusion
Competition tends to get really brutal in the world of B2B sales. The appropriate sales engagement tools will position a business for success. As a matter of fact, by employing tools that range from social media to e-mail and SMS, a sales team can devise a very teeming engagement strategy. This platform-Forward, for example-allows easier management of the aforementioned tools and allows sales teams to focus on what they know best: engaging prospects and closing deals.
