Top 10 Features Your Sales Automation Software Should Have for Email & LinkedIn Outreach, and More

Written by: Outreachly - Tuesday 21st June 2022

Table of contents:

Sales automation software is a must-have tool for any business that aims to cut out the time-consuming administrative tasks of sales today. The automation software helps sales representatives with the following processes:

finding new leads
following up with customers
recording customer transaction history
lead scoring
collecting contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses.

Whether you work alone or your team is packed with sales reps, it’s nearly impossible to sell manually without sales automation software. That’s why 56% of companies currently use marketing automation, and more than 40% of B2B companies plan to adopt it in the future. Additionally, automation has been shown to increase sales productivity by 14.5% and reduce marketing overheads by 12.2%.

But with so many options available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when choosing the right software for your team, especially if you’re planning outreach via multiple channels, including email, LinkedIn, and more. That’s why we’ve put together this list of 10 must-have features every sales automation software should have:

1. A Built-In Calendar To Track Your Sales Pipeline

You’ll want to know where you stand with your sales pipeline at all times. If you know what stage each of your prospects is in, you can better manage your resources and forecast your income more accurately. This way, your sales team can stay on top of their game by knowing at all times what stage each deal is in.

A built-in calendar showing when each deal was first established, when each qualified lead was last contacted, and when each deal is set to close will take a ton of stress off your sales team. This is especially important when you’re closing deals that span multiple weeks or even months where it’s easy to forget about crucial lead information.

2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Build and Manage Your Existing Customer Relationships

Customer relationship management (CRM) is an organized approach to tracking and managing customer interactions with your business. CRM software works by combining multiple streams of information from various sources into a single system where data is organized, stored, and retrieved efficiently.

Your sales funnel consists of all of your leads, active customers, and how each of them is progressing through the sales process. Not only does this let you know the number of customers at each stage, but it also gives you an idea of where you’re losing sales and how you can close more deals.

When it comes to managing your customer relationships, you should also look for ways to streamline your sales process. This includes:

setting up sales activities like setting up meetings with prospects
sending emails
and scheduling demos.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software takes the headache out of managing your sales funnel. It includes features like built-in email templates, scheduling, and contact management. Your ideal sales automation software should include these functions, as well as the ability to integrate with other existing tools in your business.

3. Team Collaboration

Team collaboration features help users work together more effectively by enabling them to share documents, discuss ideas, and remain connected with team members throughout their workday. While your salespeople will be responsible for bringing in the deals, they won’t always be able to close them and answer customer questions on their own.

You may have a support team for product sales and customer service reps who can help close deals too. You’ll want to make sure your sales automation software allows you to collaborate with other departments seamlessly.

For example, customer support representatives should be able to use your CRM to see what’s been sold and when. This way, they can help customers who are having trouble with your products while they’re still under warranty. Sales reps should be able to add team members to deals on the sales software so that everyone stays in the know. They should also have the ability to assign tasks to members who are experts in certain deals.

4. Advanced Reporting Capabilities

Sales reps and managers alike need to know how each of their deals is progressing and how each of their customers is interacting with your products. To do this, you’ll want sales automation software that allows you to create different types of reports.

For example, you might want to generate a report that highlights:

how many of your deals are closing each month
how many of your customers are renewing their contracts
how many customers are interacting with your email campaign
how many of your customers are contacting you for assistance.

These reports can help you spot trends that may otherwise go unnoticed. They can also let you know if you need to make any adjustments to your sales process. Your sales automation software should also let you create custom reports that can be emailed to your sales reps. This gives them deeper insights into their sales pipeline so they can close more deals.

5. Robust Real-Time Communication

While your sales automation software is great for managing your sales funnel, you also need a way to communicate with your customers. For example, if you’re selling to B2B customers, you may need to talk to your customers’ IT departments.

This is something that your sales automation software can help with. In this case, you’ll want a robust real-time email, call, or messaging feature that can help you communicate with your customer’s departments. It should enable you to personalize emails by department and schedule automatic calls and messages for later.

Built-in communication tools can also help you save time and stay organized by enabling you to communicate with customers from one central place. They can help you save time by assigning specific sales reps to customers at scheduled times, eliminating the guesswork on random calls and messaging.

Did you know?

“Companies that post weekly on LinkedIn see a 2x higher engagement rate”

LinkedIn Market Study 2021

6. Detailed Records of Past Conversations

Your sales automation software could use a feature that lets you track past conversations. Doing so will enable you to keep track of the number of times you’ve spoken with each customer, when and where the conversation took place, and, more importantly, the final outcome. This way, you can make sure that you aren’t overselling or nagging your customers too much.

You may also want to implement a lead scoring system that lets you rate your customers based on their value to your business. This way, you can better prioritize your time on the deals that are worth pursuing.

7. Video Calling

Video calls and remote meetings have seen a massive spike over the last few years. While you can use your real-time communication tools to make audio calls and create text messages, video calling still remains the best way to conduct virtual meetings and appointments and build trust with your customers.

A video call allows you to build a more personal relationship with your customers. You can also let them see you, as well as your surroundings, which helps them feel more connected to your brand. Your ideal sales automation software should be able to schedule video calls and mark them on your calendar to avoid missing important customer meetings and appointments.

8. Tracking for Meeting Logistics

With the rise of remote work, more and more businesses are hiring employees who don’t work in the office. Once you hire your first remote sales team, you’ll need a way to track where and when they meet with customers and other team members. That’s why it’s important to look for a sales automation software that includes a tracking function for your salespeople’s meetings.

This enables you to keep track of who’s meeting with whom, where they’re meeting, and when they’re meeting. In turn, this will help you figure out what times of the day are best for scheduling meetings. It will also help you better manage your salespeople to make sure they’re meeting their goals.

9. Auto-Responder With Templates

Another important feature you should look for when selecting a sales automation software is an auto-responder with templates. This way, you don’t need to be manually drafting follow-up emails for each prospect anymore. Instead, you can create a template for each stage of the sales process and send automated emails to your leads. This will free up your sales team to focus on other, more important tasks.

Consider your team’s goals when setting up your auto-responder templates. For instance, if you’re looking to increase your conversion rates, it’s important to include a call-to-action in your emails. If you’re more focused on getting more leads in the door, a friendly introduction and a link to a helpful resource would be a great place to start.

10. Sync With Your Company’s Existing Tools

On top of supporting your sales reps by managing leads, your automation software should also integrate with your company’s other tools to easily pull data from your CRM, customer service software, and other data sources.

Today’s sales reps are more empowered and connected than ever before. This new era of heightened collaboration, however, has also created new challenges for sales leaders and team members alike. In order to maintain visibility and control over every lead and opportunity at your company, you need reliable sales automation software that can integrate with your existing tools.

Outreachly for B2B Sales & Marketing Automation

There’s no hiding the fact that social media is making a significant impact on business today. With so many companies vying for their audience’s attention, it’s become necessary for brands to adopt an effective social media strategy to stay ahead of the competition.

LinkedIn is one of the major players in the B2B marketing space. The platform is home to over 830 million members in 200 countries and some 97% of the Fortune 500. LinkedIn enables people and businesses to create meaningful relationships with other businesses around the world.

But, just like other marketing platforms, generating B2B leads from LinkedIn involves several manual tasks. That’s where sales & marketing outreach automation tools like Outreachly come in.

Outreachy is an AI-powered messaging automation tool that helps you find the right customers for your business. It automates the email and LinkedIn lead generation, boosting your connection rates by up to 30%. Outreachly also simplifies the follow-up process, leaving you with more time to focus on your business. Our sales & marketing outreach tool will help you find the best prospects from LinkedIn groups and search, and create automated email marketing campaigns to reach out to them.

Book a demo today and start winning qualified B2B leads from your automated outreach process.

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