Digital Marketing Executive
Traditional sales management is broken. Salespeople make many calls, only to face diminishing responses.
The sales response to a lack of sales respondents is sales automation. Statistics cite 53% increased conversion rates on top of a 3.1% bump in revenue growth.
That said, automation comes at a cost. Let’s explore exactly how much, to answer the question, is it necessary?
Before we dive into the software offerings in the wild, let’s establish the different types of sales automation systems. Typically designed with the common goal of optimizing sales processes, sales automation software, can be quite different in nature.
Here are the different types of automated sales software:
As you already know, inbound sales is a customer-centric approach that emphasizes the pain points of the individual prospect. Inbound sales representatives serve as trusted advisors to the prospects instead of reaching out to source for leads.
Automation mainly helps by reducing lead response time. Novocall, for example, is an inbound sales-focused software. As prospects are directed to your website, Novocall’s instant call-back and scheduling features help to connect leads with salespeople in less than 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, outbound sales is a more proactive approach. Salespeople reach out to potential customers through cold emails, cold call campaigns, and advertisements. Automating outbound sales thus requires different software functions.
Outreach.io is a typical outbound sales-focused software. It automatically sorts data to identify the right prospects to approach and enables easier organizing of calls to contact these prospects.
Some sales automation tools offer an end-to-end experience. These include automated lead research, contact management, reporting, and team analytics.
Alternatively, there are sales automation tools that specialize in a specific task or part of the sales process, such as meeting scheduler, lead research, or more.
Category: Inbound
Description: Activecampaign is an inbound email automation system. As customers visit your websites or make a likely purchase, the system detects these active engagements and automatically sends emails to customers’ mailboxes. The email can be used to offer comprehensive information for leads, capture them before their interests wane.
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
Time Cost: Low cost of setting up, but high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Lite: $9 per month, Plus: $49 per month, Professional: $129 per month, Enterprise: $229 per month
Category: Inbound
Description: Callpage is an inbound callback solution that automates the calls between a potential customer and a sales representative. It shows up as a widget on your website. This can help speed up the communication between the sales rep and prospects as people no longer need to fill in online forms and wait for a response.
Capterra Rating: 4.3/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Basic: $0 (15 calls) or $29 (30 calls) per month, Professional: $119 (150 calls) per month, Premium: $284 (400 calls) per month
Category: Specific Sales Optimization
Description: Contact Enhance is a business intelligence sales automation software. It automates lead research, enrichment, and even generation for sales teams. With an email address, Contact Enhance can generate detailed information about your contacts across 52 profile fields.
Capterra Rating: Not available
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $63.66 (Basic Plan) per month, $126.08 (Advanced Plan) per month, $380.79 (Premium Plan) per month
Category: All-in-one
Description: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the backbone of a sales funnel. It is the recordkeeper for all sales activities made across different channels for your sales team. With CRM, you can track and analyze the customer data, and utilize these records to learn, organize, and optimize sales.
Capterra Rating: 4.5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $40 (Starter Plan) per month, $400 (Professional Plan) per month, $1,200 (Enterprise Plan) per month
Category: Inbound and Outbound
Description: Novocall is an automated sales software that provides your phone system with business functions. Get a local phone number and supercharge your phone with capabilities such as call scheduling, automated outbound cold calling, and call tracking.
The software can be embedded onto your site as an event-triggered callback widget and your site visitors can then schedule a call-back, drop a message, and connect with your business within 20 seconds. Novocall records and logs all call data for your future analytics and references. It is also integrated with other software such as CRMs and your sales reps’ Google Calendars.
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Annual billing of $39 (Pro Plan), $19 (Starter Plan) per month, Custom pricing for customized plans
Category: Inbound
Description: It is a scheduler designed especially for remote communications. With Timesync, you can also pre-qualify, segment, and distribute customers to different sales reps, achieving more suitable matches. TimeSync can do more than just arrange calls. It integrates with other apps as well, such as CRMs. All call records can be logged in to CRMs for better customer relationship management, creating greater synergy.
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: FREE for those who sign up in 2020, $59 per lifetime deal
Category: All-in-one
Description: Salesforce is an integrated CRM platform that gives all departments a shared view of every customer profile.
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Ranges from $25 to $375 per user per month depending on the product purchased
Category: Outbound
Description: Yesware is an outbound email automation tool. It tracks and analyzes every email you send so that you know who has opened your messages, attachments, and links in real-time. You can also create an email using Yesware templates, making them more engaging and informative.
Capterra Rating: 4.2/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $12 (Pro Plan) per month, $25 (Premium Plan) per month, $55 (Enterprise Plan) per month
Category: Specific Sales Optimization
Description: Like Novocall TimeSync, Calendly specializes in online appointment scheduling. You can send your own Calendly link via email or embed it on your website. People will then be able to schedule meetings conveniently.
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $0 (Basic Plan) per month, $8 (Premium Plan) per month, $12 (Pro Plan) per month
Category: Outbound
Description: Unlike the call automation software mentioned above, Justcall is an outbound call tool that automates your outbound calls. The calls can also be recorded for better customer relationship management.
Capterra Rating: 4.1/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and medium cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $20 (Standard Plan) per month, $40 (Premium Plan) per month, Amount based on quote requested (Enterprise Plan)
Category: All-in-one
Description: Creatio is a cloud-based, end-to-end sales automation and CRM software. It covers the entire customer journey and automatically generates sales, revenue reports, and email reports to superiors.
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $25 (Team Plan) per month, $30 (Commerce Plan) per month, $50 (Enterprise Plan) per month
Category: Outbound
Description: Prospect.io a sales automation platform that can help you find new prospects and automatically sends outbound email campaigns and follow-up emails. They also track and analyze your campaigns and provides statistics, from email opens to conversion rates.
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
Time Cost: Medium cost in setting up and medium cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $79 (Essential Plan) per month, $129 (Business Plan) per month
Category: All-in-one
Description: Autoklose is a sales automation software that helps keep everyone in your sales team in sync with one another. Some of its automation features include lead generation, email campaign management, real-time email tracking, and contact management. Autoklose can also segment sales leads automatically which allows for customized targeting.
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
Time Cost: Medium cost in setting up and medium cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $49.99 (Starter Plan) per month, $149.95 (Small Business Plan) per month, Depending on the quote requested
Category: Outbound
Description: Growbots is an outbound sales automation software that automatically prospects and comes up with a personalized list of potential customers based on your specific business criteria. Growbots also helps you find the right decision-makers in companies and their contact details. It also enables you to personalize, customize, send, and track email campaigns.
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
Time Cost: Medium cost in setting up and medium cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Depending on the quote requested.
Category: All-in-one
Description: Outreach provides a holistic view of key metrics and everything sales related in one place on the dashboard. This includes the number of prospects engaged and team schedules. Furthermore, Outreach is equipped with intelligent sales sequences, a powerful sales dialer, meeting schedules, email tracking, and even sales texting.
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Depending on the quote requested.
Category: Specific Sales Optimization
Description: This software specializes in automated sales prospecting and lead generation. It automatically finds you the right contacts based on your company, industry, and role preferences. Othe even more specific filters including technologies they use and Adwords budget. It then generates a list of verified email addresses, phone numbers, social media profiles, and more.
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $132.30 (Starter Plan) per month, $447.30 (Scaling Plan) per month, Depending on the quote requested (Custom Plan)
Category: Specific Sales Optimization
Description: PandaDoc automates and accelerates sales deal closing processes and workflows. It helps create sales documents like proposals and contracts. The platform comes with tools that help improve the quality of the documents such as templates. It also allows you to automate the sending and tracking of the documents, payment, and legally binding signature collections.
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $9 (Individual Plan) per month, $49 (Business Plan) per month, Depending on the quote requested (Enterprise Plan)
Category: Specific Sales Optimization
Description: Sigstr specializes in automating email signature marketing processes for your sales teams. Sigstr allows you to capitalize on your email signatures and turn them into marketing channels.
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $9 (Individual Plan) per month, $49 (Business Plan) per month, Depending on the quote requested (Enterprise Plan)
Category: Specific Sales Optimization
Description: LeadGnome automates reply email mining so that you can build a database of potential customers. It can also enrich your existing leads with verified mobile and office numbers.
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $9 (Individual Plan) per month, $49 (Business Plan) per month, Depending on the quote requested (Enterprise Plan)
Category: All-in-one
Description: Affinity is a relationship intelligence platform that helps you leverage your network for a variety of purposes. It can extract information on the important relationship data hidden in your communication streams. This, in turn, reveals which of your contacts is able to initiate the right warm introduction for your next deal.
Capterra Rating: 4.9/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Depending on the quote requested.
Category: All-in-one
Description: Voicent is an enterprise-level automated sales software. It automatically tracks sales deals, lets you know the standing of each deal, assigns leads to specific agents, and measures the performance of each agent. It also serves as a communication software that has built-in call center tools.
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Depending on the quote requested.
Category: All-in-one
Description: Freshsales is an automated sales software that enables you to optimize your sales and marketing strategies. It allows you to maximize e-mails and track their performance. Freshsales also automatically captures the visitors that go to your website and assign them to the most well-suited salesperson on your team.
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $12 (Blossom Plan) per month, $25 (Garden Plan) per month, $49 (Estate Plan) per month, $79 (Forest Plan) per month
Category: Inbound
Description: It is a scheduler which makes it easier to book appointments, thus increasing the productivity of the sales team. Through the software, people can not only book virtual meetings, but also phone calls. It also has a lead qualification function which allows you to set rules as to which type of leads will get access to your sales reps’ calendars.
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
Time Cost: High cost in setting up and high cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: Depending on the number of people and functions you request for. Price starts from $10 (1 person, basic features) per month
Category: Outbound
Description: Mailshake is a sales engagement platform that helps salespeople create highly personalized outreach cadences using email, social, and phone. With Mailshake, you can upload a list of prospects with personalization fields like name, links to social profiles, and phone numbers. Messages are sent automatically according to your campaign settings and can be paused automatically if a recipient replies or clicks a link. You can also track your campaign’s performance in real-time and see which messages in your cadence have the best engagement.
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5
Time Cost: Low cost in setting up and low cost in learning how to use the software.
Monetary Cost: $59 (Email Outreach) per month, $99 (Sales Engagement) per month
As a company, you can use costs to evaluate what you can afford and cannot afford. This should be the starting point in your decision-making process. Working with a budget in mind allows you to quickly qualify or disqualify the systems to be considered.
Unfortunately, for most sales automation software, you have to spend time upfront, to save time in the future.
Most companies place value in their employee time. Determine what that is, and how long it would take to not only set-up the platform, but to manage it.
Does this actually save your team time? Types of time investments: training to master the platform, writing company processes for the platform, integration, testing, deploying.
Ask yourself how long will that take you upfront, and on a regular basis, to determine whether a platform’s costs are worth it. Sites like Capterra provide you with insights for detailed customer reviews on how any of the listed apps above have worked for their teams.
The short answer is: it depends on what you need.
A good way to gauge whether an automated sales system is suitable for you is to look at customer success stories. Look at the numbers and use that to calculate if the software is worth the money.
For example, after using Novocall, EU Holidays increased their sales calls by over 100 and achieved a 20% increase in sales. If your company is similar to them in areas like business model and size, it may be safe to say that this could be a feasible solution that you should explore.
Also, be sure to take advantage of the generous free trials (like ours 😉) that exist with many software systems, try it, and make the call for yourself whether it works for your needs.
Nigel is a Digital Marketing Executive at Novocall where he specializes in SEO. Prior to this, he had written for several SaaS companies including Workstream and the now defunct Hatchme. In his free time, he engages in strength training and is a lover of languages.
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