Did you know that, according to 40% of sales reps, prospecting is the most critical and complex part of a sales journey? The stat doesn't make your day easier, but sales engagement tools can.

Sales software is only growing its popularity and profits with time, proving its effectiveness. If you've been looking for the best sales engagement platform for your business, you've reached the right destination.

This article will discuss how sales engagement platforms can help you grow your business. We have also listed the best 7 tools in 2023 to make your job easier.

Let's get started.

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Sales Engagement Tool: A Brief Introduction

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Sales engagement tools are software that helps businesses interact with their customers faster and more efficiently. This software helps align the marketing and sales tasks altogether, which is beneficial for the business and the customers.

Engaging and keeping track of numerous interactions within a large organization is difficult. That's where sales engagement tools come in. You can integrate your CRM with stand-alone sales engagement tools to better manage sales and marketing efforts.

Here's what sales management tools do:

• Sales action automation: e.g., sending follow-up emails
• Customer Outreach
• Customer insight data collection
• Analyzing sales data and forecasting
• Sales activity and task tracking

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Differences Between Sales Engagement Platforms and CRM

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You must have come across CRMs while searching for sales engagement tools because both of these platforms share some similarities. Fundamentally, both of these serve different purposes.

• CRM software is usually used for contact or lead management. CRMs store customer and sales data in a centralized database. In comparison, Sales Engagement Tools are used to analyze sales trends, customers' intentions, and sales forecasting.
• Customer Relationship Management tools help businesses keep track of their marketing campaigns and generate fresh leads. On the other hand, Sales Engagement tools help track campaigns' responses and schedule meetings & calls.
• CRMs work as task management software related to customer interactions. In contrast, Sales Engagement Tools are used to track sales teams' performance. These also help create sales forecasting, pipeline, and sales funnel.
• CRMs are sales reporting tools, whereas Sales Engagement Tools are more inclined toward opportunity management and pipeline management.

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What Should You Look for in a Sales Engagement Tool

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Sales engagement is the most crucial stage where you turn a prospect into a customer. The process must be inexpensive, easy to operate, and hassle-free.

While choosing a sales engagement software for your business, keep the following things in mind:

• Automated data logging
• CRM integration
• Sales pipeline building
• On-time and accurate reporting
• Email automation
• Easy interface
• All-in-one dashboard

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Benefits of Sales Engagement Platforms

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1. Stay One Step Ahead with Planning

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Nobody wants to go through old scattered data to close a sales deal. Most of the best sales engagement tools offer a sales pipeline as well.

A sales pipeline enables companies to develop step-by-step plans to close sales deals.

Sales pipeline also helps customer reps to see exactly where a customer is on their journey. It means no need to keep records handy; you can follow up contextually from where you've left it.

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2. Organized Workflow

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Sales engagement tools keep everything organized in a central database so that you don't have to switch tabs or dig through sheets.

It helps sales reps to focus on the customers and cater to their needs.

An organized workflow means better communication, less confusion, fewer chances of missing information, better chances of conversion, and cost reduction.

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3. Faster Conversions

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Imagine the painful task of checking each customer's positions on their customer journey and sending follow-up emails; it's hectic and time-consuming.

Sales engagement tools usually come with sales automation features. It means you can perform some of your sales processes through automation quickly.

As a result, it saves time and helps keep constant communication with customers.

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4. Detailed Reports and Analytics

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Measuring marketing campaigns' success is easier with sales engagement tools. They collect sales data from campaigns and provide you with detailed on-time reports on the engagement activities of prospective customers. Also, some platforms, such as Smartlead, can provide data-based sales forecasts.

You can improve your pipeline based on the previous data and step up your sales game with more conversions.

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5. Fast Engagement with Customers

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Sometimes, you just gotta be fast to win the sales game. If your emails reach your prospects' inboxes late, the chances are that they may have already decided to go with your competitors.

With automated actions and email template banks, sales engagement tools help you personalize communication and send emails faster.

These platforms send automated emails as soon as you find leads, even if you are busy doing something else. This way, you can always stay ahead of your competitors and see better conversion rates.

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7 Best Sales Engagement Tools in 2023

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Smartlead

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Smartlead is an excellent combination of sales engagement and cold emailing tools. This tool offers unlimited email warmups, so users don't miss a lead.

Also, the AI-powered writing tool helps create personalized emails based on customer interaction data and intent. What makes it stand out is its automated follow-up feature.

Also, it offers a master mailbox to make communication and tracking easier, and sales reps can focus on closing deals.

Smartlead offers real-time updates and data-driven market prediction, which helps businesses create their next marketing moves. The sales pipeline and sales funnel make it easier to automate the process and focus on closing deals.

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Standout Features

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• Master inbox
• AI-powered writing tool
• Sales funnel and pipeline creation
• High deliverability IP address
• Email sequences
• Unlimited automated email warmup
• Reports and Analysis

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Pricing

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• Basic: $29 per month
• Popular: $69 per month
• Pro: $94 per month
• Custom: Customizable upon discussion

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HubSpot Sales Hub

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HubSpot ranks 2nd for its all-in-one service, sales, marketing, content management, and operations tools. Its Sales Hub offers sales engagement platforms as well as selling tools or e-commerce websites.

The fully customizable and visible pipeline helps sales reps track each customer's progress in real-time. HubSpot can also track your calls and emails sent to the customers and automatically keeps track in the integrated CRM.

You can integrate this sales software with various modes of communication, including social media handles and ESPs.

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Standout Features

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• Customer database
• Lead management
• Sales forecasting
• Pipeline building
• Real-time reports
• Referral tracking
• Contact management
• Sales prospecting

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Pricing

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• Starter: $45 per month for two paid users
• Professional: $450 per month for five paid users
• Enterprise: $1200 per month for ten paid users

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Zendesk Sell

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This sales engagement software boasts numerous impactful and innovative sales engagement features for all kinds of businesses. First, it is user-friendly and lets you communicate with your clients on their preferred channels.

Zendesk Sell allows sales reps to connect directly with prospects and discuss what works for them and what doesn't.

Moreover, Sell, like Smartlead, is integrated with a powerful lead generation tool (AI-powered) so that you can find industry-specific verified leads and get the maximum out of your outreach campaigns.

The mobile connectivity makes it stand apart from the crowd, as you can manage your sales tasks while on the go. Zendesk works as a cloud-based CRM as well.

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Standout Features

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• CRM and sales engagement software
• Workflow automation
• Lead generation and AI verification
• Sales engagement
• On-time reports and predictive analytics

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Pricing

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• Team: $19 per user per month
• Growth: $49 per user per month
• Professional: $99 per user per month

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Apollo.io

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If you are looking for sales engagement software to improve your business practices, Apollo.io is the perfect platform for you. Apollo aims to highlight the areas to improve a user's business.

With its intuitive and data-driven analysis, you can deploy best practices for your business. Apollo allows its users to generate industry-specific and relevant leads through its prospect searcher tool.

Moreover, with the built-in integration, you can search for potential leads on LinkedIn. And the best leads are saved directly to the CRM database.

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Standout Features

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• CRM integration
• Chrome extension
• Marketing account intelligence
• Real-time reports
• Sales funnel

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Pricing

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• Free: $0
• Basic: $19 per user per month
• Professional: $39 per user per month
• Enterprise: $5K per user per year

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Outreach

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Outreach leaves no room for guesswork with its AI-powered deal insights. Outreach helps businesses automate their sales process, from launching email campaigns to closing deals.

Moreover, Outreach offers prediction-based reports to its users so that they can blueprint their next marketing move. It optimizes sales workflow by creating pipelines automatically and manages sales workflow with a revenue intelligence tool.

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Standout Features

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• Automated pipeline generation
• Revenue Intelligence Solution
• Sales intelligence tool
• Real-time analysis and reports
• AI-powered Deal Insights
• Sales engagement automation
• CRM integration

Pricing

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• Fully customizable upon quotation

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Mailshake

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Next up on our list, Mailshake is compatible with almost all top CRM tools. The best thing about Mailshake is that it automatically collects accurate leads and contacts them.

Although this platform makes Outreach completely automated, it leaves the opportunity for personalization within communications and customer outreach.

Moreover, Mailshake offers many useful integrations besides CRMs, such as Slack, GMass, GSuite, Outlook, etc.

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Standout Features

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• Lead catcher
• LinkedIn automation
• Multi-channel Outreach
• Pipeline-focused Outreach
• Dynamic content
• Subscriber management

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Pricing

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• Email Outreach: $58 per user per month
• Sales Engagement: $83 per user per month

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Pipeline

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The last addition to our list, Pipeline, is a CRM platform and sales engagement software. This is the right platform for you if you are looking for a sales tool for small and medium-scale businesses.

Pipeline offers complete tracking of your cold email campaigns and creates reports based on each customer's journey through an outreach campaign. Its predictive analytics helps users close deals faster and create future tactics.

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Standout Features

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• Lead generation and qualification
• Marketing automation
• Sales funnel
• Cold email marketing
• Social media integration

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Pricing

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• Start: $25 per user per month
• Develop: $33 per user per month
• Grow: $49 per user per month

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Conclusion

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Experiencing a new platform can be challenging for sales and marketing teams. But B2B sales engagement platforms are here to make your jobs easier.

Pick up the right software for your business, walk your sales team through the workflow, and provide them with the necessary training.

Once you pick up the pace, there is no turning back. Keep your sales team relaxed and skyrocket your revenue.