7 Best Sales Engagement Tools in 2023 to Master Sales

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.

Sales Engagement Tool: A Brief Introduction

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

Differences Between Sales Engagement Platforms and CRM

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.

What Should You Look for in a Sales Engagement Tool

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

Benefits of Sales Engagement Platforms

1. Stay One Step Ahead with Planning

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.

2. Organized Workflow

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.

3. Faster Conversions

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.

4. Detailed Reports and Analytics

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.

5. Fast Engagement with Customers

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.

7 Best Sales Engagement Tools in 2023

Smartlead

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.

Smartlead Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

HubSpot Sales Hub

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.

HubSpot Sales Hub Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Zendesk Sell

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.

Zendesk Sell homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Apollo.io

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.

Apollo Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Outreach

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.

Outreach Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

  • Fully customizable upon quotation

Mailshake

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.

Mailshake Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Pipeline

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.

Pipeline Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Conclusion

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. 

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7 Best Sales Engagement Tools in 2023 to Master Sales

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November 20, 2022

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.

Sales Engagement Tool: A Brief Introduction

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

Differences Between Sales Engagement Platforms and CRM

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.

What Should You Look for in a Sales Engagement Tool

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

Benefits of Sales Engagement Platforms

1. Stay One Step Ahead with Planning

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.

2. Organized Workflow

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.

3. Faster Conversions

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.

4. Detailed Reports and Analytics

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.

5. Fast Engagement with Customers

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.

7 Best Sales Engagement Tools in 2023

Smartlead

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.

Smartlead Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

HubSpot Sales Hub

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.

HubSpot Sales Hub Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Zendesk Sell

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.

Zendesk Sell homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Apollo.io

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.

Apollo Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Outreach

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.

Outreach Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

  • Fully customizable upon quotation

Mailshake

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.

Mailshake Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Pipeline

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.

Pipeline Homepage

Standout Features

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

Pricing

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

Conclusion

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. 

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Author’s Details

Sattwik Das

Sattwik is a Digital Marketing professional at SmartLead. He is a dedicated content writer who focuses on juggling words to bring out meaningful content. He is experienced in well-researched and SEO-optimized content creation, content editing, and copywriting for various businesses throughout the globe. His expertise in SEO, SMM, and SMO with a touch of creativity helps businesses grow and maximize their credibility and sales.

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Frequently asked questions

General Questions

Can I import a CSV file into an already running campaign?

Yes, you can import a CSV file into an already running campaign. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to the campaign that you want to import the CSV file into.
2. Click on "Edit campaign" to access the campaign settings.
3. Look for the option to upload a CSV file and click on it.
4. Choose the CSV file from your computer that you want to import.
5. Map the fields and Choose/associate a client. The system will process the CSV file and import the data into the campaign.

By importing a CSV file, you can update the campaign with new leads without interrupting the campaign's flow.

Is it possible to connect Outlook via OAuth?

Yes, it is recommended to connect Outlook via OAuth. OAuth (Open Authorization) is an industry-standard protocol that allows applications to access user data on various platforms, including Outlook, without requiring the user to share their login credentials. By connecting Outlook via OAuth, you enhance security and ensure a seamless and secure integration between your application and Outlook.

How can I connect Outlook using OAuth?

To connect Outlook using OAuth, follow these steps:

1. Open your email accounts module in Smartlead
2. Look for the option to add accounts and select it.
3. Choose Outlook as the email provider you want to connect.
4. Clicking on the Outlook logo will redirect you to the Outlook login page.
5. Enter your credentials and log in to your Outlook account.
6. Follow the prompts to authorize the application to access your Outlook account using OAuth.
7. Once the authorization is complete, your application will be connected to Outlook via OAuth, enabling secure access to your Outlook emails and data.

By following these steps, you can establish a secure and authenticated connection between your application and Outlook, ensuring seamless integration and access to your email account.

Why am I experiencing delays in fetching emails from my ESP to MI?

If you are experiencing delays in fetching emails from your Email Service Provider (ESP) to the Master Inbox (MI), there could be a few reasons for this. It is important to note that fetching emails from the ESP to the MI can take some time due to various factors such as network latency, ESP server load, and the size of the email inbox. Here are some points to consider:

1. Time interval: The Master Inbox usually fetches emails at regular intervals, which can range from 5 to 55 minutes. This interval allows the system to retrieve and process new emails periodically.

2. Fetch replies button: If you need to fetch replies immediately, you can use the "Fetch replies" button available in the Master Inbox. Clicking on this button triggers an immediate fetch of replies from your ESP's email inbox folder.

If the delays persist or you encounter any issues with fetching emails, it is recommended to reach out to the Smartlead support team for further assistance.Please note: 

Filtering or rules: Review any filtering or rules set up in your ESP that could potentially affect the delivery of emails to the MI. Ensure that emails are not being automatically sorted, archived, or blocked based on certain criteria.

Why doesn't categorizing leads, such as "Not interested," stop campaigns for them?

Categorizing leads, such as marking them as "Not interested," does not automatically stop campaigns for those leads. The purpose of lead categorization is to classify and organize leads based on their specific attributes or actions. However, categorizing a lead as "Not interested" does not halt the campaign because the system relies on replies from leads to determine if a campaign should be stopped.

In most cases, when a lead categorizes themselves as "Not interested," they may choose not to reply to the email or take any further action. As a result, the campaign continues until it reaches its completion or encounters other stopping conditions.

It's important to note that when a lead does reply to an email, the system recognizes the response and stops the campaign for that particular lead. Therefore, replies from leads serve as the primary trigger to stop campaigns rather than lead categorization alone.

In some cases,A lead might have to be categorized for various reasons even if they do not intend to reply, such as organizing their inbox or indicating their preference. Such categorization does not automatically stop the lead from receiving further emails in the campaign. In such cases the emails have to stopped manually

What type of business can use Smartlead?

No, you get access to unlimited email accounts and warmup accounts without having to pay per account. This will let you scale your email outbound and without paying a penny more.

Powerful Automated Email Marketing that Drives Sales.

  • All Features Included
  • No Credit Card Required
  • Free Warmup Included
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