The world is moving faster than ever, and with the advent of new technologies, it’s only going to get faster each day. Top companies are achieving sales optimization through automation and embracing themselves for better returns and efficiency. It helps that they get happier customers and employees as an add-on. The whole idea of automation is to let it take care of mundane and routine tasks, while people continue to work on strategical tasks.
And like never before, with the advent of technology like Marketing Automation, CRM, ERM, and more, sales has moved into the world of automation. It’s no longer dependent on people, but rather sales teams have become technology enabled. Now the question is, why has such a drift taken place? While large enterprises have already reaped the benefits of automating, small and medium businesses are slowly, but surely, getting there as well. And here is why:
Advantages of sales optimization
1. Financial advantage:
This tops our list, for all companies are made to generate and increase revenue not only by acquiring new business but also by lowering their costs. A Harvard research conducted with a few billion dollar companies shows a return of 100% in the first year of using marketing automation. The following are the statistics with regard to sales.
| Activity | Change in figures |
| Sales | 33% increase |
| Sales force productivity | 31% increase |
| Salesforce attrition | 40% drop |
The rise in productivity also means a reduction in both fixed and variable costs, and in turn, means lower break even through lower productivity costs. The result? You get to optimize your return on investment (ROI).
2. Improved Efficiency:
Achieving most out of least effort, viz-a-viz, efficiency, is what all businesses aim towards. Efficiency improves not only the business outcome but also the morale of your sales team. Without automation, the sales team usually gets entangled in multiple activities like telemarketing, content fulfillment at the right time, customer service, lead prioritization, account management, direct sales, direct mail, face to face customer dealing and much more. But with automation, most of the requirements are already automated for the sales team, making their life easier and in turn enhances their effectiveness and efficiency. Another benefit that comes along is that sales can now focus on where it’s needed the most.
3. Integration:
Companies that have implemented automation for sales have realized the benefits of bridging the long existing rift between the sales and marketing. Marketing is now more of an enabler by providing the sales team with appropriate information on the lead. Marketing can help the sales team understand the leads, and what they are looking for, based on their social media and other online activity. While this integration brings marketing and sales to work together closely, it also draws a fine line on the segregation of duties, eliminating much-seen chaos in the past.
Moreover, marketers can provide useful insights on what customers are looking for (via activity history, engagement history, past conversation, etc). They can also create information in the form of graphs and visuals for the sales team. This not only saves time for the sales team but gives them a quick glance into everything they need to know about their leads.
(Here are 5 ways marketing automation can help improve sales)
4. Understand Leads better:
Automation solutions are usually designed in such a way, that a quick glance lets you know everything you need to know about a lead’s activity. With automation, it becomes easier to get insight into the emails, events, website activity and nurturing campaigns that are running for a lead. This, in turn, directly benefits sales, as they can now plan their follow-up with the lead in advance, increasing the chances of conversion
Automation also allows sales to send marketing emails and documents to their contacts easily. They can add/delete contacts from a particular campaign with a simple click. Additionally, they can also set alerts when a lead performs a desirable activity. This allows the sales team to not only manage current prospects but also identify future prospects to target.
5. Enhanced relationship management:
While it is true that no amount of automation can replace human touch, automation can still aid you in building relationships. Marketing can use automation to identify the stages that a lead goes through and use drip marketing to send relevant trigger-based emails to them at the right time.
Automation uses various tactics like lead prioritization, lead scoring, etc. based on their activities, ensuring that the sales team does not miss out on leads that need immediate attention. This immediate attention then brings in a sense of personalization, to cement the relationship with the lead.
(Read more on how lead qualification can align sales and marketing)
We get three main benefits here.
- Leads have already been nurtured and hence they are already sales ready
- Sales team saves on both effort and time, adding to their overall efficiency
- Maximize the conversion probability by following up the leads on time
Since the time of industrialization, automation has only made life easier for mankind, and the results depend on how each business uses the technology to their own advantage. Not to forget that timely adoption is the key to making most of the technology.
Interested in reaping the benefits by automating your sales and marketing? Let us know how Transfunnel can help by reaching out at www.transfunnel.com.
You can also join our webinar on 1st of June where we will be showing the real life examples how companies are enabling their sales team using automation and getting benefited. You can register for the webinar here
