As automated tools continue their ascent to business ubiquity, SMBs need to employ the services to compete with larger brands.

Just a few years ago, marketing automation was the hot ticket for ensuring a robust and lively online presence. Since then, these types of platforms have become relatively standard.

The latest incarnation of this technology that every brand needs to be aware of is sales automation (SA) services.

These platforms enable businesses to automate various sales tasks like contact management, sales forecasting, employee performance, order processing, and other vital tasks for sales teams to govern.

Just like any other burgeoning field, there are now a slew of SA platforms on the market, and not all are created equal. There are certain features like business data for lead generation, various outreach tools, and robust analytics that are a huge boon for companies of any size.

For small business owners, the perpetual hunting for top-of-the-line tools can be a tedious, arduous, and time-consuming process.

To help you bypass most of the research phase and get down to brass tacks, we have gathered 5 prominent and powerful SA platforms to help you decide which is right for your brand.

Automated Data Management Tools

Growbots

Growbots is a unique, AI-driven SA platform that leverages machine learning to help sales teams automate and improve all steps of the sales cycle.

Using its powerful proprietary algorithms, paired with company information enter by users, Growbots scours its self-updating database of over 200 million contacts to pair brands with the most relevant and qualified leads; this creates a prosperously crafted contact list almost certain to generate sales. In fact, Growbots proclaims that its users generate an average of, “. . . 40% more positive responses after a month.” This robust tool can be your company’s secret weapon.

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo is a SA platform that has been around for more than 15 years.

In that time, the company has managed to collect over 223 million professional profiles and 10 million business profiles using proprietary technologies, third party integrations, and a community of over 300,000 users. ZoomInfo also claims to that it has, “. . . more direct dials and email addresses than any other company,” making its platform a strong contender in the space.

ZoomInfo presents its contact information in an easy-to-read and searchable fashion; this makes assembling highly relevant contact lists a quick and easy process.  This is especially true considering that the platform provides users with up-to-date personnel hierarchies and department structures so that sales reps can connect with real decision makers.

DiscoverOrg

DiscoverOrg, a cloud-based SA, has the unique edge of brandishing over 250 real-life human researchers to verify its far-reaching datasets every 60 days; at a minimum.

Like ZoomInfo, DiscoverOrg’s company profiles feature hierarchy charts so that sales reps can reach the best point of contact. Where this tool really stands out, however, is that these profiles also include a comprehensive list of technologies currently in use by a company as well as ongoing and cued projects the business is taking part in. This actionable data helps reps to establish the potential for making a sale before ever reaching out.

DiscoverOrg also claims that 96% of its contacts have a direct-dial phone number; a massive booster of sales.

Automated Outreach Tools

Growbots

Growbots is also capable of independently managing outreach campaigns; it’s the only tool on this list that does both.

Growbots is an outreach powerhouse because it helps companies initiate communications, send follow-up emails, reschedule messages that received “out of office” replies, and configure inboxes to only reflect the most positive leads.

This level of automation frees up sales reps to focus more on connecting with leads and making sales and less on trying to get them to set up a call or meeting.

SalesLoft

SalesLoft was designed to be a sales-boosting machine.

The platform touts powerfully enhanced communication capabilities via its email response rate tracking features, live-call monitoring elements, and productive workflow design options.

The SalesLoft Dialer enables sales reps to call prospects from nearly anywhere on the platform, match their area code to the lead’s, and record important information like disposition and sentiment. This feature also auto-populates a prospect’s time zone so that reps can always call at the best time.

Additionally, all call and sales records are updated across the SalesLoft platform as well as any CRM it may be connected to, which ensures up-to-date account information.

SalesLoft also supports a robust analytics system that provides real-time, actionable insights which provide more meaningful engagements and connections for potential clients.

Outreach.io

Outreach.io is an outreach-focused sales automation service that arms its users with one-click calling features, social media integration components, open and click email tracking to monitor communications, and sublime call and email analytics.

Where Outreach really shines is its enhancements to sales workflow processes. Through this platform, users can fine-tune workflows based on personas to ensure the appropriate approach for each prospect. If you are unsure of the best path forward, Outreach provides workflow A/B testing features to experiment with sequences that yield maximum results.

Much like SalesLoft, Outreach fails to provide any business database or lead generation elements, however, the company’s granular analytics system enables business to make the most out of its current leads by providing information on prospects, best days and times to reach out, and the type of content that is resonating with leads along with coaching analytics to help teams improve their efforts.

Which To Choose:

While some of these tools are extremely powerful in either data management or outreach, if you are looking for a platform that fully automates both – Growbots seems like the better choice.

It is though very important to first determine the needs of your company and employ one of these valuable platforms to help automate your sales funnels; keeping it old school won’t get you the edge you deserve.