As Salesforce users and admins, you know how important a CRM like Salesforce is as a system of record. A CRM helps your teams create more meaningful relationships with customers.
What it doesn’t do is directly get you revenue.
In a world where revenue teams are moving faster than ever, your team needs more than just a system of record to stay ahead of the competition. You need a system of action.
That’s where a sales engagement platform, or an SEP, comes in.
Read more: What Is a Sales Engagement Platform and What Does It Do?
An SEP is the missing puzzle piece between your CRM and sales follow-up. It fills the gap in your tech stack between Salesforce and your communication tools by syncing back to your system of record.
When you integrate the two systems, sales and marketing teams increase productivity and improve processes by using the SEP to automate tasks, clean data, and leverage machine learning.
Why you need more than just a CRM
When you use both Salesforce and an SEP, your entire tech stack is more effective.
Salesforce is the source of truth where your most beneficial customer data lives. To complete daily tasks, SEP users need that data to provide the right context and insights to perform actions.
An SEP takes the work your team inputs into Salesforce and puts it into play, so you’re not just managing your customers, you’re engaging them. An SEP increases sales velocity because it provides a single interface where sellers can plan, execute, track, measure, and optimize interactions between sales and customers across multiple touches and channels.
Say goodbye to manually updating customer data
SEPs eliminate manual tasks like logging customer data, freeing up time for sales reps to work on more important initiatives.
Advanced SEPs, like Outreach, have native integrations with Salesforce in addition to other tools in your tech stack. This means reps spend less time switching between platforms and ensures data is consistent and up to date across every system you use.
I have a marketing automation tool; why do I need an SEP?
Marketing automation tools have an important time and place; however, reps should not use them to execute sales engagement tasks.
Here are key reasons marketing automation is not a substitute for an SEP:
- Personal engagement: Marketing automation generates leads, but doesn’t work them.
- Skills gap: Marketing automation takes time and training to reach proficiency, while sales reps can quickly onboard with an SEP.
- Omni-channel engagement: Marketing automation doesn’t provide the flexibility needed for personal conversations or support tasks like outbound phone calls or LinkedIn actions.
- Deliverability: Marketing automation sends emails from a third-party server instead of directly from the sales rep’s inbox.
Marketing automation and sales engagement are much more powerful when you integrate both into your tech stack, alongside Salesforce.
If you’re looking to make the most out of Salesforce and accelerate deals, leveraging an SEP will improve customer engagement rates, number of appointments booked, and ultimately increase revenue.
Want to learn more about how to enable your sales team to convert more pipeline to revenue? Request a demo of Outreach today.
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