Sales Funnel Management Software for 2023- How to Make the Right Choice
Automation–you probably come across this word quite often in the present times. From the coffee maker that now can automatically make your favorite brew at your command, to Tesla’s self-driven cars, automation is everywhere. Including sales and marketing.
We recently covered all about sales funnel management and why it matters. However, while you could create an amazing sales funnel for your business, you’d need automation to make it work better and actually get results. In fact, according to an Adsetra report, level players from different companies found that automation saves time (74%), increases customer engagement (68%), ensures timely communications (58%), and increases opportunities including up-selling (58%).
Needless to say, automating your sales funnel management, goes a long way in boosting your growth. A sales funnel management software is what you need to get there.
What is a sales funnel management software?
A sales funnel management software or sales funnel software essentially is a tool that provides you with features to automate and create collaterals that you’d need in your sales funnel. These could include landing pages, follow-up emails, and payment gateways. Not just that, it also provides you with an end-to-end overview of your sales funnel.
More often than not, softwares are considered as a replacement for human effort and the value they bring. That’s not actually the case, though. Using sales funnel software does not take away the need of a marketer or a salesperson from the funnel. It just enables them to do their job better. For instance, if your sales funnel is a car that needs to be fixed, then the software becomes the tools you’d use as a mechanic to fix it. The tools don’t replace the mechanic, do they?
Source: Sales Flare
Another thing to note is that companies often use a Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM) for sales funnel management, as it has all the tools and features they need to convert leads into paying customers and are more holistic in nature. More often than not, you’d find a CRM and Sales Funnel Software being used interchangeably.
Now that we’re clear that sales funnel software is an aid to the sales team and you are keen on investing in one, the bigger elephant in the room is, which software to choose. Before we answer that for you, here are some common features that any software you choose must have to make it worth your dime.
Must-Have Features of a Sales Funnel Software
Lead Management Capabilities
A sales funnel software or a CRM must help you collect, store and manage leads so that they can be moved and nurtured through the sales funnel. This translates to capabilities of generation campaign landing pages, and forms that automatically collect lead information to add to the system.
Once the lead data is stored, the software must assist you in scoring the lead based on how quickly they need to be contacted and then assigning it to a relevant salesperson to take ahead. Your sales funnel management software should help you track all your leads at all times so that no one gets missed out and they’re engaged in a timely and organized fashion.
Real-Time Tracking and Analysis
Along with tracking your leads, you need a lot of information regarding your sales funnel to improve it. With real-time tracking and auto-generated reports, you get to know which sales channel is working the best, which team member needs help in conversion, how close you are to your monthly, quarterly, and yearly goal, and much more.
This enables you to deploy corrective measures wherever necessary. For instance, if you see that leads from a particular city are converting actively, you’d engage them faster and get more customers.
Integrations
Source: FreePik
In the present times, none of your business functions can work in isolation, so you’d want your CRM or sales funnel software to have as many integrations to your existing business tools as possible to help get work done faster and in a more hassle-free manner. For instance, the tool should integrate with social media and advertising channels so that you don’t have to add leads generated there manually.
Similarly, it should integrate with some sort of calendaring tool so that your sales team can easily scheduling meetings with different leads without any overlap. The list of the number of integrations is endless. The key is to find a tool that integrates well with your existing software palette.
Email Automation
It’s no news that almost 90% of sales and marketing people prefer to communicate with leads using email as they reach the target directly. So, you need a tool to automate the emails that are sent out to make their work easier. While you could always go for a tool that integrates with your email marketing tool, you’d find that follow-up emails and nurture campaigns for leads are often built well, if that happens on the same tool. You’re able to plan your sales funnel and add necessary automated emails at each step more holistically.
In fact, email automation becomes one of the most crucial features of the sales funnel as it lets you build a pipeline where
Source: Mail Munch
you can manage to convert a lead without much human involvement. It not only lets you set an email trigger to a classified lead but also ensures that it’s sent at the time you decide. That way, even if your sales team is caught up, your communication bridge with the lead is maintained.
Intuitive Interface
Keep in mind that the tool you’d invest in would be used by all your sales team members. In fact, if you choose a comprehensive tool like a CRM, then your marketing, sales, and customer team would need to use the tool at some point in the customer journey.
The goal of the sales funnel software here is to enable your sales team, right? So, the tool must be easy enough for them to set up and use. It should not become an added hassle that they have to deal with while trying to convert your leads into paying customers.
You’d find that most CRM or sales funnel management softwares come with a trial version for you to explore before making the purchase. If not, there’s definitely a demo shared. Always make some of your sales team members experience the trial or the demo version before going for a software, as they are the ones who have to use it at the end of the day.
How to Make the Right Choice– A Checklist
Keeping the above features in mind, here’s a checklist we’ve made that you can use while finding the right sales funnel software for your business:
- Matches all your business requirements in terms of sales.
- Integrates with several existing tools you need.
- Has features that allow process automation as you scale.
- Is mobile-friendly.
- Your sales team likes the demo/trial version.
We’ll go a step further and help you with the top 4 sales funnel management software for 2022 that you can choose from as per your business needs.
4 Best Sales Funnel Software Tools for 2023
Hubspot Growth Platform
Hubspot Growth Platform has a comprehensive set of tools that your marketing, sales, services, and customers team can use throughout a customer’s journey. From lead generation to conversion to thereafter, the platform has tools that will cover and automate the process.
The good thing here is that it also allows you to choose parts of the platforms depending on your needs. You could choose the marketing plan, or the CRM sales plan or the services plan in isolation or purchase the whole set.
In addition to this, it has a free version with restricted features for each of these tools that you can use to explore the platform before making a decision.
Source: Hubspot
Systeme.io
Syteme.io is a great choice for companies who’re starting out their online sales management. You may be a big corp or a startup, if you’re looking for an affordable tool to start your sales through online channels, Systeme.io is a good catch.
While it has several features like business automation, autoresponders, your sales team would need their sales funnel builder that lets you create funnel and landing pages almost instantly. You can set up automated emails, and campaigns on it too.
Source: Systeme.io
Copper
Copper is the best choice to go for if you’re using the G-Suite for your business. It’s only the CRM that offers a complete G-Suite integration. Not just that, it is completely comprehensive in its features and integrates with most of the common business tools like Slack and Zendesk.
It has lead management, sales tracking, sales funnel automation, and whatnot. In fact, it also has great predictive analysis features that let you forecast your sales and manage opportunities well.
Source: Copper
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is for the ones who like to keep things simple. It’s known in the market as one of the easiest sales funnel software tools to work with. It’s got the email and social media automation, along with an easy landing page creator too.
Though what stands out about ClickFunnels is the upselling tool that lets you automatically upsell to any shopper who’s bought something from your website earlier, making it a great choice for e-commerce businesses.
Source: ClickFunnels
To Sum Up
There are plenty of sales funnel management tools and CRM software to help you enable your sales team. Our aim here is to help you make an informed decision by highlighting features to look for and some of the tools that stood out to us.
As long as you keep your sales team in the loop and make a choice that works for them while keeping in mind the essentials, your decision would definitely be correct. Just don’t forget to try before you buy!
