Sales automation – what is it?

At a certain stage of the company’s expansion, proper sales management requires a certain change of mind – or rather, the willingness to delegate some responsibility to special software. Software devoid of the human factor, of course, will not replace the salesperson in convincing the customer that this product or service will be the best choice for the lead – at least not at the present stage. However, it can revolutionize the company’s approach to sales organization. After all, it cannot be denied that the “traditional” model of sales management has several disadvantages, of which two are in the lead:

– Sales specialist’s time is limited – the more small sales-related obligations a salesperson has to fulfill, the less time (and energy) he has to actually sell;
– Even in the best organizations, leads are sometimes “wasted” – for example, when they were not communicated to the right person at the right time or their potential was misjudged.

The Sales Automation software allows you to eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, the damage caused by the above-mentioned points. It saves the time of the sales department on all “fronts” and – properly configured – deals with the organization and classification of leads. All this is done with the inevitability and immediacy of a computer program. In short, the Sales Automation module in HubSpot:

– Improves productivity by replacing the salesperson in many necessary organizational tasks;
– He makes sure that the lead is not “lost in action”;
– It ensures consistency of sales data between all departments in the company;
– Allows you to associate a given lead with activities that he performed on the company’s website – for example, he visited specific subpages or completed a given form;
– Offers the ability to send internal messages to all members of the sales department;
– It allows you to see the entire history of cooperation with a given lead – conversation records, logs of activities performed, etc. on a clear timeline.
– In conjunction with the Marketing Hub, it enables full automation of e-mails – for example, automatic dispatch of an upselling offer, reminders about the need to settle an invoice or a request for an opinion on a product / service.

What does our Head of Sales Donald Cooper say about HubSpot Sales?

HubSpot enables me to manage my sales team with greater efficiency. Detailed data analyzes and non-standard reports allow you to study the sales effectiveness of salespeople and observe their ability to build relationships with customers. Thanks to the possibility of tracking leads on our website in real time, I can select the most engaged ones and configure the appropriate e-mail notifications for my team. This is just a drop in the ocean of possibilities that HubSpot offers us. It is definitely worth using them to develop your business.

It should not be forgotten that while Sales Automation in the right hands is an advanced tool that can be a catalyst for the dynamic development of the company, the software will not be able to use its capabilities without proper configuration. Sales automation is a powerful ally of the merchant, but without it is nothing more than galaxies of ones and zeros. The introduction of this type of software to the company must therefore take place in a thoughtful and organized manner, and all people who will use Sales Automation in the company should be properly trained. Don’t worry – in the vast majority of cases it pays off.

Sales Automation CRM

The most important element of Sales Automation is certainly CRM (customer relationship management) – software for managing customer relations. The times when all related processes were organized using Excel’s spreadsheet should be rightly called the past – the CRM system can be compared to the transition from a cab to a modern car.

HubSpot Free CRM as part of a wider ecosystem perfectly meets the needs of enterprises in establishing and maintaining relationships with potential and current customers. What is it about?

Sales automation in HubSpot – for the merchant

Let’s start from the beginning, i.e. adding contacts to the lead base and initial selection. The marketing module in HubSpot allows you to develop a personalized workflow. In this way, based on the source from which the lead comes, the data he provided and the activities he performed on the website, it is possible not only to automatically enter it into the contact database, but also to categorize a given lead.

People who have participated in, for example, a company-organized webinar on a specific topic, will rather be interested in such a service or related options, rather than in another part of the offer. The source of the contact may also be advertising on Facebook or Google Ads, the form on the website and many others. There are many options for classifying leads thanks to the almost complete customization – other examples are categorization by position (with a CEO with a high probability the conversation will look different than with a junior specialist), the size of the company and any other value you set.

The Sales module in HubSpot allows you to create message templates with personalized tokens, thanks to which the system can automatically fill in such elements as company name, name or position. This provides a noticeable time saving in relation to writing content, and even the typical copying of a template from another source and adapting it to a given lead. HubSpot does it for you.

What’s more, thanks to the e-mail tracking function in HubSpot, the trader will see in the system that the message was opened by the addressee, the link in it was clicked or the file attached to the message was downloaded (notifications can also be displayed on the desktop in the form of push notifications).

If the lead ignores the sales email, the sales chances drop, but are still more than zero. The Sequence feature in HubSpot Sales allows you to automatically send several messages at specific intervals to remind a potential customer of the offer. And when the dialogue is established, HubSpot will immediately remove the contact from the list and stop sending any more e-mails.

Thanks to the integration with the Google calendar or the calendar available in Microsoft Office 365, HubSpot will also help the salesperson to arrange a meeting with a potential customer. It is enough to send a link with the available hours to the lead, and the lead can quickly and conveniently click on a suitable date. The meeting will automatically appear in your calendar.

Sales automation in HubSpot for a manager

HubSpot is also a powerful convenience for leaders of sales teams. In many organizations, reporting is a very time-consuming (and often necessary) job. HubSpot has a solution for this – customized reports can be automatically generated and then sent via e-mail to members of the sales team, management board or other people associated with the process.

Another advantage of HubSpot as a CRM are the enormous possibilities of automatic categorization of leads. From basic classification options – for example based on company size, location, industry or type (B2B / B2C) to fully definable custom fields that can be useful in a given activity. What’s more, with HubSpot you can also create a scoring system for potential customers.

What is it about? Thanks to the recording of various events and the possibility of adding your own fields, a given lead can be subject to automatic evaluation. For example, failing to pick up the phone several times will result in receiving negative points, and reading the article on the subpage of a specific service will result in a positive ranking. You can extend the entire algorithm with even such elements as e-mail address analysis – if the customer is potentially interested in a service or product with a high price, and the company e-mail is on a free domain, it can be initially assumed that the cost probably exceeds the customer’s capabilities.

With the right number of factors and giving them the right weight, HubSpot can present the potential of cooperation with the client using a percentage value. Of course, it will only be an auxiliary indicator, but if properly configured, it will be surprisingly effective in scoring.

HubSpot and the power of integration

Even the best designed and configured CRM system would be of little use if it could not be integrated with other services. Enterprises use many external services for various purposes – from lead acquisition, to analytics, to logistics and many more. In the case of sales automation, HubSpot can be integrated with different types of software, used in principle at each of the steps mentioned above.

– For example, Sales Navigator will help in “catching” leads,
– LeadSpace or LeadGenius can be useful in obtaining information,
– When arranging calls, apart from the Google and Microsoft calendars, you can also use Calendly or Arrangr,
– In the analysis of sales calls, it is worth taking an interest in tools based largely on artificial intelligence: these are, among others, Wingman or Avoma,
– ClientPoint or PandaDoc will work well in developing valuations and sales proposals,
– In report automation, your (and HubSpot) ally will be, for example, QuarterOne.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg – the number of tools you can integrate with HubSpot is truly impressive – and sales automation is just a slice of the platform as a whole.

The beginning of the SEO contract

The client in question operates in the Home and garden industry, and more precisely, offers indoor and outdoor lighting. We signed a contract with him in May 2019, so recently two years of cooperation in the positioning of the online store have passed. As we have already mentioned, the store was new then and it did not have an established position in search engines. The first pages have already been indexed and the website appeared in the results rankings, but these effects were disproportionate to the store’s potential. So, together with the client, we started to create a good history of the domain, which was to result in increased visibility on the web.

Initially, we put the greatest emphasis on creating a transparent, SEO-friendly structure of product categories. We developed an intuitive category tree and selected the most advantageous phrases, meta title and H1 headings for each subpage. After the client accepted our plan, we started to complete the category descriptions, taking into account the phrases selected for positioning. Our copywriters have created texts that describe a given group of products, which we then implemented on the client’s website. Gradually, we also started to build a valuable profile of links leading to a positioned website. Their quality was of key importance for us, because in the evaluation of algorithms, much more than quantity matters whether they come from pages that Google has previously found helpful for the user and trustworthy.

Results after 2 years of cooperation

After two years of work on positioning, the site has started to be quite well visible on the web. From May 2019 to May 2021, the number of phrases in TOP3 increased from 9 to 70, i.e. the client’s website was displayed in the highest positions on many strategic terms from the point of view of the brand. When it comes to phrases in TOP10, we recorded an increase of over 700% – the page appeared on the first page in the search engine for 771 terms. The number of keywords in the TOP50 also increased – from 1072 to 6649 to be exact.

We also obtained valuable links for the client with the dofollow attribute, i.e. those that network robots take into account when evaluating the website. They were placed mainly on the back pages of the relevant subject.

You have to anticipate in SEO

The list of factors taken into account by Google’s algorithm when determining page value is long and largely secret. The Mountain View company itself is reluctant to mention planned updates, and if it reveals a ranking factor, it is usually long after its introduction. Therefore, positioning is also about testing solutions, observing the results of various websites and drawing conclusions, which counts the most in the evaluation, and what will most likely be the most important in the future. Our analyzes led us to the conclusion that in the future, a large amount of valuable, unique content on the website will be of great importance, and in this direction we developed our clients’ websites the most.

Our forecasts turned out to be correct, and it did not take long to fulfill them. At the turn of May and June this year, there was an update, as a result of which pages with a small amount of content fell in the rankings, and those with SEO-optimized texts recorded large increases. This also happened with the website of the described client. Compared to the beginning of May to the end of July, the number of phrases in the top places changed as follows:
TOP3: from 70 to 124,
TOP10: from 771 to 1.12 thousand,
TOP50: from 6.64 thousand to 8.27 thousand.

This shows that the direction we are taking is the right one, and the visibility of the customer site is likely to increase even more in the coming months.

The discussed results were achieved through the Advanced package for e-commerce ($ 3,500 / month), which is intended for small online stores.

First things first: don’t expect an instant return on investment from your online store. As in any business niche, e-commerce takes time to develop your business and guide your customers through the marketing funnel. However, if you think it is taking too long and your results have not flickered for a long time, you do need to do something about it. You cannot “add to business” endlessly. So what to do?

Look objectively at your e-shop activity

What aspects are worth taking into account?

The quality of customer service
What was the process of servicing customers who so far decided to use the services of your store? Was everything smooth and without problems? The ordered products reached the addressees on time, and the buyers received the goods as described? Or maybe there are some reservations and complaints? If so, how did you react to them?

There is a lot of competition in the e-commerce world. Today, you win not only with the lowest price, but also with the highest quality of customer service. If there are clashes and negative reviews follow, the chances of staying in business with a good result decrease.

If you notice that the sales process can be improved and streamlined – be sure to implement these changes! The more satisfied the customer with the cooperation, the greater the probability that they will recommend your store to their friends. The power of such recommendations can be very long!

Communication channels used
To increase the visibility of your e-shop, you need to be where your customers are. Is your e-shop present on social media, e.g. on Facebook? If so, is your profile active there? How often do new posts appear on it? Do you answer customer questions? What are you posting? Are there other customer reviews? These elements may be important because activity in social media builds awareness of your brand and creates its image.

Also remember that social media is a great place to promote e-shops. More about it in a moment.

Ranges
Take a look at how many people visit your e-shop each month. Combine this information with competition data. Why is the number of visits important? Because the number of transactions also depends to a large extent on it. Although it is obvious that not everyone who visits your e-store will automatically become its customer, each visit brings you closer to conversion, and the better the targeted group, the greater the probability.

In addition, the larger the ranges, the more valuable the page becomes in the eyes of Google’s algorithms, and thus – the higher its position in search results.

Take a closer look at your advertising strategy

Advertising is a trade lever – this well-known saying is more than just an empty phrase. It works very well for an e-commerce niche. With a huge number of online stores, you have to advertise. A well-thought-out, coherent and well-implemented campaign is the foundation of success.

So how have you advertised yourself so far? Did you only use free tools, e.g. ran a Facebook shop profile without even investing in advertising on this website? Or maybe you spent a lot of money on marketing, but it did not translate into return on investment?

In the latter situation, there may be many reasons for the failure of the campaign – from the wrong selection of the target group, through an inadequately formulated message, to incorrect setting of campaign parameters. This could happen, for example, if you did all these tasks yourself, and you are not an expert in digital marketing.

In theory, setting up an advertising campaign is simple. Exactly. In theory. In practice, not necessarily. Without a good action plan and its precise implementation, the advertising budget may go away, not even increasing the number of visits to the store, let alone conversions. Therefore, it is extremely important to optimize the campaign, i.e. target it so that it invests funds in groups where it is most profitable.

Does this mean you need to cut your advertising budget and focus on other aspects of your business? On the contrary! Money well spent on marketing will translate into the expected results and will allow you to finally spread your wings.

Effective advertising in e-commerce, which is what?

Marketing in the world of e-commerce can go two ways: outbound and inbound.

Outbound marketing is all tools that focus on actively looking for customers and convincing them to take advantage of the offer. Inbound marketing is based on inbound traffic – that is, conducting activities in such a way that the customers come to the company themselves.

A good strategy for an online store should include tools in the area of both of these strategies – so that you can achieve short-term goals (e.g. quick increase in sales in connection with a promotional campaign) and long-term (i.e. acquiring customers who will come back more than once, and even promote your business). The question is, what exactly to do?

There are tons of advertising tools you can use. One thing is certain: it is worth focusing on direct advertising, PR activities and SEO tools. Let us discuss them one by one.

Online store advertising

There are many advertising tools on the web. And so, e-commerce campaigns can be conducted, for example, using:
– Google Ads, such as product ads – it is worth making sure that products from the store appear in the advertising section in Google search results. Currently, the search engine presents a “carousel” of products above advertising links and from organic results. This is where you want to be!
– banner advertising – advertising banners, presenting, for example, the latest promotional campaigns and discounts, should go to, for example, portals whose content is identical to your offer.
– remarketing advertising – it can take many forms, but the rule is simple: if the customer has already visited your online store, the ads displayed on the banners will directly relate to his visit. For example, he will see specific products he has been browsing with a proposal to reduce their prices. This strategy works very effectively!
– ads in social media – on Facebook, these are ads redirecting to the store, placed in the news feed, as well as in the side panels of the website.

Large online stores also advertise in traditional media – on the radio and even on television. However, you can only afford it if you plan very large ranges and are sure that you can handle them logistically.

Remember: advertising, especially the banner one, is primarily used to achieve short-term sales goals. It is aimed especially at consumers who are already potentially interested in your offer and need an impulse to take action.

Image is important

Take care of it especially in the world of e-commerce. How to do it?

– Run profiles on social media – be where your potential customers are and interact with them. Which social media should you choose? Of course, Facebook is a must, also when you operate in the B2B area. Instagram and LinkedIn can also be useful.
– Join consumer feedback programs – give customers the opportunity to review your store and try to get as many authentic, positive recommendations as possible. Such an opinion may be encouraged by, for example, an additional discount on subsequent purchases.
– Think about working with influencers – especially if you want to sell on a large scale.

Increase your visibility

The reason why an online store may not be profitable may be that… it is invisible to Google’s algorithms. And if it’s not there, it may be harder for the customer to reach it. How to change it?

– optimize the content on the e-shop website – if you use product descriptions from their manufacturer, get rid of them. Such plagiarisms are poorly received by search engine robots and lower your rating. However, unique texts on the home page, as well as those containing categories, subcategories and specific products will strengthen your position;
– think about sponsored articles that will combine SEO and image functions. Thanks to them, you will gain valuable linking and engage customers at the same time,
– make sure that the e-store meets the applicable standards – it is, among others, o responsiveness of the website, as well as the loading time of the start page or smooth operation of the entire store,
– consider running a shop blog – it will serve as a guide for a potential customer, and will also be a great tool for long tail positioning.

Acquire valuable leads

When does a client become a client? Once he knows your brand, trusts it, is aware of your products and the need to purchase them. However, in order for him to be able to go all the way through the marketing funnel, you must first get in touch with him – so that you can stay in it for a long time.

The best way? Acquiring e-shop newsletter recipients. It’s quite a simple task – especially if you offer a 10% discount on purchases for entering your address. It’s worth it!

A long mailing list with the addresses of potentially interested people is a real gold mine. In well-matched e-mails in terms of content and graphics, you can:
– recommend new texts on the company blog,
– inform about current promotions and discounts,
– remind you about the products you offer.

This way you will stay in touch with the client and build a long-term relationship. And what next? Conversion is on the horizon!

There may be more reasons why your store “does not sell” – for example, a terrible website layout, difficulty in making a purchase (generally bad UX), or, for example, poorly selected payment or shipping options. It is worth auditing such a store to gain a holistic knowledge of what can be better in it.