The Beginner’s Guide to CRM Strategy

Customer relationship management (CRM) has become one of the most critical components of any organization in the modern era.

Regardless of your business size or industry, CRM systems allow your team to track prospects and manage customer communication from a single source of truth. It’s arguably the best way to improve customer loyalty and deliver the best possible customer experience.

But CRM tools alone won’t deliver the results you need if you don’t have a strategy. It’s like building a house without a blueprint—chances are, you’re going to have problems.

On the flip side, the right CRM strategy will take your business to new levels. From small businesses to enterprise organizations and everything in between, this guide will explain what you need to know about creating a winning CRM strategy.

What is CRM Strategy?

A CRM (customer relationship management) strategy is a business plan designed to improve the customer experience and increase sales. The strategy encompasses different actions, technology, and processes related to marketing, sales, and customer service departments.

Winning CRMs strategies will ultimately provide a more enjoyable customer experience throughout the entire customer journey. The plan makes it easier to track and identify the best leads while unifying marketing, sales, and customer support teams.

Overall, every business as a whole will benefit from implementing a CRM strategy.

5 Tools to Improve Your CRM Strategy

Executing a CRM strategy all starts with the best CRM software. Here are five of my favorite CRM tools that will make it easier to put your plan into action:

#1 — HubSpot

HubSpot is an industry leader in the customer relationship management space. It’s a name that typically comes to mind first when anyone brings up CRM software. The platform is trusted by 100,000+ organizations in more than 120 countries. Some of the top businesses that rely on HubSpot for CRM strategy include Trello, SoundCloud, SurveyMonkey, the World Wildlife Fund, and more.

I like HubSpot because they have a plethora of different solutions within the CRM category. There’s a sales tool, marketing tool, customer support tool, and an all-in-one CRM platform that covers everything you need under a single roof. Another top benefit of HubSpot is the fact it integrates 500+ third-party business apps to extend the functionality of your CRM software. Sign up today and get started for free.

#2 — Salesforce

Trusted by small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike, Salesforce is another powerhouse in the CRM software space. The platform is used by 150,000+ organizations across every industry imaginable. What really makes Salesforce stand out from the crowd is its scalability. Sales teams can manage leads, monitor pipeline activity, and close deals faster without guesswork.

Another reason why Salesforce ranks so high on our list is that it streamlines your sales process. You can use the tool to automate tedious administrative tasks and spend more time focusing on what matters most—closing. Salesforce has unique solutions for different use cases, like sales, marketing, ecommerce, analytics, user roles, and more. Plans start at $25 per user per month, and you can try it free for 14 days.

#3 — Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a user-friendly sales CRM and pipeline management solution. Over 95,000 organizations across the globe rely on this tool to manage customer relationships. What stands out with Pipedrive compared to other tools in this category is its simplicity. If it’s your first time using CRM software, Pipedrive doesn’t have much of a learning curve. So your team can get up and running right away without getting caught up in the technical aspects of CRM.

But don’t let Pipedrive’s simplicity fool you. This feature-rich CRM software is as powerful as it gets. You’ll benefit from tools that will help you manage leads, close deals, automate repetitive tasks, track customer communications, and more. Pipedrive even provides you with insightful reports and deep metrics related to your CRM strategy. Plans start at just $12.50 per user per month. Try Pipedrive for free with a 14-day trial.

#4 — Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM makes it easy to drive customer engagement, manage leads, and increase conversions for your business. With so many features packed into this powerful tool, it should come as no surprise that Zoho CRM is used by 150,000+ organizations globally. This includes household names like Amazon, Netflix, Bose, and Suzuki.

With Zoho CRM, you can communicate with your customers across every channel, including phone, email, live chat, and social media. You’ll have access to detailed information about your customers and leads, like status in the sales pipeline, name, how many pages they visited on your website, and more. Zoho CRM even goes a step further by helping you identify a lead’s probability of converting and provides you with insight like the expected revenue from the customer. There’s a free forever plan that’s suitable for small teams. Paid plans start at $14 per month, and you can try it for free with a 15-day trial.

#5 — Salesflare

Salesflare isn’t quite as well-known as some of the other tools on our list. But that’s because this tool is designed for a very specific niche: small businesses in the B2B space. The software works seamlessly with other tools that you’re already using, like Gmail, Microsoft Office 365, iCloud, and more. If you’re ready to leverage automation and take your B2B sales to the next level, Salesflare should be on your radar.

I like this tool because it eliminates busywork like manual data entry. This keeps your team selling while the software takes care of the rest. It’s packed with features to help you follow up with the leads at the perfect opportunity, so you never miss a sales window. You’ll also have full access to a lead’s communication history, which is perfect for teams working collectively on sales and customer service. Sign up today to start your free trial of Salesflare.

The Basics of CRM Strategy

Before you can successfully create a CRM strategy, you need a firm grasp of the fundamentals. This section will break down the core components of a customer relationship management strategy.

Company Goals

The first thing you need to do is take a step back and clearly identify your company goals. This goes beyond the obvious goal of “making money.”

Look past the short-term sales metrics and establish goals that are sustainable for the future growth of your business. How can your CRM strategy achieve those goals? Customer data is useless if you don’t know what you’re going to do with it. This will vary by business type and industry.

For example, an ecommerce shop might have a multi-step sales strategy for collecting leads and driving sales online. Whereas a brick-and-mortar retail shop might put more emphasis on referrals and a customer rewards program.

Once these goals have been established, the rest of your CRM strategy will be easier to plan.

Create a Customer Persona

For CRM strategies to be successful, you need a clear picture of your ideal customer. Trying to sell to anyone and everyone is a losing strategy and defeats the purpose of using CRM software to manage your leads.

But a specific customer persona will take your sales strategy to the next level. CRM tools can use this information to provide lead scoring metrics and qualify prospects accordingly. Now your sales team and marketing efforts will be much more specific and highly personalized to your ideal target market. No more wasting time on the phone with cold leads that were never going to convert.

Map Your Customer Conversion Funnel

You need to have a complete understanding of how customers navigate through your buying process. This will vary from company to company and have even more variations based on industry and business model.

Understanding the buyer’s journey is one of the most important aspects of planning and executing a CRM strategy.

Does your target market need four or five different touchpoints before they buy? Or do they convert with a single targeted offer when landing on your home page? Are you able to reach your customers on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram? Or do you need to qualify B2B leads on LinkedIn and reach out to them with one-on-one phone calls from your sales reps?

Unify Your Entire Team

All of your employees must be on the same page with your CRM strategy. This extends far and beyond an individual understanding of what needs to happen. There must also be a cross-department collaboration to ensure success.

Everyone on your team will use the CRM strategy and your CRM software differently. But customers and prospects don’t want to see that type of division when they’re interacting with a brand. If a sales rep takes a call or live chat message from an inbound lead but doesn’t understand the marketing promotion that it came from, the chances of converting that customer are slim.

Similarly, if a customer support agent doesn’t understand the buyer’s journey that the customer has gone through, they’ll struggle to offer a high level of personalized service.

Establish Clear KPIs

Key performance metrics—better known as KPIs—are crucial to the success of any CRM strategy. Without knowing what to track, how can you possibly know if your CRM strategy is working?

Start with baseline measurements of where you are now so you can see if the new CRM strategy improved your success rates.

The KPIs for one company won’t be identical to another. It all depends on your industry and business model. But for the most part, lots of you will be tracking metrics like website traffic, leads, conversion rates, repeat purchases, average order value, lifetime value, churn, customer satisfaction, etc.

CRM software can automatically track KPIs for you and deliver the results with easy-to-digest reports. This will allow you to make actionable adjustments and fine-tune your strategy.

3 Tricks For CRM Strategies

To improve your experience creating and implementing a CRM strategy, I want to share some quick tips and hacks to get you started. These tricks are perfect for beginners who are looking for a big impact out of the gate.

Trick #1: Prioritize Customers

“All customers are created equal” might be a nice slogan or line on your company mission statement, but it’s simply not true. If you want to run a successful business, you must be willing to prioritize your customers based on how much revenue and profitability they’ll generate.

Sales reps shouldn’t be spending hours on the phone with a lead who has a slim chance of converting and wouldn’t generate more than a percentage point of the sales quota if they did. That time would be much better spent following up with the most profitable customers or leads with the highest chances of converting.

This is something that your team can start doing today. Don’t be afraid to end those low-priority calls as soon as possible or send a one-line response to emails that won’t add value to your bottom line.

Trick #2: Integrate Other Tools With Your CRM Platform

If you haven’t done so already, take a moment to integrate your other business apps with your CRM software. This will really take your CRM strategy to the next level, and it takes minimal effort.

The CRM software you’re using is only as good as the customer data it’s tracking. There will be tons of information gaps if the software isn’t pulling data from other tools. Modern CRM platforms make it easy to set up these integrations. There typically won’t be any coding or advanced technical skills required, and you can do this in a matter of minutes.

This also eliminates the need to bounce back and forth between multiple platforms when selling to leads or providing support to customers.

Trick #3: Use the Right Technology

Your CRM strategy won’t be effective without the right tools. In addition to the solutions listed earlier in this post, check out our complete guide of the best CRM software.

All CRM software is not created equally. There’s CRM for sales, CRM for marketing, and CRM for support. You’ll even find different CRM solutions based on industry, role, and business type. The best CRM for an ecommerce site probably won’t be the best option for a B2B enterprise or a local retail shop.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Cold Emails

Cold emailing is something that most people dread. It is much harder than almost any other form of communication and requires patience and persistence. Anyone who has ever done cold emailing knows that rejection is just par for the course, and you can’t let it discourage you or keep you from continuing to try.

One of the reasons why cold emails are such a challenge is because the person on the other end of the email has no relationship with you. They are likely a complete stranger who is probably busy, and may not have the time or energy to give you (again, a stranger) the time of day. They may also be someone who is inundated with cold emails daily, and yet another one in their inbox isn’t exactly going to excite them.

However, when done well, cold emails can work. Some people find that they reach success rates of 20% with cold emails. However, before taking the plunge into the deep end of cold emails, you need to learn some tips, tricks, and basics.

What is a Cold Email?

A cold email is an email sent to someone that currently has no relationship with you. You may know this person via research, but the recipient does not know you.

This type of email is similar to a cold call but is a bit more friendly as it lets the person on the receiving side choose when he or she wants to open your email and read it (if they choose to do so at all).

Typically, cold emails serve the purpose of making a sale, a connection, or asking for help with something.

Though oftentimes people group cold emails and spam in the same category, they are not the same at all (when done correctly). Spam is usually a generic message that is not personalized and comes from a fake name. The subject line is also something that is misleading or tricks the recipient into thinking the email is different than it is.

Cold emails, on the other hand, are not generic (or they shouldn’t be, at least). They have a specific message that is catered to the specific recipient and they come from a real person with a real name (you). On top of that, the subject line gives a preview of what the email is about and does not lead the recipient astray.

3 Tools to Improve Cold Emails

It may seem like it’s easy enough to hop onto your email, craft something and send it off to someone. But it isn’t that simple, especially if you’re trying to send out a bunch of cold emails. This is something that sales teams run into. While the concept of automating emails sounds great, this is not something you want to do with cold emails to potential clients. They will quickly see through the generic message and click “delete.”

To avoid that from happening, use the below tools to take your cold email game to the next level.

Hubspot

Good customer relationship management (CRM) software is key to running a good business. This software allows you to focus on the customer and make sure their experience with your company is as beneficial for them as possible. While there are many CRM software companies in the industry, the one that gets our highest recommendation is Hubspot.

Hubspot offers a free plan that provides much more than any other CRM’s free plan, and that’s one of the reasons we love it. Included with their free plan you get:

• Contact management
• Deal management
• Task management
• Email tracking and notifications
• Email templates and scheduling
• Document sharing
• Meeting scheduling
• Email integration (Gmail and Outlook)
• Live chat

But when it comes to cold emails, what we love about Hubspot is that it offers a free email template builder.

As mentioned above, personalizing cold emails is key to the success of your efforts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of templates to help guide you and give you a starting place. Thanks to Hubspot’s integration with both Outlook and Gmail, this process is much easier.

By using Hubspot’s templates, you can get real-time metrics that let you know which templates are doing well, and which ones require some work. These metrics include things such as open rates, which let you know whether it’s simply your subject line that should be changed, as well as click rates, which let you know how good of a job you did convincing the recipient to explore further.

Hunter

One of the additional challenges of cold emails is finding the right person and address to send the email to. Some of this information may be easy to find with online research, while for others, it may be nearly impossible to chase down.

Enter Hunter. Hunter is a tool that helps you find and verify email addresses. Simply put in the domain name of the client you are interested in reaching out to, and Hunter’s program spits out a list of all the known email addresses for that specific domain.

Hunter gathers their information not via a single database but rather by crawling the web for email listings in all sorts of places such as social media, forums, and more.

On top of that, Hunter has a Chrome extension that gives you the ability to generate a list of email addresses for any website that you visit.

PersistIQ

If you are looking to scale your cold email outreach without sacrificing that necessary personal connection, consider adding PersistIQ to your toolbox.

PersistIQ works to determine the information about a prospective client quickly and easily via the potential client’s website. This tool allows you to focus your attention on crafting the perfect cold email rather than spending your time researching the prospect – because PersistIQ does it for you.

One of the things we like about PersistIQ is that it won’t allow you to send out emails that have not been personalized. Since personalization is such an important piece of a successful cold email, this feature is highly beneficial.

The Basics of Cold Emails

To compose a cold email that has the potential to bring in a new client, there are some basics you need to understand. Be sure to read through these things before sitting down to start writing that cold email.

Target

No one wants to put their time and energy into creating something that won’t be seen by the right people. This is true when it comes to cold emails, too. If you spend the time researching and writing a strong cold email, you want to make sure the recipient is even interested in what you are trying to sell.

That’s why identifying your target audience is an absolute must. This is something you should do before you get into the actual writing of the email.

To do this, you can do a couple of different things. You can look at the people that your competitors are targeting because they are people who already have an interest in what you’re selling. You can also use LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator to help you build email lists based on criteria specific to your company, and it helps you find the email addresses of potential leads.

Segment

Once you have your targeted list, you next want to break it down into segments. These segments are based on a variety of things including:

• Industry
• Job title
• Location
• Age
• Company size

Segmenting your email campaigns results in a much higher click-through rate than campaigns that are not segmented.

Subject Line

We have all gotten emails where we saw the subject line and immediately threw the message into the garbage. That is because the subject line didn’t speak to us in any way, and we deemed it spam.

47% of people decide whether or not to open an email based simply on the subject line, so there is no denying its importance. The best subject lines are those that are short and possibly even actionable. Typing a subject such as “Looking to Connect” won’t get you the open rates you’re looking for.

Emails with the recipient’s name in the subject line are more likely to get opened, and emails that create a sense of urgency or exclusivity also have higher open rates.

Personalize

If you are sending mass emails, personalizing can be a bit difficult and time-consuming, but it is worth taking the time to do so. If nothing else, at least include the recipient’s first name, rather than simply writing “Hello there” or “Hi, you!” A study from Experian showed that personalized emails have a 29% higher open rate and a 41% higher click-through rate than those emails that fail to personalize at all.

So take the few extra moments to add the recipient’s name into your cold emails, and reap the benefits.

Validate

You have done the research and gathered information about the person you are cold emailing, but keep in mind that they don’t know you at all. And why would they be interested in what a stranger has to say? If you can craft the perfect subject line that intrigues them to open the email, keep them reading the email and hopefully clicking through by showing that you are a credible and trustworthy person.

There are a few ways you can do this. If you have a mutual friend or contact, be sure to mention that. This name-dropping turns you from a stranger to a friend of a friend.

If you don’t have any people that connect you two, state your credibility or authority on the subject of your email. Don’t spend too much time on this, as you don’t want to come off braggadocious. Just a line or two is enough.

If you have neither of the above, then find something that you have in common, such as a hobby.

6 Tricks for Cold Emails

With the basics of cold emails down, now it’s time to consider some tricks that can increase the success rate of your efforts.

Give Them What They Want

Everyone has problems that they would like solved. If you are cold emailing someone trying to sell them a product or a service, make sure you explain how what you’re offering can help solve a specific problem of theirs. This requires research and personalization of your cold emails, which are two key things we’ve mentioned above.

Keep in mind that most of the people you email are busy and don’t have the time or energy to respond to emails that they don’t feel will help make their lives easier, or help them tackle a pain point. Thus, either offer a solution or provide them with something else, such as a connection to someone that they want to meet.

Keep it Short

There is no denying that short emails have a much higher chance of being read from start to finish than long ones. Have you ever opened up an email to find a novel of writing and closed it out because you just didn’t have the time or energy for something that long? I know I have. So keep your cold emails short and to the point, and make sure that the action you are requesting is very clear from the beginning.

One of the most natural ways to keep it short is to treat the email as a normal in-person conversation. When you chat with someone in real life, you wouldn’t spend a long time pitching. Instead, you would introduce yourself, mention a common interest or contact, and state why you want to talk to them. Treat your cold emails the same. Be nice and respectful, but keep them short and get to the point.

Show Appreciation

Keep in mind that a cold email is essentially asking someone to do you a favor. And this person you’re asking a favor to is a stranger. One way to soften this and make the recipient feel more willing to help is by showing appreciation. This extends beyond a simple “Thank you for your time.” The appreciation should be much more genuine, and be in the email at least a couple of times. Something more along the lines of “Thank you so much! I appreciate you taking the time to consider this” provides a much more gracious tone and increases the chances that the recipient will help you out.

Include Contact Info

Put all of your contact information in the signature of your cold email. The last thing you want is to have the recipient chase down any information about you – because they won’t do it.

This contact info needs to include:

• Your name
• Your job title
• Your company
• Your company’s physical address
• Your company’s website

You may even want to include a phone number in case they prefer talking on the phone over email. Don’t close any doors of ways this person could potentially get in contact with you.

Close With a Question

One of the worst things you can do is end a cold email with a line like “Let me know if you want to chat.” This places the decision-making on the recipient, which they may not want to take the time to do. This also puts the responsibility on the recipient to set up a time to chat that is best for them.

Instead, provide options. “I can chat on Thursday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Does a time in there work for you? If not, what time does? I will make it work.” This narrows things down and allows them to pick a time in a very specific time frame that is ideal for them.

Follow Up

You may feel like a nuisance doing this, but following up on cold emails is a necessity. Many salespeople find that cold emails require five follow-ups. It’s not always the case that the recipient isn’t interested – you may have just caught them at a bad time, or your email may have gotten lost in their inbox. There are plenty of reasons that someone may not respond to a cold email but do not automatically assume that it is because they aren’t interested.

To make the follow-up process and painless as possible for both you and the person at the receiving end of the email, there are a few things you can do.

1. Stay friendly. Don’t ever say “I didn’t hear from you, so am reaching out again.” Rather, say something like “Just checking in to see if you’ve had a chance to consider what I shared with you last week.”
2. Allow some time between follow-ups. Sending follow-ups daily looks desperate and comes off as annoying. Instead, wait a week between each follow-up email.
3. Give them a chance to opt out. To keep from wasting your time and theirs, if they are not interested, provide them an opportunity to say so. A good way to do this is by using a phrase such as “Please let me know if you aren’t the right person to chat with about this.”

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How to Build a Sales Funnel

Businesses design sales funnels to lead prospective customers through the buying process. When built correctly, funnels can take a person who has never heard of your business and turn them into a paying customer.

Without a firm grasp of how sales funnels work, you’ll never be able to maximize the reach of your company.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling online, in-store, direct to consumer, or B2B—every business in every industry should have a sales funnel. This guide will teach you how to build a sales funnel that converts.

What to Expect When Building a Sales Funnel

Creating a sales funnel might seem complicated, especially if you’re a beginner. But with five steps, you can simplify the entire process:

1. Understand the Sales Funnel Stages
2. Use Software to Build Your Sales Funnel
3. Create a New Sales Funnel
4. Add a Deal to the Sales Funnel
5. Move Deals Through the Sales Funnel

The Good

Sales funnels are arguably the most crucial way businesses generate leads and convert them into paying customers. Once you can implement a successful sales funnel, you’ll quickly benefit from increased revenue.

While sales funnels can be complex and time-consuming to get right, once it is locked in and doing well, it will continue to work for you in perpetuity, making it key for scaling your business. After all, to be successful, a business must make a high volume and consistent sales to grow.

Your sales funnel will keep working 24/7/365. Sales funnels are key for turning leads into customers. The better your sales funnel, the better your sales. Ultimately, a great sales funnel will be predictable, measurable, and allow for unlimited growth.

Plus, you don’t have to create every sales funnel by hand. Many great software solutions make this process much easier for you, some of which come with sales funnel templates. So, if you’re stuck, in a rush, or just don’t want to create one from scratch, you can take advantage of industry-specific templates to get you started.

If you’re using software to create and manage your sales funnel, you will typically also benefit from a visual sales pipeline. These tools provide a complete overview of your sales process, so you understand exactly how many open leads are pending and which stage of the funnel they’re in.

Most sales funnel tools are user-friendly, and you won’t need a technical background to get started. In some cases, it’s as simple as dragging and dropping a sale from one stage to another.

The Bad

While sales funnels are crucial to your company’s success, the implementation and management process comes with its fair share of challenges.

The most significant issue with sales funnels is the breakdown of communication between marketing and sales departments. Since the marketing funnels and sales funnels overlap somewhat, those two teams must be able to work together to be successful.

If the two teams are not on the same page, leads get dropped, goals are missed, and deals are lost. And in most cases, neither team will want to take the blame. It may be cliche to say they will blame each other, but it is cliche for a reason. Marketing will say that sales lost the deal, the sales team will claim the marketing department didn’t do a good job qualifying them.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon and can lead to a hostile work environment and a breakdown of the company culture, making it even more difficult for the two teams to work together moving forward.

To keep the two departments working together and avoid the unrest, it is essential to have clearly defined roles and goals. Both teams need to fully understand what their part of the larger funnel is and how it all works together. Have the two teams meet regularly and discuss the sales process, how the funnel works, how to improve it, and share successes.

The fact is that if marketing and sales are not working together toward the common goal of closing deals and growing the business, lead and customer acquisition suffer the consequences.

It’s also worth noting that just one mistake in the sales funnel can cause a ripple effect throughout your entire sales process. Even if the end of the funnel is perfect, few prospects will get to that point if there are problems at the top of the funnel.

Step 1: Understand the Sales Funnel Stages

Before we can dive into the details related to building a sales funnel, you need to have a firm grasp of the different stages of one.

The exact names of each stage might vary slightly depending on who you ask or the graphic you look at. But generally speaking, sales funnels can be broken down into four phases:

• Prospect
• Qualified lead
• Opportunity
• Closed

Sales funnels are not the same as marketing funnels, which focus on making potential leads aware of your brand and products and then capturing them as a lead to getting their information. Once a lead is captured, the next stage is turning them into a prospect interested in purchasing from your company. This is part of the marketing funnel and overlaps with the start of a sales funnel.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these stages in greater detail below.

Prospect

When a person is a prospect, they are part of both the end of the marketing team’s part of the funnel and the beginning of the sales team’s funnel. In the prospect phase, the potential customer is now aware of your brand and has expressed some interest in learning more, including giving your company their contact information, viewing a demo, or subscribing to a newsletter.

In the prospect stage, you are continuing to nurture and educate the lead on what your company does and how your product or service will benefit them. Email marketing is a big piece of this stage and continues to educate the lead on your business.

Qualified Lead

What takes a lead from prospect to qualified is digging into and screening the lead to make sure your offerings are a good fit for them. In most cases, both sales and marketing teams will qualify leads. The marketing team is attempting to qualify the lead throughout their process so that by the time the lead gets to the sales team and into the sales funnel, only minimal qualifying is needed.

When marketing is qualifying a lead, they are looking to see if the person seems like a good fit for your company’s product of service. Do they fit the ideal customer persona?

When sales is qualifying a lead, they are digging further into the specific lead to find out their needs, pain points, timeline for purchasing, budget, decision-making ability, and more.

Opportunity

Third is the opportunity stage of a sales funnel. This is the stage at which salespeople discover what specific opportunities there are to sell a product or service to the lead. To identify opportunities for sales, the team may send them special offers, discount codes, or start a negotiation with the lead to come to an agreement.

This stage is the one where any proposals are presented, negotiations are had, and there is often a lot of back and forth between the sales agent and the lead.

Closed Deal

The final stage in any sales funnel is closing out the lead. It is important to have a Closed Deal stage, and even more important to separate the leads into “Closed-Won” or “Closed-Lost” categories. Either you won and the lead made a purchase, therefore becoming a customer, or you lost the deal and the lead did not make a purchase.

If the lead becomes closed-won, they are no longer in the sales funnel and are one of your company’s customers. You will continue your follow up and renewal strategies as normal.

If the lead is closed-lost, it doesn’t mean they will never become customers, just that they aren’t right now. You will want to stay in contact with these leads and follow up with them regularly. Offer additional deals or discounts later and keep engaging with them. Just because they chose not to make a purchase now does not mean they will not become customers at a later date. Having been through the marketing and sales funnels, the lead is fully vetted and qualified, well aware of your company and its products, and has already shown an interest in them.

Step 2: Use Software to Build Your Sales Funnel

Now that you have a firm grasp of how the sales funnel works, it’s time to leverage technology to make your life easier.

Sales funnel software comes in all different shapes and sizes. I recommend using a CRM platform with built-in sales funnel solutions instead of a standalone sales funnel tool.

A CRM (customer relationship management) system is an all-in-one solution for managing customer communication before, during, and after the sales process. So it makes sense to build your funnels on your existing platform. It also makes it easier for your sales, marketing, and customer service teams if all customer touchpoints are in one place.

Pipedrive is my favorite CRM for sales funnels. But there are many other options to consider. Check our list of the best CRM software to see the top alternatives in this category.

Signing up for Pipedrive takes less than a minute. You just need to provide your name, business email, and phone number.

Pipedrive will ask a bit more information to personalize your experience, like your industry, experience level with sales tools, and how many people will be using the software.

Best of all, Pipedrive offers a 14-day free trial and doesn’t require a credit card at sign-up—so there’s no risk to try it out.

Step 3: Create a New Sales Funnel

Creating a new sales funnel will look slightly different for everyone, depending on the software you’re using. But for the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll use Pipedrive as an example.

Navigate to the Deals Dashboard

Pipedrive gives you a default sales funnel when you first sign up. But to create your own from scratch, head to the Deals board on the left side of your menu—represented by a circled dollar sign.

Add a New Pipeline

On the Deals page, click on Pipeline at the top of the dashboard. Then select +New Pipeline from the dropdown menu.

Alternatively, you can use the Edit Pipeline option to modify the default template. But most businesses choose to start from scratch, and that is what I am showing you here.

Once you click to start a new pipeline, you can name each stage and change the order of your sales funnel. This process will look different for everyone, depending on their goals with their new sales funnel.

Step 4: Add a Deal to the Sales Funnel

Once you’ve created a new sales funnel, it’s time to put this tool to good use. Each time a new lead enters the funnel, you need to enter the information into the software.

There are ways to automate this process by connecting with third-party tools, email signups, or lead generation forms. But for now, I’ll show you how to do this manually.

Click the Plus Sign (+) on the Deals Page

There are two ways to add a new deal to the sales funnel, either by clicking the green + Deal button in the top left or by clicking the plus sign (+) underneath a specific stage in the middle of the screen.

The green button may be the obvious choice for most. But if a new deal has already advanced through the funnel, clicking plus sign (+) below that phase is a shortcut.

Enter the Deal Details

Next, populate the form with all of the details of the pending deal. Enter the lead’s name, phone number, email, business, deal size, expected closing date, and more.

Then click Save to officially put the deal into your funnel.

Step 5: Move Deals Through the Sales Funnel

Once someone is entered into the funnel, you will move them along through the funnel and sales process until they convert. Pipedrive has built-in tools to make this process easy for you.

Schedule an Activity

To make sure nobody gets lost in the shuffle, schedule an activity to follow up with leads. Just click the deal icon card and select + Schedule an Activity in the pop-up window.

Activities include things like a call, meeting, email, lunch, or another task.

Pipedrive syncs with your calendar to see all of your activities in a single source of truth without double-booking anything. Add notes and information to the activity to have a point of reference when it is time to make the call or go to the meeting.

Move Deals Through the Sales Funnel

As you complete different activities, such as follow-up emails or video calls, you’ll continue moving a deal through your sales funnel.

With Pipedrive, it’s as simple as dragging and dropping a deal card from one column to the next.

In the example above, I’m dragging a deal from the Qualified Lead column to the Contact Made column after making that hypothetical call.

As you send a proposal or finalize the contract, you’ll continue moving deals through the sales funnel until they’ve ultimately converted into a paying customer.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Sales Email Templates

You already have a long list of promising prospects. Now, top on the agenda is sending out those valuable sales emails. You can’t expect to write thousands of emails from scratch, and you don’t have to.

The next best thing is to use sales email templates. Your template doesn’t have to be some boring cookie-cutter email that’s indistinguishable from spam. The right approach will get prospects to open, read, and engage with your sales emails.

What Is a Sales Email Template?

Email has consistently proven to be one of the best ways to connect with potential clients during the prospecting stage. Sales emails help promote your company’s products and services and increase revenue.

Writing hundreds or even thousands of sales emails from scratch can get monotonous and tiring, if at all possible. This is where email templates come in. A sales email template is simply a pre-written email you can personalize and send out to multiple recipients across multiple campaigns.

These templates are customizable, allowing you to change or update content to make it relevant to your target audience. Using templates helps save time, enable you to maintain a consistent corporate voice in all your communication, and reduce the chances of making a mistake.

3 Tools to Improve Your Sales Email Outreach

Fortunately for you, there is no shortage of tools to help you create sales email templates that get results. Here are some of the things you’ll need to optimize your email outreach.

Email Automation Software

Email templates help you send out tons of sales emails without having to craft each one from scratch. You can make your work even more effortless by automating outreach so that you can focus on your sales pipeline.

For this, we highly recommend Reply.io. This handy email automation tool comes loaded with tons of pre-made templates to get you started. The software also lets you create and save custom email templates. You can edit your templates any ai time and even share them with team members.

Additionally, Reply.io shows you open and reply rates for all your email templates. This capability allows you to track performance so you can further augment the templates to improve results.

This software also has a robust reporting feature for crucial metrics, including the delivery rate, open rate, reply rate, and bounce rate for all your templates.

Reply.io has fantastic safety features to cover your blind side when working with email templates. You can limit the number of emails you send out to a single contact per day or week.

The tool also detects duplicate emails and flags emails sent to the same contact too often. Another critical feature is the software won’t send emails with missing template variables or fields, which can be embarrassing.

Other Reply.io features include:

• Chrome extension
• Multichannel sequences
• Contact management
• Reports & tracking
• Schedules
• Safety settings
• Integrations

Reply.io plans start at $70 per month per. The software also offers a free trial if you’d like to test drive the tool before signing up.

CRM Software

Email automation tools let you focus on your email outreach. Customer relationship management software (CRM) takes a much broader approach. The software helps you manage (and automate) every stage of your sales funnel, including awareness, interest, decision-making, and finally, action.

If you haven’t already incorporated CRM in your sales workflow, this is something to look into. It might be the reason why the competition is getting an edge over your business.

Check out our picks for the best CRM software on the market today for the complete rundown on how this software can transform your workflow. Some of the software, like HubSpot, even let you build custom email templates.

In any case, Reply.io integrates well with the top CRMs on the market.

Online Guides and Courses

Using online guides or taking a course is entirely optional. However, there are plenty of free and paid resources on the internet to help you build effective email templates. This guide does a great job of outlining the basics. Still, you could always do with additional help.

The Basics of Sales Email Templates

In this section, we’ll look at the core components of an effective sales email template.

Subject Line

The subject line is the first time prospects see your email. This single sentence determines whether or not prospects open your email. Crafting the perfect subject line is a balancing act between being compelling and not giving too much away. It’s far too easy to sound mechanical or too anxious to make a sale.

Instead, consider how you’d write the subject line if you were emailing a mutual connection or an acquaintance. You wouldn’t use complex subject line customization (like extra spacing, form field labels, and brackets). The same rule applies when crafting your subject line.

Also, keep the subject line short and sweet. Your prospect may be looking at your email on mobile. A long subject line will get cut off in this case. Subject lines overflowing to the next line also look spammy and unattractive. Shoot for six words or fewer for the best results.

Another great tip is to avoid capitalizing Every Word of The Subject Line. Normal emails don’t use this format, and it makes it look like the email went out to a ton of other people. Use a lowercase format, capitalizing only the first letter of the subject line.

Finally, question-based subject lines have proven effective for increasing open rates. Where possible, a question might boost your chances of connecting with the prospect. Most professionals are naturally curious, and a well-timed question may pique their interest.

To tie it all together, here are a few examples of effective subject lines to get you started:

• Quick question [about prospect’s company]
• Quick request
• Trying to connect
• Have you considered [recommendation/idea/thought]?
• [Mutual connection] recommended I get in touch
• Thoughts about [prospect’s goal]?

Opening Line

A prospect opening the email is just the first hurdle. Getting them to read the entire thing is an entirely different matter. You only have a few sentences to grasp their attention.

A strong opening line creates the context for your communication, paints you as a credible and trustworthy contact, and smoothly transitions the prospect to your sales pitch.

Avoid long-winded introductions in your opening line. Your name and company are good enough for now. You can always go into further details about yourself later on in the email.

Try to keep the opening line short and concise. Two or three short sentences can help you get the points mentioned above across.

Here’s an example of an opening line that meets this criterion: My name is [name], and I’m with [company]. We partner with [company similar to your prospect] to [brief one-sentence pitch].

Body

The email body will make up the bulk of the email. This is where you drive home your main points.

Before writing your pitch, the most crucial consideration is identifying the outcome you want to achieve with your email. With that in mind, offer more details about who you are and what you do. Don’t go overboard, but mention a few companies you’ve worked with or talk about a few instances where you’ve achieved results that are important to your prospect.

Next, make your pitch, ideally in one sentence. Talk about a specific problem you’d like to solve for your client. Also, talk about specific tangible benefits that your prospect has to gain from your products or services. Keep the body short, using bullet points as necessary to keep everything tight.

Closing & Call to Action

The worst thing that can happen to a prospect at the end of your email is to wonder what to do next.

Have a clear call to action (CTA) when crafting your closing statement. The CTA might be booking a consultation, booking a demo, or signing up for a free trial. Make the CTA as straightforward as possible in the closing statement, even if you think it’s obvious.

Also, choose one clear call to action. Too many requests may feel pushy or time-consuming. Think about the call to action that would achieve the most benefit without taking too much of the prospect’s time and effort.

Finally, keep the CTA simple. The prospect shouldn’t feel pressured. It takes time to build rapport and trust with clients, so avoid asking for too much all at once. A rule of thumb is that it takes up to seven touchpoints to turn a prospect into a customer.

Signature

Finally, it’s time to sign off. Keep your email signature short, professional, and on-brand. At the very least, your email signature should have your:

• Name
• Current title/position
• Phone number

Consider adding links to your website or social media to make it easier to connect with you. Finally, be sure to include contact information, including multiple ways that prospects can reach you.

Don’t be afraid to sell yourself in your email signature. Consider including links to positive publications about your company, links to recent webinars, ongoing promotions, or relevant case studies.

However, don’t go overboard. A signature with too many links may be flagged as spam or appear spammy if you’re lucky enough to make it to the Primary folder.

6 Tricks for Optimizing Your Sales Email Templates

Now that you know what goes into good sales email templates, we have some tips to get optimum results from your templates.

1. Continuously Improve and Update Your Templates

Soon, you’ll be able to identify which templates get you the most responses. Even then, your most effective templates become stale over time. Don’t wait until this happens to optimize your templates.

Test your templates often for open rate and response rate. Track one variable at a time for the best result. Then, experiment with different elements, like the subject line, opening statement, call to action, and personalization. Monitor the results and continue tweaking the templates until you get the results you want.

On the same note, define what success looks like. Maybe you’re shooting for a 20% open rate up from 15%. Use the tweaked templates in small batches and monitor the effectiveness of your changes. Once you’re happy with the results, you can use your new templates to target more leads.

2. Incorporate Social Proof into Your Templates

Social proof helps transform your outreach from just another random sales email to a credible and trustworthy opportunity. You can instantly improve your credibility by demonstrating other familiar and trustworthy companies you’ve worked with. Additionally, share your product or service results and set yourself up as a trustworthy source.

Place your social proof in different places in your sales emails and track your results. Social proof at the beginning of the email is an excellent place for boosting engagement. Placing it right before the call to action helps push prospects to follow through with your desired action.

Your signature is also a great place to end your email on a high (and trustworthy) note. Link any credible resources you might have, including keynote speeches, podcasts, books, or any media that paints you in a credible light or as a thought leader.

3. Use Responsive Email Templates

Responsive templates use special coding to adapt to any device automatically. The result is your emails display and function flawlessly across any device. It’s hard to tell which devices your prospects use to open and view email.

Responsive templates also let your prospects know you care enough to test and optimize your emails before sending them out. This approach mainly helps if your emails are heavy with content, images, or media. With almost half of internet users viewing the email on mobile, a responsive template may not be an option.

4. Go Easy on Design Elements

This tip applies even to responsive templates. Your prospects may have HTML issues or use an email client that doesn’t support image viewing. Use minimal images and graphics and only when necessary for the best effect.

Much as you want your emails to stand out, don’t lose sight of what’s essential. Ultimately, your message is what turns prospects into leads. Too many images and graphics can take away the focus from your message.

Take a minimalist approach with design elements and only include a picture or two, and only when necessary. Also, use a subtle or neutral background to maintain the focus on your core message.

Finally, images, attachments, embedded links, and other media slow down your email’s load times. Quick load times increase the possibility that prospects read your emails.

5. Use Email-Safe Fonts

The myriad of fonts you can use offers a lot of creative freedom. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have free reign to use fancy fonts that express your personality.

Email-safe fonts refer to fonts that most people can read at a glance. Fancy fonts take longer to read, so take this into account when choosing your font. The size of the font also counts to making your emails readable or scannable.

Some of the go-to email-safe fonts include Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Helvetica, Lucida, Tahoma, Trebuchet, and Times New Roman.

Most experts agree that the optimal font sizes are 14px and higher for desktop and 16px or higher for mobile users.

6. Ask Your Prospects for Help

This tip may be a little unconventional. But who can give you better feedback on your sales process than your prospects? It is tempting to jump right to the pitch when prospects reply to your email.

Instead, take a little time to learn why they replied in the first place. Find out what parts of your email stood out to them.

Practice this approach every once in a while and take notes. Some feedback will be positive, others negative, but it’s all useful. Use this feedback to identify patterns that you can use to tweak your sales email templates.

Consider also reaching out to prospects that didn’t reply or open your emails. People are more likely to let their guard down when you’re not overtly trying to sell to them. Send a follow-up email asking for feedback about your outreach process.

Frame your email like you’re talking to an industry expert, asking for suggestions on how to improve your sales emails. You’d be surprised by the honest and often helpful feedback you can get.

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Zoom Vs. GoToMeeting

A successful meeting depends on a reliable video conferencing platform. Zoom and GoToMeeting both rank near the top of best video conferencing services. But which is better?

Both use communication technology that allows teams to access different features and hold a meeting as close to in-person as possible with so many employees working from home. They come with features like video conferencing, screen sharing, recording, transcribing, and more advanced settings to make conducting meetings easy for your whole team.

The cloud-based software lets you connect with any team, whether you work in education, healthcare, sales, or another field where you need to communicate with others. Choosing the right one means giving your company the tools they need to increase productivity and collaboration.

Can’t decide between Zoom and GoToMeeting? Let’s look at how they stack up against each other.

Zoom Pros and Cons

Pros

• Lot s of advanced options
• Offers Breakout Rooms for meetings
• Easy to navigate

Cons

• Some add-ons are expensive
• Lots of extra costs

Visit Zoom

• Advanced screen & audio sharing
• Join meetings from any device
• Password-protected meeting security
• Five pricing plans

Try for free

GoToMeeting Pros and Cons

Pros

• Flexible calling features
• Unlimited storage and recording

Cons

• Some features are very basic
• No free version

Visit GoToMeeting

• Unlimited meeting storage & sharing
• Automatic participant calling included
• Built-in VoIP audio
• Three pricing plans

Starts at $12/month

Video Conferencing: Zoom

To hold a productive meeting, you need excellent video quality and excellent connectivity. You don’t want your platform to kick you off every time you have more than a few meeting participants, after all.

Zoom and GoToMeeting have some video conferencing features in common, and both give you high-quality HD video. You can switch between different views, like full-screen and gallery, as well as use multiple feeds.

With up to 49 webcams with Zoom and 25 with GoToMeeting, both accommodate most businesses. When it comes to appearing on camera, Zoom goes the extra mile by giving you the “Touch up my appearance” setting that spruces you up if you’re not looking your best for that 9 am meeting.

GoToMeeting doesn’t give you a filter, but it does let you adjust more advanced settings, like brightness, contrast, and saturation. Playing with those settings can offer similar advantages, but it requires you to adjust them manually. Zoom’s filter does it for you automatically.

Zoom and GoToMeeting both offer backgrounds if you haven’t had time to tidy your workspace lately. Zoom also allows you to join your meeting from any device, including iPhone and Android.

Overall, Zoom has more advanced video features. GoToMeeting has enough to get you by, but if you want more flexibility when you hop on your call, Zoom has it.

Screen Sharing: Zoom

Zoom and GoToMeeting both have user-friendly screen sharing capability that shows which apps and windows you have open on your device, so you can choose what you share. You can also make it so specific people have control of the mouse.

Both platforms have a window that shows all your options for sharing, and with GoToMeeting, you can view them as a more compact list. Zoom and GoToMeeting allow others besides the meeting host to share their screen. You can even share on mobile!

Zoom offers more advanced screen sharing than GoToMeeting. It comes with audio sharing, so you can play a video that everyone can listen to, rather than just GoTo’s visual sharing feature. Zoom also allows you to share only part of your screen.

With Zoom’s simultaneous sharing options, you can share more than one monitor. For example, if you have several people contributing to a discussion, they can all show their screens to other participants. You also have document sharing on iOS and Android.

GoToMeeting gives you the basics of screen sharing, but Zoom shines with more well-rounded features, like its audio. Those features allow for more versatility when it comes to offering information and resources in meetings.

Storage and Recording: GoToMeeting

When you have a meeting, you sometimes want to reference what someone said without writing it all down. Both Zoom and GoToMeeting have recording and transcription features that you can save in various formats, including .mp4, .m4a, and .txt.

Zoom’s free version lets you record and store locally on your device, but you have to upgrade to the paid version to get 1GB of storage with Zoom itself. Some plans also offer automatic cloud recording transcription. If you need more than 1GB of storage on Zoom, you’ll have to pay $40 or more every month.

That’s where GoToMeeting has an advantage. It has unlimited storage starting with its Pro plan, whereas you only get unlimited Zoom storage with the Enterprise package.

GoToMeeting also makes it easier to share your recorded meetings when you can keep more of them on hand. Like Zoom, it also has automatic transcription.

When it comes to storage, recording, and transcription, GoToMeeting wins out. If you record many meetings, GoToMeeting gives you the space to do that at an affordable price. Other than storage, Zoom and GoToMeeting offer most of the same recording and transcription features.

Calling and Audio Options: GoToMeeting

Calling on your video conferencing platform should make things convenient for you. At the same time, you want high-quality audio without paying extra or using clunky devices.

Neither Zoom nor GoToMeeting requires you to use a phone or to dial into a meeting. All you have to do is turn on your computer’s microphone and speakers, and you get excellent audio quality with both platforms.

With Zoom, you can quickly test your computer’s audio to make sure you can hear others, and they can hear you. Both Zoom and GoToMeeting have the Call Me feature with traditional calling that will call meeting participants when it’s time for your meeting, so no one worries about forgetting the time. However, Zoom’s Call Me feature comes as a $100 add-on, while GoToMeeting includes it in every plan.

Overall, GoToMeeting has better calling features. It becomes more flexible when you want to use a phone to join the meeting, too. It has built-in audio using VoIP and Toll, and it makes more advanced features like Call Me available without having to factor them into your budget separately.

Administrative Controls: Zoom

When you run a meeting, you want to have control over it as the host. That includes who you let in, who controls which features, and who has the floor during the meeting.

With Zoom and GoToMeeting, the host has a lot of options when it comes to controls. As the host, you can mute or unmute participants and decide whether meeting members can mute or unmute themselves. You can also control screen sharing options and webcam visibility.

When it comes to chatting, you can adjust the settings so participants can chat with everyone or just the host during meetings. Both platforms have a feature that makes participants wait to get logged in via the Waiting Room (Zoom) or Meeting Lock (GoTo). These features allow for better meeting security so unwelcome participants can’t enter.

Zoom comes with another security feature that GoToMeeting doesn’t have—password protection. If you set the meeting so that participants can join before the host shows up, you can give everyone a password to join early.

Although GoToMeeting and Zoom share many features, including the ability to temporarily remove participants and put them on hold, GoToMeeting doesn’t include some of Zoom’s more advanced features like administrative control over recording, chat, notifications, and encryption, making Zoom a better option if you want to run a meeting your way.

Ease of Use: Tie

When you choose a video conferencing platform, everyone should be able to use it without any trouble. A steeper learning curve can delay meetings and waste time that your team could use planning, collaborating, and increasing productivity. With a user-friendly platform, you can seamlessly jump into your meeting without the wait.

GoToMeeting and Zoom have interfaces that almost anyone can figure out quickly. Zoom is a little more streamlined, with all meeting options laid out on one page with a visually pleasing design. There’s no overcrowding, and you can hover over or click on each one to select between them. You can even choose not to show the control panel.

GoToMeeting always has its controls on a full-page panel in a separate window from the meeting screen. You can shrink them, but you can’t hide them. They also have a more crowded layout, which makes it slightly less intuitive than Zoom.

GoToMeeting has lots of dropdown menus and right-clicking to navigate to additional options. On the other hand, Zoom clearly indicates where you can find your options with arrows attached to different features and settings on the page.

GoToMeeting’s layout is fairly straightforward, but if you want one that requires minimal thought to get around, go with Zoom.

Pricing: Tie

When it comes to pricing, consider how well the features stack up to the cost instead of going for the cheapest product. A cheaper package might mean the product lacks some of the features you need, which can cost you more in the long run.

Zoom has a free plan, which GoToMeeting doesn’t. On the other hand, GoToMeeting has more affordable paid packages than Zoom, and the two offer many of the same features. Each product has its advantages, from storage with GoToMeeting to administrative features with Zoom.

With Zoom, you’ll likely end up paying for some add-ons if you want to make up for what it lacks in storage and attendee limits. However, you may find that its free plan does all you need for your business.

Zoom has five package options:

• Free
• Pro: $149 per year per license
• Business: $199.90 per year per license
• Zoom United Business: $300 per year per license
• Enterprise: $240 per year per license

The Free and Pro plans both allow up to 100 participants, though Pro upgrades to a group meeting limit of 30 hours from the Free plan’s 40 minutes. Business bumps you up to 300 participants and gives you more advanced features like single sign-on, recording, transcripts, and managed domains.

Zoom United Business has many of the same features as Pro. However, it also includes more phone features from Zoom United Pro, like unlimited calls to the United States and Canada, automatic call distribution, and a dial by name directory.

When you get the Enterprise package, you have a higher minimum license requirement, so you’re technically getting a discount. This package allows up to 500 participants, unlimited cloud storage, and a dedicated customer success manager.

GoToMeeting has three packages:

• Professional: $12 per organizer per month
• Business: $16 per organizer per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Professional gives you up to 150 participants with unlimited meetings and no meeting time limits. You also get some advanced features like Call Me, single sign-on, and administrative features.

Business upgrades you to 250 participants and comes with unlimited cloud recording. You also get features like transcription, meeting lock, and mobile cloud recording so you can have the full range of meeting features on the go.

Enterprise gives you the option to customize your package and hold meetings with up to 3,000 people. The main selling points for this tier include the Enterprise customer success manager, onboarding and training, and its volume discount. Otherwise, it has most of the same features as the Business package.

When you base your buying decision on price alone, GoToMeeting wins here. However, the two platforms offer different features in different packages, and GoToMeeting doesn’t have a free version. We can’t say for sure which would be right for your business based on cost, so choose based on your needs for your meetings.

Integrations: Zoom

When you can integrate your video conferencing platform with other workflow management tools, you streamline productivity in the workplace. Zoom and GoToMeeting have many of the same integrations, like Slack, Salesforce, and Office 365. GoToMeeting also has a Google Calendar plugin.

Zoom takes the prize for the most integrations, though. It includes Atlassian, Dropbox, Azure, and Okta, among others. Its integration features are more comprehensive, and it has a bunch of add-ons to boost its performance and functionality.

The only downside is that the add-ons cost money, and some can be $100 or more. Still, the broader selection of integrations means that you can do more with Zoom and have more communication capabilities and options with your team.

While GoToMeeting has a few workflow integrations, Zoom wins out by making itself compatible with almost any business. You won’t have to worry about it not working with your existing system.

Meetings: Zoom

Zoom is a leader in meeting platforms. Its intuitive platform makes it so simple that most teams pick up how to use it right away, whereas GoToMeeting might take a little longer to figure out.

Zoom has more meeting security, whereas GoToMeeting has some, but it’s not quite as in-depth. Both platforms have single sign-on, encrypted meetings, dismiss user features, and meeting locks. However, Zoom also has password-protected meetings for when the host hasn’t yet joined.

Zoom has more features that let you connect with others and even have some fun during your meetings with backgrounds and filters. GoToMeeting has enough basic features to get you through, so if you don’t need anything fancy, its crystal-clear video and audio and more advanced features in lower-cost packages make it worth considering.

Overall, Zoom’s ease of use, additional security, and more advanced features make it a better choice for video conferences.

Chat: Zoom

Sometimes, you don’t need to hold a meeting to discuss part of a project. For quick communication without jumping on a call, Zoom and GoToMeeting have chat features you can use on their own or during meetings between participants.

You can communicate between team members or external members, like vendors and customers, on both platforms. Creating separate rooms specific to various groups within teams helps keep everyone organized. You can also switch from chat to video with one click.

By setting statuses, you can see who’s available when you need them. With chat, you can even attach files and search for messages to find information fast.

Once again, Zoom has a little more capability here with starred channels, so you know where your most important chats are at any given time. It also archives your chat data for up to ten years.

Phone System: Zoom

If you want phone service capability, Zoom and GoToMeeting both have a cloud-based phone system. They even have separate plans for phone-specific features. In Zoom’s case, some of those features are included in Zoom United Business.

Both platforms come with video, HD voice, voicemail, and call recording. GoToMeeting has a broader selection of phone plans, but both platforms operate with Windows, Linux, and Mac. As with its video conferencing plans, GoToMeeting has cheaper ones for phone service.

Overall, Zoom has better quality service, especially with mobile. GoToMeeting’s mobile app lags sometimes, and it’s been known to kick people off the call.

Conference Rooms: Tie

Conference rooms let you join a room with one touch. You can share multiple desktops in one room simultaneously, so you don’t have to worry about booking your meeting or sharing screens between multiple people.

GoToMeeting sets up conference room capability in 15 minutes, making it especially convenient. It works for various room sizes, so you can even accommodate large groups. It also lets you sync your room with the GoTo Admin Center.

Zoom lets you join a conference room using your existing conference system, which can make for low-effort connections. It also comes with a one-click wireless share and up to 12 whiteboards per meeting. With role-based administration and extra security, Zoom keeps your meeting secure.

In this case, you may want to consider your priorities. Do you want convenience or comprehensive features? GoToMeeting still lets you collaborate with many people at once, but Zoom allows for more sharing within your group.

Final Verdict

Visit Zoom

• Advanced screen & audio sharing
• Join meetings from any device
• Password-protected meeting security
• Five pricing plans

Try for free

Overall, Zoom is the clear winner when comparing the two video conferencing platforms. Both have excellent features, and GoToMeeting has a few advantages over Zoom, like unlimited storage and superior calling options.

When it comes to general features and usability, Zoom pulls ahead with breakout rooms, filters, chat archives, and a more intuitive interface. If you don’t need the frills, GoToMeeting might have what you need, and its plans are cheaper than Zoom.

If you’re looking for a popular, easy-to-use platform, you’ll have more luck with Zoom. It has a lesser learning curve, so you’ll spend less time figuring it out and more time increasing meeting productivity. Some things depend on your business needs, so decide which works for you based on them.

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