Outreach vs. Salesloft is a common debate when choosing a sales engagment platform. Discover which one can help your business streamline your sales outreach.
Using technology to streamline your sales outreach is a must in 2024. Your competition is already doing it. According to Gartner, "87% of sales development organizations have adopted a sales engagement platform."
Engagement platforms can automate the way you reach out to prospects, which, in turn, speeds up your sales cycle, increases opportunities, improves performance, and keeps you competitive in your market. And while you have many options to choose from, Salesloft and Outreach are two of the most powerful and widely-used tools available.
So, which one should you choose? The answer to that question will be different for every sales team. While both platforms are similar, they do have a few key differences that are better suited for certain organizations. Take a closer look at Outreach vs. Salesloft and what each one can do to simplify your sales tasks and improve your outcomes.
Salesloft calls itself the "first AI-powered revenue orchestration platform." It's currently used by over 5,000 sales teams, including companies like Shopify, 3M, IBM, and Instacart.
Based in Atlanta, Salesloft has been around since 2011. By 2017, Deloitte named it one of the fastest-growing tech companies in North America. The company started with a sales development tool, but today, it provides one of the most-used engagement platforms in the world. In 2023, it was a SaaS Award winner for Best UX/UI Design In A SaaS Product. It currently has offices throughout the world.
Salesloft is useful for prospecting new leads, sales coaching and collaboration, enhancing workflow, revenue forecasting, and discovering detailed insights. Some of its most notable features include:
One reason why sales teams love Salesloft is its cadence automation feature. Sales managers can create new cadences in a few simple steps and start using them right away or share them with their team. They can choose from ready-made templates or customize them to fit their sales strategies and goals. This helps automate repetitive tasks, helps sales teams reach more targets in a shorter period of time, and provides insights into performance so teams can make changes as necessary.
CRM integration with software like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Hubspot, and Zoho is another reason why companies choose Salesloft. The two tools sync in real-time, allowing sales teams to streamline contact management and other important data in both places. This helps ensure accuracy, saves time, and promotes collaboration.
Salesloft offers email tracking for views, clicks, and replies. These numbers feed into a sales team's analytics, providing insight that allows them to make the changes necessary to improve deliverability and engagement. It also incorporates A/B Testing to determine which of your emails lead to the most conversions.
Outreach helps "sellers close over 2 million opportunities each month." It's used by over 6,000 global companies, like Siemens, Zoom, McKesson, and Snowflake.
Founded in 2014, Outreach is based in Seattle with offices around the globe. The company was born out of its founders' need to meet sales goals in a hurry. Not only did they build software that helped fulfill that need, but they also discovered just how important technology is and how it can contribute to creating even more productive sales teams. Like Salesloft, Outreach has won several awards throughout the years, like "Best Sales Engagement Software '' at the 2020, 2021, 2023 G2 Best Software Awards.
Outreach helps with tasks like pipeline management, sales coaching, sales forecasting, increasing productivity, and streamlining workflows. Some key features include:
Outreach allows sales teams to automate sequences to save time, enhance efficiency, and reach more potential customers. They can reach targets in bulk using templates, while eventually moving on to create more personalized messaging as needed. They can also manage multiple parties in one email sequence, use the out-of-office detection feature, and automated follow-up sequences.
Like Salesloft, Outreach also integrates with CRM software, including Salesforce, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics 365, HubSpot, and Pipedrive. It also syncs with other tools, like LinkedIn, DocuSign, and ZoomInfo so teams can have all of their information in one easy-to-access place.
Outreach's advanced reporting and analytics provides important data on all outreach campaigns. Select from sales team, execution, and sequence reports, or customize reports by filtering raw data. This makes it a great option for a goal-driven sales environment.
At first glance, Salesloft and Outreach don't appear to be that different. They both have many of the same features and capabilities. They both offer highly-efficient, award-winning sales engagement platforms that are used by businesses all around the world. But many users do prefer one over the other due to some key differences.
When it comes to ease of use, Salesloft often earns the most positive reviews. The platform typically requires less navigation to complete a task, features an intuitive user interface, and offers a single sign-on experience. Salesloft also simplifies the process for onboarding new team members. However, many Outreach users praise some of its features, like its drop-down menus and simple email templates.
While Salesloft is typically easier to use, Outreach is considered the more robust platform when it comes to features. For example, it offers more advanced reporting and analytics compared to Salesloft, and it's considered more of an all-in-one tool. It also comes with revenue intelligence and revenue operations features. It pulls prospect data from LinkedIn and allows you to pause sequences as needed.
But some users may not need all of these features. Salesloft allows users to create personalized, multi-step sales cadences and schedule them in advance. It also lends itself to collaboration, allowing multiple team members to work on the same campaign.
Both products utilize AI to drive workflows. Salesloft's Rhythm AI tool, the "only signal-to-action engine for the full customer lifecycle." It allows users to prioritize their tasks and spend more time working towards revenue goals by automating more certain aspects of the sales cycle.
Outreach's Sales AI tool also uses AI to automate repetitive or tedious tasks and help users improve productivity and make better decisions. It takes behaviors that have worked in the past and uses them to make recommendations and generate new content, including more targeted knowledge.
Both platforms offer integration with CRM software and other third-party apps. Overall, Outreach offers more integration options. However, some users still choose Salesloft because it offers a mobile app for iOS and Android.
Salesloft offers three price packages: Essentials, Advanced, and Premier. Essentials offers pipeline generation and rep coaching. Advanced adds full customer lifecycle workflows, conversation intelligence, and opportunity management to the mix. Premier offers forecasting and revenue management on top of the other features.
Outreach offers a variety of packages as well. These include Engage for sales engagement and Call, a voice package. The Meet package offers access to the company's AI-powered conversation intelligence solution, while Deal helps users identify risk and better understand pipeline management. As the name suggests, Forecast helps teams forecast results and make predictions.
Both Salesloft and Outreach keep their pricing under wraps, so it's hard to make a complete comparison here. A quick Internet search reveals various numbers quoted by several businesses, but confirming them is a different matter. You must request a quote directly from the company.
When deciding between Outreach vs. Salesloft, it all comes down to which one can solve your sales engagement problems.. After all, both have much to offer and are used by some of the biggest companies in the world. On sites like G2, they generally have equal reviews and ratings, which can make the decision even more difficult.
Start by identifying your organization's sales process needs. Ask yourself:
Once you answer those questions, find the option with features that best fulfills those needs. For example, if you require more advanced reporting, Outreach may be the best choice. But if you're looking to improve collaboration or need mobile access, you might choose Salesloft.
You'll want to ensure that the platform you choose actually saves your team time and money. A thorough cost-benefit analysis can help you justify the purchase.
Implementing new platforms can take time. Teaching your sales team how to use it and onboarding new members also takes time. Many organizations don't have much time to spare, so the availability of training and onboarding resources can make a difference in the platform you choose.
It's also important to consider customer support. Does the platform offer 24/7 help? Is it something that costs extra and is it worth it to you?
Companies around the world use both Salesloft and Outreach. Most of them report positive results.
One company that relies on Salesloft is 3M. They implemented the platform in the United States in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic and saw almost immediate results. The first cadence they used reached 1,000 customers. As their reach grew, so did their sales. Ultimately, they shrunk their time to close by 60%.
OneCause helps nonprofits by providing them with digital fundraising solutions. A smaller organization, it initially relied on its CRM software, but when it decided to implement Salesloft, it grew its sales activities by 20%. The sales team was able to save time by using cadence templates and add more personalization to their follow-ups.
The tech company Snowflake chose Outreach when it wanted to improve its prospecting efficiency. Reply rates improved immediately. Today, they have a reply rate of around 20%. The company also saw the number of reps who hit their sales quota increase by 15%.
In 2020, Zoom became a standard tool for many companies as the pandemic drove the need for virtual communication. However, as the pandemic slowed, so did Zoom's inbound sales, and the company's sales team had to learn how to rely on outbound sales as well. Partnering with Outreach helped them fine-tune their strategies, automate their workflow, and accelerate conversions.
Both Salesloft and Outreach are powerful platforms that have transformed the way companies around the globe do sales engagement. They can help your sales team too. While both have similar and unique features, it's important to know what your sales process needs are so you can choose the right platform.
Contact the RevOptics team for personalized advice and support in selecting and implementing the right sales engagement platform for your business.
