Compare the pros and cons of digital sales rooms and emails for sales communication, determining which platform is best for customer engagement and action.

Has your sales strategy shifted almost entirely online? You're not alone. According to Gartner, by 2025, 80% of all B2B sales interactions will occur via digital channels. Gone are the days of in-person meetings and travelling salespeople. Companies must learn to accept that buying preferences have permanently changed alongside the role of sellers.

Given this rapid transition, businesses relied on the only digital communication medium available: email. Everything from sales proposals, cold outreach, customer collaboration, and customer onboarding is done through email and its attachments.

That's all about the change – Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs) are transforming the buyer's journey from cold outreach to customer success. Built explicitly for the post-in-person sales landscape, DSRs promise greater interactions and tools to develop a buyer-seller relationship.

So, digital sales rooms vs. email? Join us as we explore why a digital sales room is better than email.

Digital sales rooms vs. email: What's the difference?

Digital sales rooms provide a richer, more engaging virtual environment to educate leads and shorten the sales cycle. Unlike emails, which are static and limited in their engagement, DSRs continually change as your potential clients learn more about your company.

Email was initially built as a fast-fire communication system – a replacement for the post service. It was never developed to handle the nuances of the sales process. Digital sales rooms are different. Faced with the challenges of remote sales, DSRs were explicitly designed to handle the demand for content, the need to engage, and the difficulties of long-distance collaboration.

But that's not the only difference:

Emails rely on a set of stock templates that are sent in response to a customer action. Even when you segment your marketing emails, you'll still fail to appeal to everyone. In contrast, DSRs ensure every single customer experience is unique. No two sales rooms are alike, from the branding details to the content hub. It's all tailored to their specific needs and queries.

With features such as integrated content catalogues, videos, mutual action plans, competitor analysis, and more, DSRs outclass and outmatch email when it comes to selling. Just as email mirrored the postal service, digital sales room replicate the in-person sales pitch.

Alongside the advanced analytics – providing sales teams with key insights into client interactions – companies can create more personalised and targeted sales strategies with a level of customisation and responsiveness that email simply cannot match.

As more and more companies transition to digital deal-making, there's only one option: digital sales rooms. While email serves its original purpose for brief exchanges and formal correspondences, it fails to deliver the depth, adaptability, and collaborative energy that define digital sales rooms. DSRs are not just tools but ecosystems, fostering a more vibrant, dynamic, and effective sales experience. 

Efficiency in communication

So, why is a digital sales room better than email? One common reason is simple: faster communication. Sending an email to leads and prospects might instantaneously deliver your message. However, whether they respond right away or not depends on their level of interest. If they fail to respond, that's it – it's a one-track communication.

Digital sales rooms work differently. Developed as an all-in-one education and communication platform, buyers can read relevant content, learn about your brand, and then send a message. (And you can see everything they do in the DSR via sales intelligence signals.)

Because less time is spent waiting for a reply, trumpet users see a 40% reduction in the sales cycle from outreach to close. In fact, Volunteero cut two months off their sales cycle time from 6 months to 4 months thanks to trumpet.

Plus, DSRs see substantially higher open rates than email. Why? Well, DSRs are new and exciting. Unlike the bland, black-and-white text of an email, DSRs contain numerous interactive elements that help educate customers at their own pace without bombarding them with attachments. 

Customer engagement comparison

Customer engagement determines the failure or success of a deal. Usually, when relying on sales emails, the first few responses come thick and fast. But, as prospects grow bored or the sales process peters out, the replies become more sporadic until, eventually, you receive no more responses.

Sound familiar? It's a common complaint from sales teams who are guilty of single threading. We hear it all the time.

In comparison, digital sales rooms are a masterclass in customer engagement and multi-threading. Acting as a comprehensive virtual space for a customer, anybody within the organisation can access the DSR. Moreover, those who do will find a multitude of potential resources personalised to the needs and pain points of the customer in question.

That could be a content hub filled with how-to guides, video tutorials, industry thought pieces, and product comparisons. There are also mutual action plans – a helpful tool for working collaboratively towards the final deal. The earlier you start the partnership, the longer it lasts. Small wonder with all these features that trumpet sees an average NPS score of 86 from buyers and prospects. 

Why top sales executives love digital sales rooms

Trumpet practises what we preach. We've got the stats to prove it: the average pod open rate is 76% vs 6% for PDFs attached to emails. That's something our users commonly noticed.

Take Sky Media, for example. After turning to trumpet for their cold outreach and ongoing communications, they saw engagement skyrocket. Open rates soared by 150%, and the value of opened pods exceeded £2.5 million within just three months.

"I've been using trumpet for several months and have found it an extremely useful prospecting tool for both cold and warm leads. The ability to personalise the Pods to individual businesses is especially useful, as is the ability to create Pod templates to reuse for future prospects," explained Ellie Salsbury, Regional AdSmart Sales Executive at Sky.

eola, meanwhile, slashed its onboarding time after integrating trumpet into its customer success processes. "trumpet allows us to get our message out effectively and concisely, working perfectly with everything from automated outreach to account-based sales and customer onboarding," said Will Koning, Chief Commercial Officer.

The results? A 78% reduction in onboarding time (from 2 weeks to 3 days) and four closed deals within two months of using trumpet. That's simply not possible with email.

Time and again, we see that once clients switch from traditional email and PDF practices to our digital sales, their open rates, onboarding times, and overall revenue begin to soar. But with greater customer engagement and efficiency in communication, it should come as no surprise.

Future of sales communication

Sales is a constantly evolving field. If you want to keep your competitive edge, you've got to embrace the latest tools and technologies.

As ever more companies buy exclusively online, you can't afford to rely on email and other lacklustre communication mediums. You need a platform built for the 21^st-century paradigm.

Digital sales rooms are not just a fleeting trend; they represent a fundamental (and permanent) shift in how sales are conducted. More immersive, interactive, and personal, they're redefining the buyer-seller relationship. But there is also room to grow.

We're constantly evolving our DSRs, thanks to feedback from our customers. You tell us your needs, and we develop new tools and features to boost your conversion rates. So, why is a digital sales room better than email? Because it's only the beginning – expect new advancements, greater uptake, and better client communications in the future. The same can't be said for email.

Digital sales room examples

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