Chances are you've bumped into a million sales tools promising to streamline processes and save you valuable time. That includes Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs). 

They’re designed to revolutionize how sales teams collaborate, strategize, and close deals, all within a single digital environment. That’s the typical “spiel” you'll find about digital sales rooms, and it might sound pretty similar across the board. 

But amidst so many options, what truly sets a standout platform apart? Is it seamless usability, an aesthetic appeal, or real-time communication features? Maybe it's a combination of all three.

Today’s tools include all that, and a bit more. 

In this series of articles, I’ll be taking a closer look at Journey and how it stacks up against other digital sales rooms in the market. The contender in this showdown is Emlen. 

What Is Emlen?

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With Emlen, you'll step into a single, unified space that streamlines your sales process from start to finish. Invite all your stakeholders into this collaborative hub, effortlessly track their engagement, and seize the perfect moment to close the deal when they're ready to buy. At Emlen, our mission is to empower seamless B2B sales, removing every last trace of friction along the way.

What Is Journey?

With Journey, creating compelling narratives about your product is effortless. Your stories come to life with rich interactivity and automatic styling that aligns seamlessly with your brand and device. 

Not only does it save your team precious time with its AI-driven features and intuitive customization options, but it also respects stakeholders' time by consolidating all essential information into one engaging space. 

Side-by-Side Comparison

Before we get started, here’s a brief comparison of both tools at a glance:

Now that you’re more familiar with our options, let’s jump straight into your most pressing question…

Pricing

While Emlen offers fixed monthly/annual pricing, Journey’s pricing operates on a per-user, per-month model. Let’s take a closer look. 

Emlen

Core:

• 79€/month (billed monthly)

• 70€/month (billed annually)

Premium:

• 129€/month (billed monthly)

• 120€/month (billed annually)

Enterprise:

• Contact Emlen for pricing

(Nowhere on the page do they mention charging prices in USD or other currencies.)

Journey

Basic:

• Free forever

• Your team gets 5 free Journeys to test it out

Teams:

• $29 per user, per month (billed annually)

• $39 per user, per month (billed monthly)

Enterprise:

• Contact Journey for pricing

Do Both Options Have Free Plans?

Unfortunately, only Journey includes a free forever plan. 

Emlen gives you a useful product tour. They present it in their own Digital Sales Room format (called a Destination), which helps you get a feel for what the product looks like. 

Otherwise, if you're interested in seeing Emlen firsthand, you need to book a demo. 

The Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs): What Makes Them Different?

One great point of differentiation is the sales rooms themselves. 

How do they look out in the wild? 

Are they a sight to sore eyes or just another version of a generic sales deck?

Are they going to make your (and your prospects') lives easier or harder?

Thankfully, both Emlen and Journey only check off the former points. Let's take a look at what each brings to the table. 

Emlen

Emlen looks clean and modern. It's pretty different from other DSRs I've seen, mostly because it contains a few extra features and options I hadn't come across anywhere else. 

Here are a few things I’ve noticed.

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Instead of infinite scrolling mode, you have to click a right-pointing arrow in order to view upcoming material.

Speaking of arrows, see the left-pointing arrow below? That means you can collapse the presentations for a full view without any interruptions. 

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Another aspect I still hadn't seen was this: in the left-hand corner, you'll see the name of who created the Destination. As soon as you click on it, you'll see a business card-like section, where you can see the creator’s title, email address, and socials, and get in touch with them. This adds an extra layer of credibility and professionalism. 

Another thing I found interesting is the ability to divide sections into folders so that things are even more neatly organized. You can also separate sections by stakeholders, considering you have a solid idea of their preferred sales collateral. 

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Journey

As a storytelling tool, the founders needed to think of it as a versatile canvas—ready for your creativity but not intimidatingly blank. I’ll dig into this more when we talk about customization.

Despite the artistic motif, Journeys has no fuss or frills. Sections are neatly organized on the left, and the presentation is infinitely scrollable.

But let's get to the real question: What's in it for your prospects?

Live Chatting/Commenting Function

In DSRs, a live commenting feature is incredibly valuable. It allows team members to communicate instantly, making it effortless to share updates, exchange ideas, and provide feedback in real time. 

Plus, when a deal is starting to go south, being able to take instant action and discuss solutions in real time can make all the difference in salvaging the situation.

Emlen

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Emlen offers a handy commenting function, real-time chatting, and live video calls, which are awesome. 

However, all of these features are only available in the Premium plan.

Journey

On every Journey plan, viewers can leave real-time comments on the Journey in case they want to chat directly with the creator. 

But in case they don't want to reach sales just yet, they have a handy AI chatbot they can turn to instead. With a simple question, they can find anything related to the Journey. The chat will even direct them to the section in question so stakeholders can find anything they want without having to go through content that doesn't interest them. 

Integrations and Embeds

Connecting your DSR with widely used platforms like Google Drive is key to keeping things smooth. 

When you can access documents without jumping between apps, collaboration becomes effortless. The best digital sales rooms also let you embed pretty much every other tool you use, like DocuSign, Figma, or Calendly. Having everything you need right there in the sales platform makes the whole process more interactive and dynamic, helping everyone get things done faster and better.

What's more, your team should be instantly notified of any comments or interactions within the sales room. 

Emlen

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Emlen boasts an array of available embeds. Its integrations include: 

• Slack

• HubSpot CRM

• Zoho CRM

• Pipedrive

• Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud

• SAP Marketing Cloud

Sadly, it only integrates with Google Drive and Slack in the Premium plan.

Journey

All Journey plans (including the Basic plan) integrate with:

• Slack

• Salesforce

• Segment

• Google Drive

• Hubspot 

All plans also allow you to send Journey activity data to Zapier. There’s also a Gong integration, but you can only get it in the Enterprise plan.

Not to mention, you can embed pretty much any tool into your Journey. 

Analytics

Both person-level and room-level analytics are to be expected in any sales room worth its salt. Not only does it help you understand individual stakeholder behavior, but it also helps provide a broader view of overall sales room performance. 

Ideally, DSRs should also contain analytics on chats, clicks, downloads, and everything that goes on inside the presentation. 

Emlen

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All Emlen plans include comprehensive Sales Content Performance Analytics, such as who viewed your Destination from where, total views, downloads, and how long each Destination was viewed. 

They allow you to track how prospects interact with your sales content and help champions better influence buying decisions. As a result, managing multiple stakeholders becomes much simpler. 

Journey

All Journey plans to offer comprehensive analytics about stakeholders and Journeys. They give you detailed insights on buyer engagement, allowing you to track who opened your Journey, how much time they spent on it, and how much they scrolled. This information helps you remove buyer friction and win more deals.

As you upgrade to the Pro plan, analytics become even more comprehensive with Clearbit-enriched insights. This data will provide deeper insights into companies and individuals by adding valuable information like company size, industry, and key decision-makers.   

Branding

"Your brand is arguably one of your organization’s most important assets. It gives your organization an identity, makes your business memorable, encourages consumers to buy from you, supports your marketing and advertising, and brings your employees pride." Wise words from the team at Hubspot. 

I’d add one thing, though: your branding matters. But so does your prospect's branding! Adding their branding in your digital sales room is just as important. It shows you respect their business and want to make things personal.

Both Emlen and Journey have several branding capabilities you can use. We'll be discussing:

• Customization

• White-labeling

• Custom domains 

Customization

Emlen

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While extremely organized and with pre-made templates to choose from, I'm not crazy about Emlen's apparent customization features. Granted, its value proposition is focused on the organization aspect, but customization capabilities seem to need to catch up. 

For example, besides adding your own content and branding (such as logos), there seems to be little you can do when it comes to changing fonts and colors. If that's what you aren't looking for, it isn't a huge issue. But if you're looking for creative leeway, you won't be crazy about it either.

Journey

Journey’s value proposition is all about Automagical™ customization. You can get AI to theme your Journey to match your brand or anyone else’s – especially if you don’t have time to design your own. And, of course, you can pick and choose handcrafted templates, so you don’t have to start anything from scratch. 

It lets you feature logos to build social proof straight from the app. That includes brands you've helped and, of course, your prospect’s company’s logo. The best part is there’s no need to go to their website and save logos as PNGs.

Speaking of AI, Journey offers both text and image creation capabilities. Whether creating a draft or a final project, you can save precious time and allow your team to focus on other critical tasks.

White Labeling

When it comes to branding, white labeling capabilities are huge. They make you look extremely professional by maintaining your brand identity consistent across the board. Both Emlen and Journey offer white labeling options in different plans. 

Emlen

White labeling is only available in the Premium plan. However, you can get a custom website and email domain name when you upgrade to the Core plan.

Journey

For Journey, white labeling is available in the Pro plan. But a custom domain, if you’d like one, is only available in the Enterprise plan. 

Mutual Action Plans

Having a mutual action plan as a checklist in a digital sales room helps everyone know what to do and when. It keeps everyone accountable and, of course, makes you look more pro. 

Including this option in all types of plans (even the free ones) is even better. It ensures that everyone is working together towards the same goals. This creates a sense of teamwork and responsibility, which leads to better results for the sales team and the business overall.

Emlen

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Emlen’s mutual action plan includes dates and timers, which can add a subtle sense of urgency. But it’s only available in the Premium plan.

Journey 

Similarly, Journey’s mutual action plan is available only in the Pro plan, not the Basic plan. 

Take Your Pick!

Out of every sales enablement tool you’ve heard of, Digital Sales Rooms are built to provide a beautiful, centralized, and simple way to showcase products and close deals. More wins, increased value, and business growth are sure to follow. 

So, which tool caught your eye?