The 15 Best Sales Tools You Need
for B2B Lead Generation in 2020
for B2B Lead Generation in 2020
The list of available sales tools for small and medium-sized businesses has grown significantly since 2018 and the choice can be overwhelming. If you are wondering what sales tools you need to stay ahead of the competition in 2020, you are in the right place.
Lead generation traditionally involves a lot of hard work that is quite time-consuming. But it doesn't have to be THAT time-consuming. The techniques for lead generation have evolved with technology development and have made things possible that sales people had only dreamt of. You can achieve the same (and even better) results by automating some parts of the lead gen process with the power of different sales tools. The biggest advantage is that you can be so much more efficient at the same time.
Since there are so many solutions on the market with various features and prices, you need to be strategic in what you choose. And remember, you need a whole toolset, so we've covered the different areas where some help could be useful. By the way, we've noted when a free trial is offered and the starting price of the plans to save you that part of the research as well.
Since there are so many solutions on the market with various features and prices, you need to be strategic in what you choose. And remember, you need a whole toolset, so we've covered the different areas where some help could be useful. By the way, we've noted when a free trial is offered and the starting price of the plans to save you that part of the research as well.
Here are the 15 top sales tools that Prosply recommends:
Social Selling
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
(database, outreach and prospecting,
personal brand)
Databases
CrunchBase
AngelList
Hoovers
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
(database, outreach and prospecting,
personal brand)
Databases
CrunchBase
AngelList
Hoovers
Email Finding
Hunter.io
Prospect.io
Clearbit Connect
Outreach Automation
Salesloft
Woodpecker
Reply.io
Web Visitor Tracking
Leadfeeder
Hunter.io
Prospect.io
Clearbit Connect
Outreach Automation
Salesloft
Woodpecker
Reply.io
Web Visitor Tracking
Leadfeeder
Read about all of the tools below:
LinkedIn
Among all available tools and platforms, LinkedIn is the ultimate solution when it comes to B2B lead generation. It's the best way to connect with prospects (note that there are 260 million active users per month) and provides the most up-to-date information. LinkedIn can serve as a database, an outreach and prospecting tool, as well as be used for relationship management.
At Prosply we leverage the full power of LinkedIn to fill our customers' pipelines with leads and opportunities. What is the extent of that power you may ask?
Well, we have found that by personalizing your messages to be relevant for your prospects' experience and expertise, you can generate interest in your offering and pre-qualify leads, which lets you focus on the ones that are most likely to buy. In that way, you can use LinkedIn to easily fill your calendar with high quality calls and meetings! It can also be a powerful personal branding tool, when you optimize your LinkedIn profile correctly and use it to nurture your cold connections into warm leads. Learn more about that here.
Among all available tools and platforms, LinkedIn is the ultimate solution when it comes to B2B lead generation. It's the best way to connect with prospects (note that there are 260 million active users per month) and provides the most up-to-date information. LinkedIn can serve as a database, an outreach and prospecting tool, as well as be used for relationship management.
At Prosply we leverage the full power of LinkedIn to fill our customers' pipelines with leads and opportunities. What is the extent of that power you may ask?
Well, we have found that by personalizing your messages to be relevant for your prospects' experience and expertise, you can generate interest in your offering and pre-qualify leads, which lets you focus on the ones that are most likely to buy. In that way, you can use LinkedIn to easily fill your calendar with high quality calls and meetings! It can also be a powerful personal branding tool, when you optimize your LinkedIn profile correctly and use it to nurture your cold connections into warm leads. Learn more about that here.
- Free trial
If you are using LinkedIn, then you need to get LinkedIn Sales Navigator too. It's a product offered by LinkedIn, designed to adapt to salespeople's needs and help them find their target audience faster. Use the advanced search filters to leverage all the valuable data on the professional network platform, send Inmail messages and reach the relevant decision makers with the help of personalized algorithms.
Databases
To ensure that your research is as thorough as possible, you need to look in the right places, or.. databases. We never miss to check:
To ensure that your research is as thorough as possible, you need to look in the right places, or.. databases. We never miss to check:
- Free basic version
CrunchBase is the place to go for research of companies that match your ideal client profile, your target industries and investors. Additionally, it provides an overview of the most relevant industry news and trends to help you conduct an in-depth analysis, so you know exactly when is the right time to reach out to prospects.
- Free
AngelList claims to be the world's largest startup community. Its database of over 5 million companies allows you to see the V.C. deals and investment stages of different startups, mainly in the tech industry.
- Free trial
This sales intelligence solution will supply you with information about your target prospects, which will help build your lead lists and improve your conversations. With this elevated targeting approach you will be able to get higher quality leads as well.
Email Finding
The next step of sales prospecting is finding the emails of the people you want to connect with and building your lists. Searching for specific email addresses is not an easy task, unless you have a fast and accurate tool to find them for you. Some of the best include:
The next step of sales prospecting is finding the emails of the people you want to connect with and building your lists. Searching for specific email addresses is not an easy task, unless you have a fast and accurate tool to find them for you. Some of the best include:
- 50 free searches/month
Hunter lets you find the most probable email address for any professional by typing the website of their company. It will even return the sources where the email address was found or provide you with the best guess of what the email might look like.
Additionally, you can use Hunter's Bulk Email Finder to enrich your contact list. Or just get the Chrome extension to receive a list of emails of the people associated with the website you're currently browsing. So simple!
Additionally, you can use Hunter's Bulk Email Finder to enrich your contact list. Or just get the Chrome extension to receive a list of emails of the people associated with the website you're currently browsing. So simple!
- 50 free credits when creating an account
This platform started as a Chrome Extension and can also help you find and verify email addresses. On top of that, the "essential" plan offers email tracking, insights and reporting. And if you're willing to upgrade to the business plan, Prospect.io will integrate with most major CRMs, making your life even easier.
- Free
ClearBit Connect is a Gmail extension that will show you the email addresses of prospects by searching for their company, name or even job title. Not only that, but it will also provide you with information regarding their location, social media profiles, financial and business details. Oh, and it's super easy to use too.
Outreach Automation
Implementing outreach automation to your sales process will not only let you do much more than you do currently, but will likely also increase the quality of the meetings booked. Most email tracking tools (such as the ones recommended here) will give you all the stats, so you can find out what works best.
Implementing outreach automation to your sales process will not only let you do much more than you do currently, but will likely also increase the quality of the meetings booked. Most email tracking tools (such as the ones recommended here) will give you all the stats, so you can find out what works best.
- Demo available
Salesloft is an excellent platform with which you can personalize your outreach across the channels social, email, phone and text and which will sync with your CRM data.
- 14-day free trial
With Woodpecker you can automate up to 7 follow-ups, track all responses and data. It's also very well suited for smaller teams, that don't require custom solutions or many integrations (however, this is possible, too!).
- 14-day free trial
Reply.io is an email automation tool that can potentially skyrocket your efficiency and make outreach really scalable. It allows you to personalize emails at scale and always keep in touch a.k.a no more missed follow ups.
Web Visitor Tracking
Tracking visitor data can have many benefits - from getting the contacts of people that are interested in your product or service to finding out what information they are looking for on your website.
Tracking visitor data can have many benefits - from getting the contacts of people that are interested in your product or service to finding out what information they are looking for on your website.
- Free basic version & free trial of premium version
Leadfeeder is reinventing the way we use data. It gives you a great overview of who is visiting your website and you'll receive the contact information of the visitors, as well as insight into which of your products they are interested in. If you don't want to miss the leads most likely to convert, it's probably a good idea to try out Leadfeeder.
Scheduling
Save time like a pro: with an appointment scheduling tool there is no need for countless back and forth emails until you can discover a time slot that suits everyone.
Save time like a pro: with an appointment scheduling tool there is no need for countless back and forth emails until you can discover a time slot that suits everyone.
- Free version
At Prosply we use Calendly to schedule all of our appointments. It helps us streamline the process and is very convenient for our customers, as they can book a meeting directly from our website.
- Free
Instead of having your sales team manually booking meetings with prospects, with Drift you can do it via a chatbot that works 24/7. The amazing advantage with Drift is that the chatbot will qualify leads before booking a meeting!
CRM
How do you keep track of all your customers and leads? We suggest to try:
How do you keep track of all your customers and leads? We suggest to try:
- Free
Hubspot is one of the leaders in sales solutions and the CRM they offer is great, because it's free. As it's a lightweight CRM, it's the perfect place to start if you haven't used one before and explore what it can do at no extra cost.
Document Management
Finally, you need to manage your contracts and documents, right? As we know that getting those long-awaited signatures can take forever, we recommend:
Finally, you need to manage your contracts and documents, right? As we know that getting those long-awaited signatures can take forever, we recommend:
- Free trial
This is a great tool for requesting e-signatures for your documents that are also legally binding. Use it to sign contracts and close sales faster!
This was our choice for the best 15 sales tools that salespeople are using, comprising some of the most popular choices out there and other personally tested tools that we can recommend. Having that in mind, there are countless alternatives that can help you scale your lead generation and generate high-quality leads in an efficient manner. We couldn't possibly list them all in one article!
On the flip side, not using any sales automation tools might actually be hurting your business. In order to stay competitive, you should be constantly improving your processes.
Need help with kicking off your lead generation? Prosply is here for you! Just reach out to our team via the form below or take a look at our services: Lead lists research, LinkedIn Profile Management, Outbound sales prospecting, B2B appointment setting.
The Author:
Nia Ilieva, Marketing Manager at Prosply
Get connected on LinkedIn
Nia Ilieva, Marketing Manager at Prosply
Get connected on LinkedIn
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