Our secrets to generate Leads

How to pick sales prospecting tools?

Introduction

There are countless sales software to choose from. If you're trying to define what your tool stack should look like - it is essential to understand what you are trying to accomplish.

Many tools look enticing and seem to be good solutions to boost your sales results but might prove unnecessary pretty quickly.

The easiest way to decide which solutions to go for is to map your sales & prospecting processes - and focus on the areas that require the most improvements.


In any efficient prospecting system the following is required:
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1. A process that lets you source potential clients precisely.
2. A platform on which to reach out to these prospects.
3. A way to ensure prospects notice your messages.
4. An efficient message that highlights your value proposition.
5. Lead management practices to not let deals fall through.
6. Automations that save time for your sales reps.

As you might have guessed - at all these stages, there are sales software that will make your life easier. We'll dive deeper into how to use software to enhance your performance at each of these stages. Beforehand, let's talk about your current stack.

Take a look at your current stack

You might be able to save thousands of $/€ by replacing some of your tools with other ones. A good example (thay we'll cover) later one, is with sales engagement tools. Most make you pay per profile (e.g: Salesloft, Outreach, Lemlist), which means that the bill becomes huge pretty quickly. Some other tools, such as Smartlead, have different pricing model, that can be way more advatangeous as you scale.

Here's my advice to you:
-> Look at each of your software.
-> Start with the ones that are more "nice-to-have" than "must-have". --> Check which sales tool category they belong to.
-> Compare pricing plans with other tools laid out above on the page.

Example for alternatives

Here are typical alternatives that help businesses save money on their sales stack every month:

Email Finder: Most tools charge per email found and provides a limited amount of credits. Apollo has very generous pricing - that lets you find 10,000 email addresses per month on their $99/mo plan.

Sales Engagement: Most tools have a pay-per-profile plan. This means that, if you were to take a subscription to Lemlist, for example, you would pay $59-$99/mo per profile.

If you have 10 sales reps on your team, that would mean min. $590/mo.
In comparison, Smartlead or Instantly charge based on total sending volume and lets you use an unlimited number of profiles. You would be paying $94-97/mo instead of $590/mo. Big difference, right?

Data Extraction: Instant Data Scraper (IDS) is completely free and can be used for (almost) all your data extraction needs. Make some savings on scraping software right away. To scrape big platforms [e.g: LinkedIn], I still recommend using a dedicated software such as Phantombuster.

Workflow Automation: Both n8n and Make are designed to let you scale to a high number of automated workflows. You can divide your Zapier's bill by 2 depending on how many automations are set up for your business.

How to find prospects with sales tools?

Save time with contact sourcing software

The most crucial part of sales prospecting is to source, filter and segment an audience. This means, finding the contact information of your prospects, to reach them on the platform of your choice.

There are several platforms on which you can reach out to your prospects: emails, social media, phone... and so on. Whatever the platform you pick, contact sourcing software will allow you to scale your list building efforts.

You'll find below contact sourcing tools for any needs: finding emails, finding phone numbers and/or finding social profiles.

1. Apollo: The most user-friendly platform to source contacts

Apollo.io is a Sales Intelligence and Sales Engagement platform. It contains a database with millions of verified contacts and companies, which can be searched and filtered based on various criteria such as industry, job title, location, and company size.

It lets you find email addresses & phone numbers. On top of its contact sourcing features - Apollo has data enrichment functionalities in case you're missing information to leverage your data properly.

Pricing: Apollo's free plan lets you find 50 email addresses per month. Its lowest paid plan starts at $49/mo.

Ratings: Apollo is rated 4.8/5 on G2 (4139 reviews)

2. Phantombuster: Extract data from big platforms

Phantombuster is a web automation tool extracting data from websites and online platforms. It offers pre-built automation scripts and API connectors to make data gathering more efficient and saves time and resources by eliminating the need for manual scraping or programming skills.

It is particularly helpful to extract data from LinkedIn and build contact lists on the platform.

Pricing: Phantombuster offers three pricing plans ($59/mo, $199/mo, and $399/mo)

Ratings: Phantombuster is rated 4.3/5 on G2 (30 reviews)

3. Findymail: Find Email addresses that won't bounce

Findymail is an email finding software that helps users find and verify email addresses. In addition to its email finding capabilities, Findymail lets you scrape large B2B databases such as Apollo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Pricing: Findymail starts at $49/mo for 1000 verified email addresses.

4. Uplead: Find phone numbers & email addresses

Uplead is a Sales Intelligence and Data Enrichment platform that generates contact data, enriches existing data, and finds accounts with buying intent. It guarantees a 95% accuracy rate on its data and is useful for improving sales strategies, customer targeting, and data analysis accuracy.

Uplead lets you find email addresses and phone numbers.

Pricing: Uplead starts at $99/mo for 170 credits.

Ratings: Uplead is rated 4.7/5 on G2 (609 reviews)

5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator: The largest B2B contact database

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the largest B2B database on earth. Most platforms rely on LinkedIn to generate their data. It usually has the most updated data since it is used by job seekers and companies to generate opportunities.

As such, the displayed information is updated by people & companies themselves. The platform has many filtering options, both at the account and personal levels. By observing signals taken by people and companies, it is possible to create high-intent lists of leads interested in purchasing products and services.

Pricing: Plans start at $39/mo. If you wish to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator features, it will cost you $69/mo or more.

Ratings: LinkedIn Sales Navigator is rated 4.3/5 on G2 (1645 reviews)

6. Instant Data Scraper: Extract data from anywhere

Instant Data Scraper (IDS) is a tool for web scraping that enables users to extract data from websites in a fast and simple manner. This tool is an extension that can be installed on any browser.

IDS allows users to effortlessly select the specific data they wish to extract from a webpage and then save it in various formats, including CSV, JSON, or Google Sheets.

With the help of AI, this tool can extract data from structured elements on a webpage, such as tables or lists.

Pricing: Instant Data Scraper is completely Free.

‍Ratings: IDS is rated 5/5 on Chrome Web Store (2439 reviews)

7. Clay: Find customers from over 50 data sources

Clay is a platform that assists with creative prospecting and lead generation. With access to more than 50 data sources, including live LinkedIn data, automated Google searches, website keyword searches, and job listing scraping, Clay helps users find potential customers.

Clay eliminates the need for messy CSVs, API keys, and tedious cross-checking by offering built-in sources for lead generation across the internet. It is designed to automate finding and qualifying leads.

In addition, Clay includes GPT-3 integration, which allows users to create personalized emails to communicate with prospects.

Pricing: Clay starts at $349/mo

8. Leadfeeder: Turn page views into pipeline

Leadfeeder is a visitor identification software. It identifies the companies visiting your website to turn these into leads.

It uses various techniques such as tracking cookies, IP address tracking, and user registration to identify individual visitors and gather information about their behaviour on your website.

Doing that provides valuable insights into website visitors' interests, needs, and preferences. This can be leveraged for sales strategies to target specific audiences better and increase conversions and revenue.

Pricing: Leadfeeder starts at $139/mo

Ratings: Leadfeeder is rated 4.3/5 (677 reviews)

9. BuiltWith: Build lists based on websites' technologies

BuiltWith is a web tool that helps users identify the technology used to build and run websites. 
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It can reveal information about the web server, programming languages, content management systems (CMS), analytics tools, and other technologies used by a website. 
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This information can be useful for salespeople who want to gain insights into the technologies used by their prospects. In this aspect, BuiltWith can be used to generate leads by identifying the technology stack used by targeted companies.

Pricing: BuiltWith starts at $295/mo

Ratings: BuiltWith is rated 4.3/5 on G2 (53 reviews)

How to reach out to prospects at scale?

Automate your outreach with sales engagement software

Once you've gathered a list of prospects, it is time to reach out. Are you thinking of messaging them one-by-one by copy pasting the same message? If you are, stop everything you're doing... and read on.

You can automate your outreach with sales engagement tools. Whether you're reaching out to people by email, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, by phone and/or even by sending them handwritten notes or gifts... tools allows you to carry out these actions at scale.

You'll find below sales tools to facilitate your outreach, regardless of the platform you're using for your sales prospecting activities.

10. Smartlead

Smartlead is a software designed for sales prospecting via Cold Email. It simplifies the process by providing features like contact list management, automated messaging, follow-ups, and email warmups.

What sets Smartlead apart is that it allows users to create unlimited profiles for a fixed price. This makes it an affordable option for businesses and sales professionals who frequently send cold emails in high volumes. In comparison to other solutions, it can be up to 10 to 20 times cheaper

Pricing: Smartlead offers several plans starting from $29/mo. We recommend going for the $94/mo that allows you to scale your outreach efforts with almost no limits.

Ratings: Smartlead is rated 4.9/5 on G2 (10 reviews)

11. LaGrowthMachine

LaGrowthMachine (LGM) is a tool that automates tasks on LinkedIn, Twitter, and email, saving time on manual tasks for businesses and sales professionals. It offers a multi-channel outreach workflow that enables communication with prospects and customers through preferred channels like email, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Pricing: LGM starts at 80€/mo.

Ratings: LGM is rated 4.7/5 on G2 (5 reviews)

12. SolidInbox

SolidInbox automates reaching out to potential customers or followers on Twitter. Using the software, you can send direct messages automatically.

SolidInbox also includes lead searching and exporting features.

Pricing: SolidInbox has a free plan. The lowest-paid plan starts at $49/mo.

13. Orum

Orum enables sales teams to make more calls in less time by automating repetitive tasks like dialling phone numbers, leaving voicemails, and sending follow-up emails.

It also provides insights and analytics on call metrics, such as call duration, call outcomes, and call recordings.

Pricing: Request a demo to access pricing information.

Ratings: Orum is rated 4.8/5 on G2 (93 reviews)

14. HippoVideo

HippoVideo is a video prospecting software that lets users create personalized outreach videos at scale. It helps businesses engage with prospects and customers by offering AI-powered interactive videos tailored to each prospect.

HippoVideo also offers automated video creation processes via pre-built and custom workflows, allowing users to reach a many prospects while maintaining a personal touch for a higher conversion rate.

Pricing: HippoVideo has four plans priced at $19, $40, $65, and $99 per month, with increasing features for customers to choose from.

Ratings: HippoVideo is rated 4.5/5 on G2 (633 reviews)

15. Instantly

Instantly is a software that helps businesses and sales professionals find new customers through Cold Email. It makes the process easy by providing contact list management, automated messaging, follow-ups, and email warmups.

What makes Instantly special is that users can create unlimited profiles for a fixed price. This means it's a cost-effective option for those who regularly send lots of cold emails. Compared to other solutions, it can be much cheaper, up to 10 to 20 times less expensive.
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Pricing: Instantly plans start at $37/mo. For (almost) unlimited sending, it is recommended to go with the $97/mo plan.

‍Ratings: Instantly is rated 4.9/5 on G2 (81 reviews)

16. Potion

Potion (SendPotion) is an AI-powered video outreach software that lets users send personalized video messages to potential customers, partners, and candidates.

What sets Potion apart is its AI algorithms that automate and personalize the video outreach process. This simplifies creating and sending customized video messages to multiple recipients while making them feel individually addressed.

‍Pricing: Potion starts at $250/mo per user profile.

‍Ratings: Potion is rated 4.8/5 on G2 (10 reviews)

17. Sendoso

Sendoso is a sending platform that helps businesses send physical gifts, eGifts, and direct mail to their customers and prospects.

The platform offers a variety of gift options, including personalized notes, gift cards, and custom-branded merchandise. It integrates with various CRM and marketing automation tools, making it easy for businesses to send gifts at scale and track their ROI.

The platform also provides analytics and insights on gift performance and recipient engagement

Pricing: Request a demo to access pricing information.

Ratings: Sendoso is rated 4.5/5 on G2 (881 reviews)

18. Handwrytten

Handwrytten is a handwritten card service that uses robots to write personalized messages in a realistic, human-like handwriting style.

The service allows businesses and individuals to send customized, handwritten notes and cards to customers, clients, and friends.

Handwrytten offers a variety of card styles and options, including custom branding and logos. Users can choose the handwriting style, ink color, and card design to create a personalized message.

Pricing: Handwrytten starts at $3.25 per card.

Ratings: Handwrytten is rated 4.7/5 on G2 (775 reviews)

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