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)

10. Ocean: Targeting with lookalikes

Ocean.io is a data platform and business intelligence tool that assists businesses in discovering and engaging with potential customers. Utilizing AI and machine learning algorithms, Ocean.io analyzes vast amounts of data from multiple sources, including social media, public records, and company websites, to offer insights and identify opportunities for growth.

Unlike many other data providers, Ocean.io includes unique features such as Buying Intent, which provides businesses with the optimal time to reach out to potential accounts, and Lookalike, which allows businesses to create lists of companies that closely resemble those they have previously worked with.

In summary, Ocean.io's cutting-edge technology provides businesses with valuable insights into potential customers and unique features that set it apart from other data platforms.
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‍Pricing: Ocean's pricing isn't public and requires that you book a demo to gain more information.

‍Ratings: Ocean is rated 4.1/5 on G2 (5 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.

11. 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)

12. 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€ 60€/mo.

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

13. 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.

14. 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)

15. 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)

16. 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)

17. 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)

18. 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)

19. 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)

How to to get your messages seen?

How to land in prospects’ inbox

Introducting: email delieverability tools (...)

20. Mailreach

Mailreach is a tool that helps improve email delivery and reputation. It does this by gradually increasing the number of emails sent and simulating inbox interactions, which tells email platforms that the emails are not spam.

Using Mailreach can help create a good email reputation, which means more emails will be delivered to the main inbox instead of going to spam. This can lead to more people opening and reading the emails, which should result in higher conversion rates.

Pricing: Mailreach starts at $25/mo.

Ratings: Mailreach is rated 5/5 on Capterra (16 reviews)

21. Warmbox

Warmbox is a valuable tool designed to enhance the deliverability and sender reputation of emails. Its unique approach involves gradually increasing the volume of email sending while simulating inbox interactions. By doing so, Warmbox sends a signal to email platforms that the messages are of high quality and should land in the primary inbox. Additionally, the tool marks the messages as not spam, further boosting their reputation.

As a result of using Warmbox, email senders can establish a positive email reputation. This, in turn, leads to higher open rates, better deliverability, and increased conversion rates. By improving the sender reputation and email deliverability, Warmbox proves to be an effective tool for businesses looking to optimize their email marketing campaigns.

Pricing: Warmbox starts at $25/mo

22. Zerobounce

Zerobounce is a tool that can verify and validate emails, aiding businesses in increasing their email deliverability and protecting their reputation as a sender. This service ensures that email addresses are correct, precise, and kept up-to-date.

Zerobounce offers various services, including email validation, bounce detection, identifying email abuse and spam traps, tracking email activity, and email appending. The email validation service examines the syntax and layout of an email address to make sure it is correct and does not contain any errors. The bounce detection service detects and removes invalid email addresses from a mailing list to prevent bounces. The abuse and spam trap detection service helps to pinpoint email addresses that could be associated with spam traps or have a history of misuse. Additionally, the email activity tracking service enables real-time monitoring of email engagement and activity.

Pricing: Zerobounce starts at $16 for 2,000 validation credits.
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Ratings: Zerobounce is rated 4.6/5 on G2 (278 reviews)

23. Warmer

Warmer is a sales prospecting tool that uses artificial intelligence to create personalized icebreakers for its users. This feature enables users to establish a connection with their target audience on a large scale, while still maintaining a personalized approach.

By gathering data on prospects, including their LinkedIn profile and website information, Warmer's software gains insights into their interests, preferences, and behavior patterns. This information is then used to generate customized icebreakers that resonate with each prospect, making the outreach process more effective and engaging.

Pricing: Warmer starts at $97/mo

24. GetCargo

GetCargo Extension  is a supplementary tool from OpenAI made for marketing and sales experts. Its aim is to facilitate the creation of sales emails, follow-ups, Google Ads copy, and blog posts by offering pre-designed templates that use AI technology. This capability allows for more efficient work processes, increased productivity and a reduction in workloads. Additionally, the add-on enables the filling in of a spreadsheet using AI technology with the aid of input.

Furthermore, the GetCargo Extension aids users in recognizing opportunities for cross-selling and upselling among their current customer base, thereby increasing sales. It also includes features for automating sales, such as the ability to create personalized lead and account scoring systems. The scoring rules can be customized according to the user's requirements, allowing for optimized sales efforts.

‍Pricing: GetCargo Extension is free of charge

25. Lavender

Lavender is an AI-powered sales email coach that offers on-the-spot guidance to improve your email writing skills and increase the chances of receiving positive replies. It serves as a virtual writing assistant that provides expert recommendations and feedback to enhance your communication.By using cutting-edge writing AI technology, Lavender evaluates your emails in real-time and provides instant feedback and suggestions to make them more compelling, convincing, and polished. This advanced analysis helps you to create messages that are more engaging, persuasive, and professional. Overall, Lavender is a powerful tool that can help you to become a better email writer and achieve more successful outcomes in your sales communication.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $29/mo, but Lavender also has a free plan for those who wish to try out the software. They also let job seekers use their software for free.

‍Ratings: Lavender is rated 4.9/5 on G2 (42 reviews)

26. Regie

Regie is a cutting-edge program designed to help you create, test, and evaluate customized sales campaigns. With Regie, you can quickly and easily generate targeted prospecting email campaigns, sales scripts, and social media interactions tailored to the individual personas of your potential buyers.

Regie utilizes a data-driven approach that incorporates specific timing recommendations for delivering your touchpoints to ensure that your prospecting efforts are optimized for maximum impact. By leveraging Regie's innovative technology, you can streamline your sales outreach and achieve more efficient and effective results. Overall, Regie is an invaluable tool for anyone looking to enhance their sales efforts and drive business growth.

Pricing: Regie starts at $29/mo. It has a larger ($89/mo) plan and an enterprise plan.
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Ratings: Regie is rated 4.7/5 on G2 (40 reviews)

27. Signum

Signum is a platform driven by artificial intelligence that supports businesses to launch personalized outreach campaigns in a scalable way and expedite revenue growth. Through combining several data sources, tools, and APIs, Signum.AI enables businesses to monitor their potential customers' actions and detect the optimal moment to make a sale.

With Signum, companies can streamline their customized outreach efforts by linking their sales tool to Signum's platform and launching pre-designed sequences each time a new event occurs.

Pricing: Signum starts at $500/mo
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Ratings: Signum is rated 4.8/5 on G2 (2 reviews)

28. CrystalKnows

CrystalKnows is an AI-based software platform that utilizes public information available on an individual, such as their social media profiles, blog posts, or written articles, to provide a comprehensive understanding of their personality traits, communication preferences, and behavior patterns.

The personality profile created by CrystalKnows can be beneficial in various areas, such as improving client interactions and building stronger relationships, as well as gaining insights into potential job candidates for companies. It can provide a comprehensive view of an individual's communication style and personality, which can help organizations tailor their messaging and approach.

Pricing: Crystal's paid plan starts at $49/mo
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Ratings: Crystal is rated 4.5/5 on G2 (53 reviews)

29. Freshsales

Freshsales Suite  is an all-inclusive sales force automation tool that equips sales teams with the necessary resources to draw in top-notch leads, have relevant discussions, and benefit from AI-fueled data, while also cultivating relationships with clients. This software integrates phone, email, chat, and telephony into one platform, streamlining the sales process and boosting productivity by automating tasks.

Pricing: Freshsales starts at $15 per user for up to 2,000 bot sessions per month

Rating: Freshsales is rated 4.6/5 on G2  (1,030 reviews)

30. Nektar

Nektar  is an easy-to-use data collection tool designed to collect sales activity and contact information from various communication channels within your business, such as email, calendar, meetings, and social media. Unlike other data collection tools, Nektar does not require coding and can automatically synchronize the collected data into relevant Salesforce objects, such as Account, Opportunity, and Lead. This allows your revenue teams to access valuable data without any manual intervention from sales representatives, providing them with critical insights into sales productivity, pipeline activity, and revenue predictability. With Nektar, your CRM is enriched with essential information that empowers your sales teams to make informed decisions, drive more sales, and build stronger customer relationships.

Pricing: Nektar requires you to book a demo first for pricing information.

‍Ratings: Nektar is rated 5/5 on G2 (12 reviews)

31. Bitskout

Bitskout is a tool that is useful for teams that frequently handle documents and notifications. It allows you to easily create plugins that can automatically extract information from different sources such as invoices, business cards, purchase orders, and Bills of Lading. You can use this information in your tools to automate your workflow.

With Bitskout, you can set up a series of steps that define the logic for content validation. When a task is triggered, the workflow is performed on the specific task, with each step indicating what needs to be checked and any additional parameters. If the check is successful, the content is moved to the next step until the workflow is successfully completed.
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Pricing: Bitskout starts at €59 per month

32. n8n

n8n is a top-rated automation platform that enables users to easily connect various tools and third-party APIs without the need for extensive coding. Its unique fair-code distribution model ensures transparency by providing visibility into its source code, and it also offers self-hosting options. n8n's customizable functions, logic, and app integrations make it highly adaptable and user-friendly.

The platform is supported by a dedicated community that regularly contributes to its development, making it a highly scalable and versatile workflow automation solution.

‍Pricing: n8n starts at $20 per month

‍Rating: n8n is rated 4.5/5 on G2 (14 reviews)

33. GetCargo Extension

GetCargo Extension is an AI-powered tool for sales and marketing professionals that can help create sales emails, follow-ups, Google Ads copy, and blog posts at scale, using pre-built templates. This tool can significantly reduce your workload and increase your productivity. With the help of AI technology, you can fill in your spreadsheet by providing input to the add-on.

Apart from generating content, the GetCargo Extension also provides suggestions to increase sales and identifies cross-selling and upselling opportunities among existing customers. With its automation features, it is possible to create a lead and account scoring system and customize the scoring rules to fit your specific needs. Overall, this tool is a great way to optimize your sales efforts and improve your results.

‍Pricing: GetCargo Extension is free of charge

34. Saile AI

Saile.ai is an AI-powered SaaS solution that streamlines prospecting activities for medium-sized and global enterprise organizations. It relies on Sailebots to perform tasks related to prospecting that typically require human intervention. These tasks include navigating organizational structures, identifying decision-makers, and interacting with them through cutting-edge email technology. The Sailebots can analyze responses and deliver actionable opportunities to email and CRM systems. They are customized to suit individual business requirements and are deployed securely from the cloud, eliminating the need for additional components or third-party services.

One of the key benefits of Saile.ai's approach is its ability to operate without prior data, pre-approved prospects, or pre-approved content. This provides a significant advantage to businesses that need to accelerate their prospecting activities quickly without the time-consuming process of data and content preparation.

‍Pricing: Saile requires that you book a demo to gain pricing information.

‍Rating: Saile AI is rated 4.7 out of 5 on G2, based on 61 reviews.