In the 21st century, most of products and services are being delivered online. Businesses have realized that lead generation plays an important role in providing quality services to customers. The concept of generating leads has been greatly transformed with the emergence of best lead generation tools.
There is a heck of a lot of lead generation tools available, so I decided to run a test on the most popular ones. This post will convert you directly into a lead generation machine! On my journey through the sea of information that is the internet, I stumbled across this great list on b2b lead generation tools. If you haven’t considered how you’re going to get all those contacts, then it might be time to start thinking about some quality ways to generate leads and increase your brand exposure.
You can’t use the same tool for generating leads every time. Using a tool intended for one campaign over another is not going to work in the long run. Doing so not only wastes your money but also causes you to lose out on high converting leads. It’s therefore important to invest in tools that are capable of performing multiple functions well. You’ll find some tools that are good for generating leads as well as nurturing them. Other tools will perform poorly at lead generation, but they excel at nurturing. In this post, we’ll present you with a shortlist of free best B2B lead generation tools that are currently available in the market, and provide you with more information about each tool’s features and capabilities along with its shortcomings
The internet is the biggest network of people in human history, and it’s only growing bigger. This makes it seem like a good idea to reach out to your customers over the web, but with so many tools on offer it can be hard to know which are worth buying. Here’s a list of some of our favorites, which will help you generate valuable business leads – or simply fill your sales funnel.
What Are B2B Lead Generation Tools?
Every lead gen campaign should have two things: a clear strategy for targeting prospective customers. And the right tools to monitor and execute your strategy.
B2B lead generation tools consist of software designed to assist with capturing leads. It’s an automated process, so you can focus on developing campaigns, not manually inserting lead data.
What Makes a Good Lead Generation Tool?
Ideally, you want a lead gen tool that doesn’t come with a lot of “chores.” It should automate your processes and not require a bunch of coding on your end. In fact, the more user-friendly and intuitive it is, the better.
Now, this isn’t to say some of the top lead generation tools won’t have a bit of a learning curve. When it comes time to select your lead generation software, you should look for the following:
- Usability: How simple is it to get your campaign up and running?
- Integration: Does it integrate with the marketing tools you already have?
- Pricing: Do you get everything you need while staying within your budget? How do the rates compare to competitors?
- Features: Does it come with all the bells and whistles you need to streamline lead gen campaigns?
- Benefits: Will it help you to achieve your lead gen goals?
Lead generation software comes in many forms and serves many different purposes. You’ll find some that offer better features in certain areas than others. You’ll also need to consider price and find the right tool for your budget.
1. LeadPages
Having a way to capture leads on your website is easier with tools like LeadPages. With this, you can create custom landing pages for specific audiences. Then it connects to your other software, so the leads drawn in are funneled into your CRM.
And don’t worry, you don’t have to do it all from scratch. There are hundreds of high-converting templates to select from. Then you can change the colors, add your logo, and choose the design to make it your own.
The cost for LeadPages is $27/mo for Standard, which is suitable if you have only one website. But if you have several, then opt for the $59/mo Pro plan for three websites. Or, if you’re an agency, then you can go to the Advanced plan for $239/mo for up to 50 sites. There’s also a 14-day free trial.
2. OptinMonster
After building an awesome landing page, it’s time to capture visitors using lead forms. Keep in mind that shorter forms perform the best. What’s great about OptinMonster is that it comes with a drag-n-drop builder. This enables you to quickly build different types of opt-in forms. This includes lightbox popups, fullscreen takeovers, floating bars, and slide-ins.
This tool comes with over 100 templates to choose from, so there’s no need to start from scratch. They’re visually stimulating, which is ideal for capturing attention and information from leads. There’s also a powerful segmentation and targeting engine to display the right popup.
Need to adjust your lead form in real-time? This platform makes it simple to adjust and test forms right away. A/B split testing opt-in forms has never been faster.
The price for OptinMonster starts at $14/mo for Basic for a single website. Then if you have several, you can choose the Plus plan at $30/mo for two sites or $47/mo for three sites. If you have five websites, then expect to pay around $80/mo.
There’s no free trial, but you get a 14-day moneyback guarantee.
3. Hello Bar
Ever see a bar show up at the top of a website page with a message? Maybe it’s to promote a sale or new product in the lineup. Hello Bar is a powerful widget because it grabs attention and converts targeted leads. Hellobar makes this process seamless by making A/B testing quick.
You can customize the message, CTA, and position. So if you don’t want the bar at the top, you can opt for a full-page takeover, sliders, modals, and alert bells.
There’s a free version of HelloBar, then you can upgrade to a paid version starting at $29/mo. The free version allows up to 5,000 sessions per month. Then goes up to 500K sessions and unlimited popups for $99/mo. Annual plans are also available, saving you a few dollars monthly.
4. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Now, if you’re using LinkedIn to connect with B2B audiences, then this tool is for you. LinkedIn Sales Navigator enables you to target specific people and companies, track leads, and engage with prospects.
It also comes with advanced lead and company searches to find the most relevant prospects. The platform even recommends leads based on your preferences. This is ideal for finding the right contacts within target accounts. Plus, it integrates with your CRM platform.
It’s possible to build custom lead and account lists. And there are helpful alerts and insights. For instance, you’ll know when a lead or account changes jobs or witnesses company growth.
There’s a free trial available for a month. Then it begins at $65/mo for annual plans. There are two options — Sales Navigator Professional and Sales Navigator Team ($103/mo for annual).
5. Qualaroo
Learning about your audience is possible when you conduct thorough research. And what better way to gather intel than to get it directly from the horse’s mouth? With Qualaroo, you can create unobtrusive mini customer surveys to collect information from leads and accounts.
It works by popping up on visitors’ screens when they come to your website. For instance, it may pop up with a small window on the side asking questions. You may see these on websites all the time — they’re like chatbots, asking what you’d like to do next (schedule a demo, call a sales agent, or begin a free trial).
Of course, you can use it in various other ways, such as asking questions to learn more about their needs. It’s an excellent way to get insights to personalize their experience.
There’s a free 15-day trial and demo to test how it works. Monthly and annual plans are available starting at $100/mo or $960/yr.
6. Everwebinar
Creating webinars is big business today, especially when it comes to driving new leads to your business. With Everwebinar, you can schedule and automate webinar footage and lead capturing. It even enables you to play content in intervals to recreate the live experience.
The idea is to boost engagement and attendance numbers by using countdown timers. Of course, this is triggered by the user, so no one misses out.
It works across all devices and has high definition quality. You get to choose whether the webinar is only available on specific dates or on recurring days of the week.
There’s the option to pay $199 x 3 annually or $499/yearly. Or you can save money by paying $799 every two years.
7. HubSpot
There are a lot of pieces within a lead generation campaign. With HubSpot, you can manage most of the processes in a single platform. For instance, you can create and schedule blog posts, attach and automate social profiles. It also helps with driving organic traffic by improving your SEO campaigns.
It’s an all-in-one solution designed for inbound marketing. The platform comes with valuable insights to measure and improve your campaigns. Some of its features include landing pages, ad management, conversational bots, forms, and live chat.
And best of all, it’s free to get started. It comes with a pay-as-you-grow model to make it more affordable for startups and small businesses. Once you’re ready to start paying, $45/mo or $540/yr.
8. Drift
Speaking to your website visitors in real-time drives engagement and potential conversions. This is possible using Drift’s live chat tool. It’s ideal, especially with the rise of conversational marketing. But it doesn’t just enable you to communicate with leads in real-time.
It also offers a calendar scheduling feature to book calls and meetings with prospects. The platform also enhances account-based marketing by aligning sales and marketing data. This helps build personalized conversations for different groups.
There’s also Drift Video, which empowers you to start conversations using visual content. In other words, there are plenty of ways to use this platform to enhance your lead-generating efforts.
You can test it out by requesting a demo. Then plans start at $400/mo for the Pro and $1,500/mo for more advanced automation features.
9. Leadfeeder
Collecting data about prospects helps with decision-making for lead generation campaigns. With Leadfeeder, you’re getting more than just first-party information from prospective customers. You’re also seeing which companies are visiting your site.
Imagine learning about a potential new market to target after seeing several companies from an industry you’re not focused on. You can take this data and apply it to your ABM campaigns and outreach efforts.
Leedfeeder does this by connecting with your Google Analytics account. After installing it, you’ll have access to insights about industries, employee count, contact details, and behavioral data. This includes which sites a visitor views and the source of all your traffic.
There’s a free version of this tool you can sign up for. But the data is limited to showing only the last three days’ worth of leads. You can upgrade to Premium for $63/mo. It comes with a two-week free trial to determine if it’s right for you before committing.
10. Hootsuite
Establishing your brand’s presence on social media is critical today. Everyone’s looking for humanized experiences with companies, making social networks the ideal place to connect. But as a B2B marketer, there’s a lot on your plate already. Adding social media posting into the mix may be time-consuming.
So to counter this, you can use a tool like Hootsuite to manage all of your profiles in a single dashboard. This platform connects to your social accounts and allows you to schedule posts in advance. All you need is time to create a month’s worth of posts and then set it and forget it (or at least, until the following month).
Hootsuite also comes with analytics about your social campaigns to see how well they’re performing. Plus, you get to see what your audience thinks by monitoring conversations, brand mentions, and trends.
There’s a 30-day free trial, giving you plenty of time to test all of its features. Afterward, plans start at $49/mo for Professional and $129/mo for Team.
11. SlideShare
Creating visual content that’s informative is key to building visibility in the B2B community. This is what makes SlideShare a powerful tool for B2B marketers. Surely, you’ve watched more than a few SlideShares yourself.
It’s an excellent platform for displaying your expertise in the industry. Use it to educate your audience about a problem, topic, or solution. You can also use it as accompanying content for a webinar, video, or blog post.
The tool joined LinkedIn back in 2012, making it perfect for sharing content with your B2B audience. And best of all — it’s free to use.
12. ActiveCampaign
Managing customer relationships is a part of turning leads into long-term customers. When you take the time to build meaningful connections, it increases the odds of them sticking around. In some cases, customers may even turn into brand advocates.
Maintaining good relationships with your clients will help retention rates and generate referrals. ActiveCampaign is a CRM platform, which means you can automate customer relationship management.
All of your lead data is in a single platform, making it easy for marketing and sales to collaborate. It’s also capable of managing your pipeline, following up with leads, creating segmented email campaigns, and keeping deals fresh. The platform has a user-friendly interface, and it’s cost-effective.
Plans start at only $15/mo or $9/mo annually for the Lite plan.
13. LinkedIn Helper
If you’re thrilled about using LinkedIn, Slideshare, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, then you’ll find this tool a big deal. LinkedIn Helper combines with Sales Navigator, which enables you to acquire thousands of targeted contacts. This is possible by sending out personalized invites to 2nd and 3rd connections.
You can develop automated messages, auto-responders, and message sequences to 1st connections on your account. The process of gathering lead information is also streamlined with automated profile visits. You can export lead lists to CSV for Excel or Google Sheets. Then use that to form targeted mailing lists.
It’s also possible to create a lead generation funnel to prevent intersections between campaigns.
If you’re not sure of its benefits, then you can sign up for a free trial. Otherwise, you can choose to pay for one month ($15), three months ($40), six months ($60), or one year ($99).
14. Quora
Sometimes, you can generate leads from unlikely sources. Quora presents a great opportunity to do two things: build visibility and gain traffic. Quora is useful because it allows you to ask and answer questions.
These questions and answers are emailed to people who’ve shown interest in the topic. The one with the best answer will get followers, and if you include links in your answer, it’ll drive traffic to your website.
The idea is to pose and answer questions your audience cares about.
15. MobileMonkey
Reaching your audience across channels isn’t only useful to your brand. It’s expected by your customers. This is what makes omnichannel marketing a win-win. B2B buyers want convenience, just like any other customer today. And one way of offering this is by sending messages via text message.
Smartphones are widely used in business settings and travel with professionals wherever they go. So it makes sense to target leads via mobile devices. With text message marketing, you can.
MobileMonkey Omnichat technology makes it easy to send out SMS promotions, surveys, and other marketing collateral to target audiences. Of course, they’ll have to opt in to receive messages from you. Otherwise, your brand will become an annoyance.
With this platform, you can chat live with website visitors, and send messages on Facebook and Instagram.
What Types of Lead Generation Tools Are There?
There are various types of lead generation platforms you can use for B2B lead generation. Here’s a look at several:
- Inbound lead gen tools: Helps to drive leads to your website.
- Outbound lead gen tools: Helps find and message leads via email, calls, social media, etc.).
- On-page lead gen tools: Helps capture leads via your website (lead capture forms).
- CRO tools to increase leads: Improves how many leads convert into sales-qualified leads.
- Marketing management tools: Measures performance to enhance lead gen campaigns and target quality leads.
- Email marketing tools: Creates nurturing campaigns to keep prospects engaged and moving through the buyer’s journey.
- Search marketing tools: Helps increase traffic that stems from paid and organic search to increase on-site leads.
CONCLUSION
It’s no secret that every marketer has always wanted to create a lead generation strategy that would bring in a steady stream of new leads. But due to lack of time and resources, most marketers have always failed to achieve this goal. Lead generation software is quite expensive and they are not able to get their hands on a relevant software.
B2B lead generation tools in the year 2021 are expected to play a vital role in organization’s revenue generation process. The use of B2B lead generation software will automatically reduce the time and effort required to generate leads and hence make business processes more efficient.