Business-to-consumer lead generation, also referred to as b2c lead generation, has never been a straightforward prospect. Even though there are many companies with which marketers can use to generate business leads, these often turn out to be expensive and disappointing. This, in part, is due to the fact that many of them don’t really live up to expectations—leads generated using them often aren’t qualified.
If you’re running a startup, generating leads online with free or paid b2c lead generation tools is one of the best ways to grow your business. But with so many options available, how do you know which b2c lead generation tools are the best? In this guide, I discuss the top lead generation tools, and why they’re so important for your business.
You’re an internet marketer who wants to convert more customers. You want to connect with more of your target audience and you also want to contact with more people from every walk of life. But you know that generating leads is a challenge, so you’re searching for the best lead generation tools.
If you’re in the B2C space and you’re looking for prospecting tools, this video is for you. I cover some of the popular FREE list building tools as well as paid alternatives. Where do I use these? In my own business! Get started with these lead generation tools today!
What are lead generation tools?
Effective all-in-one lead generation tools are a rare find, particularly when it comes to B2C; most marketers will need a combination of several resources to meet their goals. These tools come primarily in the form of apps and software that help automate everything from content creation to website design to social media management to SEO.
OnePageCRM
Best For: Lead generation using social platforms
Suited For: Small to big businesses
Integrations: Yes
OnePageCRM is a powerful lead generation tool that helps you find the details of the prospects from social media sites and adds them to the contact list. From lead capturing to pipeline management, OnePageCRM has it all. You can manage contacts, set up bulk mail campaigns, automate workflows, monitor your sales pipeline, and more.
How Does OnePageCRM Use Social Media to Generate Leads?
- Enter the person’s email address in the contact form, and it auto-fills other social details, such as organization, job title, and contact information.
- You can use its Chrome extension to source leads from anywhere on the internet.
- Add the potential prospects to the contact list with one click.
- Use the inbuilt CRM to automate several tasks for your leads and customers, such as set follow-ups, prioritize leads based on labels, and more.
- You can see custom reports in a couple of clicks and always stay up-to-date with your team’s sales progress.
- Can be integrated with various apps like Zapier, Mailchimp, and Google contacts.
Pros
- Brings lead prospecting, pipeline management, and cold campaigns under one roof.
- There is no learning curve. You can manage both teams and sales easily.
- Use scheduling and tags to trigger automated follow-ups and other tasks.
Cons
- Communication in the tool isn’t centralized
Price: Starts at $15/month
AeroLeads
Best For: Lead prospecting and generation through social platforms
Suited For: Small to big businesses
Integrations: Yes
Aeroleads is another lead prospecting tool that helps you generate new leads using social network sites, such as LinkedIn, CrunchBase, and AngelList. It can help you find as many as 15 data points about your prospects through a simple email address and company name.
How to Use Aeroleads to Search for New Leads?
- Automatically search sites like Linkedin, CrunchBase, Inbound.org, AngelList, GitHub, and others to show your prospects’ data points.
- Fetch public business information, such as full name, job title, location, generic company emails, and business phone numbers of the leads based on their email address and phone.
- Integrate with CRM tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, MailChimp, and Zapier for better lead management.
- Directly transfer the collected leads to your CRM tool with a single click.
- You can also export the data to CSV.
Pros
- Affordable tool for lead generation.
- Provides much more information than just email addresses.
Cons
- UI and UX can be upgraded to be more intuitive and user-friendly.
Price: Starts at $49/month
Hunter.io
Best For: Lead prospecting, outreach campaign, link building
Suited For: Small to medium enterprises
Integrations: Yes
Hunter.io is a relatively simpler tool than others in the list but gives highly verified leads about any website. You can find leads using the domain, the name of the person, or both. Plus, it also links the sources of every lead.
This lead generation tool is straightforward to use and comes with a built-in campaign builder to target cold leads.
What Makes Hunter.io a Leading Lead Generation Tool?
- Use the domain search to find email addresses using the company name and domain.
- Collect email addresses in bulk from multiple domains at once.
- Supports a Chrome extension to get email addresses from the website you are currently browsing.
- Find the email for any professional using their name and company.
- Automatically verifies the data to ensure accuracy.
- Create cold mail campaigns and automate follow-ups to nurture the scouted leads.
- Track the performance of your campaign through Hunter’s dashboard.
- Offers integration with popular tools like Salesforce, Gmail, and more to export the data.
Pros
- Automatic email verification is a great feature to maintain lead accuracy.
- The chrome extension makes the job of finding leads easier.
Cons
- It would be good to include other technographic data about the leads.
Price: Paid plans start at $39/month billed annually
Voila Norbert
Best For: Lead prospecting
Suited For: Small to medium companies
Integrations: Yes
Like Hunter.io, you can prospect new leads by simply typing their name and domain using Voila Norbert. The search can be easily verified at any time to make sure that your outreach emails don’t bounce back. Plus, you can start sending out emails without needing a separate tool with the inbuilt mailing function.
So if you are looking to add an affordable lead generation tool to your arsenal, we recommend checking this one out.
Here’s Why Voila Norbert Is a Great Sales Lead Generator:
- Scout and add new leads to your mail list using the prospect’s name and domain.
- Provides the person’s email address and other details like social profiles, location, position, and more.
- Automatically verifies and validates the email address to prevent emails from going into spam.
- Send an email directly from the dashboard to start the warming process.
- Add internal notes to update team members about the current status of the lead.
- Offers a Chrome extension to make lead prospecting easier.
Pros
- Provides accurate results to increase deliverability.
- The Chrome extension is a great time saver.
- You can bulk upload the names and domains of the prospects to find their email addresses.
Cons
- You need to purchase each feature separately.
- The Chrome extension sometimes crashes if too many tabs are open.
Price: Starts at $39/month billed annually
Acquire
Pricing: No pricing listed on the site; paid plans estimated to start at $90 per month per user
Rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars via G2
Acquire.io is a live chat tool that allows you to answer customer’s questions instantly in real-time. With a lead bot, you can automate the portion of the chat process and qualify and convert leads faster. Paid plans start at $90 per month, per user.
CallPage
Pricing: Free for up to 15 leads per month, $29 per month for up to 30, $119 for up to 150
Rating: 4.3 stars out of 5 based on 30 reviews on Capterra
Looking to increase the number of sales calls from your website, decrease lead response time, and provide better customer service? CallPage can get you there with their callback automation tool that connects you with prospective leads in seconds.
Simply install a widget on your site, and site visitors can click to call and be automatically connected with your team.
Twitter Search
Pricing: Free
Rating: N/A
Using Twitter Search, you can search tweets to find people who could use your service or product. For example, if you’re a web designer, you may search the term “web designer” to find companies who have tweeted in search of a web designer. Then, you can retweet them or try to find a direct employee’s contact information using one of the email tools we mentioned in this list.
There’s also an advanced Twitter search that supports boolean operators like AND.
Quora
Pricing: Free
Rating: N/A
Quora is a massive forum for people to ask questions. It’s similar to Yahoo Answers, but the responses on Quora are generally higher-quality and provide more insight. Using Quora, you can search for questions from your target audience and provide helpful answers. This will create awareness for your company, product, or service. This works not only for the person who originally asked the question but also for future visitors who find the page via search.
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.
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.
How is lead generation for B2C businesses unique?
In contrast with B2B marketing, B2C campaigns tend to have shorter sales cycles, requiring a fast and powerful approach to lead generation. B2C lead generation focuses less on establishing long relationships and more on the experiential and the eye-catching.
Marketers often tap into B2C customers during their “buying phase,” so lead generation content for B2C often includes promotions, unique offers, and personal messaging. B2C lead generation initiatives also cater to a broader audience.
Conclusion
With the rise of social media and mobile devices, more people are engaging with brands on a daily basis. Most of these interactions go unnoticed. But because of that, there’s still plenty of untapped opportunities to generate leads for your business..
Chances are that your business is run on something to do with the buying and selling of products and services. Today, this makes you a b2c company. As a rule, these are known as business-to-consumer (b2c) companies; however, there are other business structures too. Whatever the case, your main focus is always going to be on the buyer. These buyers – also known as consumers (or clients if you’re a freelancer or small business) – are growing in number every year. This is why social media has become such an exciting place for savvy marketers and businesses. It’s now easier than ever to tap into large consumer databases and start building an audience for your products or services.