Regular prospecting is essential to creating a robust pipeline and to sustaining the long-term growth of your business. But prospecting can be a drag without the right tools to support your efforts at every stage of the process.
Whether you need to build a list, schedule meetings, engage with prospects, or qualify the most interested prospects, there is no shortage of tools for the job. But some tools are more effective than others, so it’s important to choose the ones that have an excellent track record.
Fortunately for you, we’ve done the research on all the best sales prospecting tools so that you don’t have to. In this article, we’ve assembled a list of the top 25 sales prospecting tools for explosive revenue growth in 2021. Read on to discover which tools deserve a spot in your digital toolbox.
Which Sales Prospecting Tools Do You Need?
There are hundreds of sales prospecting tools to choose from for your tech stack. Some tools work best for a handful of tasks while others work as all-in-one solutions. It’s important to make sure that the tools you’re using help you do the following essential prospecting tasks.
- Building Your Prospect List
- Gathering Insights
- Engaging Prospects
- Booking Meetings
- Hosting Meetings
- Qualification
Let’s take a look at some of the best prospecting tools for 2021.
Tools for Building Your Prospect List
Prospecting begins with building a list of potential customers who seem like a good fit for your product or service. This is the part of the process that can be the most time-consuming when it’s done manually. It’s challenging to find accurate, ethically sourced contact information for high-quality leads at scale without a tool designed for that purpose. The good news is that you can use the following 6 tools to build a substantial list of leads in minutes without leaving your browser. These are the list building tools that will make prospecting a piece of cake.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn is the top platform for connecting with B2B leads, and Sales Navigator is their tool for helping you build a list of prospects with ease. It’s pricier than some of the other tools out there, but it’s a reliable tool that remains popular.
Voila Norbert
What do you do when all you have is a prospect’s name and the name of their workplace? You turn to Voila Norbert. Use this tool to find missing email addresses to complete your prospecting list.
Hunter
Hunter is a Google Chrome extension that reveals all the email addresses associated with any domain. If you want to contact someone, but you’re not sure what their company email address is, try running their name through Hunter. You can store the results using a Google Sheets integration and try all the possibilities until you get a hold of your contact.
Datanyze
If you’re looking for a powerful Google Chrome extension that helps you to build a list of highly qualified leads lightning fast, Datanyze has you covered. Built for professionals who value accurate and ethically sourced information at an affordable price, Datanyze is a sophisticated tool that provides insights to help you warm up cold calls and emails.
FindThatLead
This is another Google Chrome extension that works to find the email addresses associated with a domain name. It’s a convenient and easy way to build a list of prospects without leaving your browser.
Skrapp
This Google Chrome extension is a great tool for finding emails from LinkedIn and company websites. You can use Skrapp to build your prospect email list directly in the app.
Tools for Gathering Insights
You need to do research on your prospects so that you can connect with them in a meaningful way. Understanding more about their industry, their company, and the trajectory of their career will help you start relevant conversations with them and provide useful information during the nurturing stage. The following tools will help you start off on the right foot with your prospects.
Detective (by Charlie)
This tool finds all the latest news about your target prospect’s company to keep you notified about their latest initiatives. Integrate Detective with Salesforce to gain insights on your prospect’s competitors and to track how much success you’ve had with closing deals with similar businesses.
CrunchBase
This innovative database contains a wealth of information on established companies and top startups across a variety of industries. Save hours of research with its advanced features and in-depth profile data.
Mattermark
Mattermark is a database that integrates directly with Salesforce. Search their business directory for information on a company’s size, location, business model, niche, industry, funding, and more.
Tools for Engaging Prospects
There are so many ways to make those first and subsequent connections with your prospects. Whether you’re an old school type who loves the intimate feel of cold calling, an email marketing junkie, or a video messaging superstar, there’s a tool out there to help you do it better. Try the following tools and experience the difference for yourself.
Bloobirds
Bloobirds is an all-in-one engagement platform that suggests individualized email messages to send to your prospects based on their demographics and your ideal buyer persona. Using this tool will enable you to refine your prospecting strategy as you go.
Message Ninja
Fans of cold calling will love the automated scheduling options offered by Message Ninja. You can choose prospects based on their location, which means you can avoid making a call at inconvenient times. The best part about Message Ninja is their Ringless Voicemail option that lets you leave a pre-recorded, straight to voicemail message for your prospects. This is a very cool, flexible tool that makes outreach simple.
Mailshake
This cold outreach tool helps you set up your campaign and send personalized emails in as little as 5 minutes. You can create trigger-based follow up emails and track engagement so that you know how your prospects are responding to your efforts. Mailshake is a simple solution that gets big results.
Woodpecker
This intuitive cold email tool helps B2B companies to connect with prospective customers and business partners – and keep the conversations going. Woodpecker allows you to craft personalized, relevant email sequences and makes sure they get delivered to your recipient’s main inbox.
Close.io
This powerful CRM platform is a dream for cold calling. Choose from tools like Power Dialer and Predictive Dialer to power up your outbound call productivity. Use the in app note-taking and tracking features to monitor the strength of your campaigns.
Vidyard
Video content is an enticing way to capture the attention of your prospects. With Vidyard, you can add a quick personalized video to your emails to surprise and delight your prospects. It’s the second best thing to an in-person introduction.
BombBomb
BombBomb is another great video email marketing tool that allows you to record messages for your prospects using your computer or your smartphone. Stand out in your prospect’s inbox with a message that allows them to hear the warmth in your voice and connect your name with your face.
Rebump
Following up with your prospects is critical to keeping the conversation going. Never forget to send a follow up email again with the help of Rebump, a tool that automates follow up messages at just the right time.
Tools for Booking Meetings
When your prospect agrees to meet with you, scheduling the meeting ought to be as frictionless as possible. Going back and forth over voicemail or email just to land on time to chat is annoying and unnecessary. Use these tools to make scheduling a cinch.
Calendly
This versatile scheduling tool allows you to create multiple meeting types and control which days your prospects can meet with you. Send a link to your prospect and they can select from the available options to schedule a meeting time that works for them.
ClaraLabs
If you want to take meeting automation to the next level, ClaraLabs will take you there. Set your preferences in the app and Clara will work with your prospect to set the meeting. It’s an effective way to keep your schedule up to date and avoid conflicts.
Doodle
Doodle is a scheduler that offers flexibility for your prospects by allowing them to suggest the meeting times that work best for them. You get the final say by choosing the option that works best for you. It’s a little bit of a twist from the other tools on the market that comes in handy if you often need to set meetings that involve multiple parties.
Tools for Hosting Meetings
Virtual meetings are here to stay, and they’re more important now than ever to keep building the connections that will help you scale. These are the tools that will make your meetings a more delightful experience.
Zoom.us
The events of the previous year made Zoom a household name, and the company has moved at a breakneck pace to ensure it can continue to provide a satisfying meeting experience for its users. Zoom is a great choice for scheduling, hosting, and recording meetings with ease.
Gong.io
One of the hardest things to do in a meeting is to pay attention, take notes, and converse all at the same time. If you don’t have a dedicated assistant who can sit in during the meeting, you can use Gong as your meeting platform. Gong records meetings and takes notes for you so that you can concentrate on the conversation without missing key information.
Chorus.ai
Chorus is another meeting platform that allows you to record and generate automatic notes so that you can concentrate on the conversation and speak with confidence. This is a great tool to use with prospects, especially when it’s time to make the sale.
Tools for Qualification
Qualification is an important stage in your interaction with your prospects that empowers you to determine the most efficient way to spend your time, resources, and energy. This process is how you separate your best fit prospects from your hesitant or poor fit prospects so that you can move the former group through your pipeline and provide further education to the latter group. The following tools are incredible for developing a clearer picture of where your prospects stand.
Crystal Knows
If you want to ensure you hit all the right notes with your prospects, Crystal Knows is a solution you need to explore. Crystal Knows is a standout tool that provides insight into your prospects on a more personal level. It uses publicly available data to create a personality profile of your prospects so that you can communicate with them according to their decision-making style. Add Crystal Knows to your Gmail account and get real-time suggestions as you exchange emails with your prospects.
Prospect.io
This powerful tool should be at the top of your list for engaging with prospects at every step. Install the Google Chrome extension to find prospect data, build outreach templates, and create automated drip campaigns. Track your results using the built in metrics or integrate with your favorite CRM for even more insights.
Mention
Mention alerts you to the big news happening at your prospect’s company. You can keep tabs on all the accolades, milestones, product releases, and organizational changes that will affect the possibility of making the sale.
Conclusion
These 25 sales prospecting tools are some of the best ones on the market in 2021. Use them during every aspect of the qualification process to save time, energy, and resources. Mix and match the tools on this list to assemble your perfect prospecting tools tech stack.
