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20 Must-Have Tools for Lead Generation & Client Activations

  • August 29, 2017
  • Jonathan Saeidian

New Marketing Tools you can start using now to start generating new leads Practically all companies and agencies who use digital marketing channels and tactics for B2B lead generation rely on modern tools in their work. They fall roughly into two categories – ones that automate tasks and ones that provide data and insights. There […]

lead generation tools

Jonathan Saeidian

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New Marketing Tools you can start using now to start generating new leads

Practically all companies and agencies who use digital marketing channels and tactics for B2B lead generation rely on modern tools in their work. They fall roughly into two categories – ones that automate tasks and ones that provide data and insights. There are tools which are designed to give you both. Which are the most effective ones to use for new marketing lead generation?

Here are some of 20 which will prove to be invaluable in your work. With them, you can use all major digital marketing channels, from email marketing to organic search and the social media, in the best possible way. There are ones designed to help you with conversion too.

1. ActiveCampaign

This is a tool which combines CRM and email marketing. The most valuable feature of the software is the tracking of the activity of leads on your website. You can set it up so that a specific activity triggers the sending of a personalized email targeting the specific individual. Like traditional CRM software, ActiveCampaign enables you to store and manage lead and customer data. It has performance tracking features too. It is a highly valuable tool for personalizing and automating your B2B lead generation activities.

2. MailChimp

This is perhaps the most popular tool for email marketing, which is the primary channel for B2B lead generation. The software features a campaign builder with intuitive interface which is very easy to use even for those with basic technical skills. You can automate your campaigns almost completely with MailChimp. Customizing, testing and tracking emails is easy. Email delivery based on time zone is one of the features enabling you to achieve even more effective targeting. You will get reliable analytics to measure the performance of your campaigns. You can use the data generated from email marketing for social network campaigns.

3. Google Keyword Planner

This is one of the most valuable tools for search engine optimization. It enables you to pick keywords for creating the content of your website. With the tool, you can identify the most used keywords and the level of competition for them. You can track the changes in the number of searched for each one over a specific period for time for more detailed evaluation. Local business, in particular, can take advantage of the keyword data by country, region and city. Use Google Keyword Planner for more effective SEO which will help you to increase website leads.

4. Google Trends

This tool has a variety of uses. It’s helpful for identifying seasonal search trends, which are important for many companies targeting business customers. You can use it for tracking what your prospective customers search for the most these days. Then you can use the popular keywords for SEO and content marketing. This is a great way to increase website leads without spending any extra money on your digital marketing activities.  

5. Ahrefs

This tool emerges as one of the comprehensive for those looking to improve the search engine rankings of their website to generate more leads. It gives you competitor analysis to help you get an idea of what your competitors are doing so that you can do better. You can use up-to-date backlink data to evaluate and improve your link building tactics. It is possible to receive notifications when you or any of your competitors gets a new backlink or lose one. The content research feature shows you the pieces of content on the web for the keywords that you put in. This is extremely useful for content marketing as well as for SEO purposes.

6. Hootsuite

Many marketers focused on increasing leads consider this tool to be the most effective for managing their social media marketing activities on a daily basis. It enables you to view and post updates on all social networks that you are using. The real-time analytics enable you to evaluate your posts and your campaigns as a whole. You can use the data to calculate the return on investment and improve your tactics. It is possible to take advantage of profile protection and access controls for keeping your activities secure.

7. BuzzSumo

As the third most widely used channel for B2B lead generation, social media marketing is mandatory for your strategy. The problem is that this is the most dynamic of all channels with the interests of your target audience shifting so quickly that it’s hard to keep track. This is where BuzzSumo comes in. It shows you the most popular content on the social networks for any topic. This enables you to produce posts which will attract a large number of prospects fast. What’s more, the tool shows you who has shared the most popular content. You can use this information to target prospective customers directly or to identify new influencers within your industry and cooperate with them to enhance your digital marketing efforts.

8. Growbots

This is not simply a tool, but a way to generate new lead opportunities immediately through cold emails. The AI systems helps you define the best times to send your emails and automates the tedious aspects of your email efforts. The tool allows you to build your contact list in minutes and find the right prospects without having to do manual searching. Recent study showed that by spending the time to create thoughtful cold introductions, you will have a 32% increase in response rates.

9. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

This is a tool designed especially for B2B lead generation. With it, you can use the social network’s advanced search function to identify leads that match your customer profile best. You will also receive direct recommendations on the basis of your preferences. To use LinkedIn Sales Navigator more effectively, you can import data from your CRM and vice versa. You can get sales insights directly and even unlock the full profiles of leads. The tool enables you to contact prospective customers directly using the social network’s own channels and to personalize your outreach.

10. Socedo

It is considered to be one of the best sources of B2B intent data from Twitter, which is the third most popular social network for generating business-to-business leads. One of its major advantages is that you can pinpoint prospective customers based on their behavior in real time. You can simply use a keyword to find decision makers who could be potentially interested in your product. The tool is useful for both approaching cold leads and reviving your communication with ones that you have already contacted.

11. Leadformly

This is a highly valuable tool designed to help you increase website leads. With it, you can create sign-up and other forms that will bring conversion up. You would not want your efforts for attracting visitors to your site to be wasted because of generic or way too complex forms. You can use built-in analytics and insights into your target audience to customize the forms more effectively. The tool uses conditional logic for better segmentation. There are also features like the progress bar which assist your prospective customers with filling out the form easily and quickly.

12. ClickMeeting

This is an online platform for hosting webinars, which are regarded as the second most effective type of content for B2B lead generation. It is very simple to use and works with most tools for lead management. The first step of the organization process is to customize your webinar room and send out invitations to your prospective customers. To conduct the webinar, you can use a variety of features including presentations and whiteboards. There is a wide selection of audio modes to pick from. You should take advantage of the feature for creating polls and surveys as it can give you more information about your leads and help you evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts.

13. Google Analytics

How good is your website at new marketing lead generation? This digital tool is designed to provide the answer. Google Analytics is essential for marketers who want to learn more about the visitors to their website and their behavior and who want to evaluate the effectiveness of their tactics. The tool is designed to provide a great amount of detail, so it is important to tweak the settings to match your needs precisely.

14. Unbounce

Landing pages are among the most useful tools in digital marketing. Unbounce enables you to create ones for effective conversion in little time and without effort. You don’t need any web design or development skills or knowledge to do a good job. You can use this tool to create a landing page before the official launch of your website to generate awareness. It is also helpful when you run paid search and display ad campaigns. In such cases, you need a landing page which will be as effective as the ad messages that you use.

15. Lead Forensics

The best way to measure how good your digital marketing tactics are is to check how many of your website’s visitors become your leads. But what if you could check who is on your website and get detailed information on the visitor to generate a lead of high quality? This is what Lead Forensics will do for you. It tracks the IP addresses of visitors to your site so that you know which companies are interested in your brand and services. What’s more the software will give you their contact details directly. This is extremely valuable for B2B lead generation as you will be able to reach to the potential customer directly using an outbound technique of your choice.

16. Venngage

A recent survey has revealed that infographics are among the best types of content for B2B marketing. Venngage enables you to create them easily and quickly in just three steps, no web designer skills required. Select a template, add charts and text and customize the infographic with colors and fonts that will make it more attractive to your target audience. You can use infographics for new marketing lead generation in more ways than one. They are great for promoting exclusive content such as whitepapers and case studies on social media and via email.

17. Bontact

This tool is designed to help you with turning visitors to your websites into leads. Its main feature is an online chat to use on your website, but you can also use it for phone calls, emails and text messages. This is how you and your staff will become more productive when conducting your B2B lead generation activities. You will always be quick to respond and to engage the prospective customer.

18. Qualroo

This is a clever tool designed to help you increase website leads. It enables you to survey specific types of visitors to your website in order to gain valuable information about them and to convert them into leads more easily and quickly. The exit surveys, in particular, can be extremely powerful for keeping visitors and converting them. Qualroo has advanced features such as skip logic which generates a question based on a previous answer.

19. Brand24

With this tool, you will keep track of all mentions of your brand on the web 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This allows you to react immediately and to take action for reaching a new lead. Brand24 is particularly helpful when decision makers inquire about your brand on social networks. With it, you can also identify influencers who you can establish collaboration with to target and engage your audience more effectively. The tool is very easy to use, regardless of how large and diverse your team is.

20. Broadlook’s Capture

This is a helpful automation tool which allows you to focus on generating and applying creative ideas instead of doing tedious technical work. With Capture, you move data from various channels directly to the B2B lead generation database which you keep. The list of sources which the tool works with is quite long. It includes search engine results, social networks, email archives and PDF files, to name some of the main ones. When you are well-organized, you will achieve better results while keeping your costs down.

Jonathan Saeidian

Jonathan is the Founder of Brenton Way a growth marketing agency based in Los Angeles and also the Co-founder of Growth Virality a Growth marketing community created for Marketers and Founders to find the best marketing strategies to implement in their brands.
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