Our Top 7 Favorite B2B Lead Generation Tools and Software in 2024

Looking to boost your B2B lead generation efforts? With the right tools and software, it’s easier than ever to find new leads, reach out to them, and convert them into paying customers. What should you be using at your business? In this blog, we’ll give you a quick overview of a few of the tools we love to use. Check them out!

1. Zoominfo

Zoominfo’s flagship product is a robust search engine for B2B contact information. If you’re looking to find qualified leads, their affordable search tools make it easy to find the right contacts based on their industry, company size, job title, and more.

They also offer a full suite of marketing software for sales, marketing, operations, and even the new AI-driven “Zoominfo Copilot,” which helps deliver insights that make it easier to qualify leads and make a sale.

2. LinkedIn

From reading the latest industry insights to researching the roles and job histories of potential leads or even reaching out directly through InMail or posting LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn is an absolutely essential tool for B2B lead generation. With more than 1 billion members and a highly-active community, LinkedIn should always be part of your B2B lead generation strategy.

3. Google Workspace

We use Google Suite as our primary productivity tool. It offers a simple user interface, automatic cloud backups, a fantastic email experience, a fantastic calendar, video meeting support with Google Chat, and so many other tools that help you and your team stay organized. It’s quite affordable, too, even for larger teams.

4. HubSpot

HubSpot is our top choice if you’re looking for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. It has powerful features both for inbound and outbound marketing – including a best-in-class lead management system with robust contact and campaign management tools.

And through the Hubspot App Marketplace, HubSpot also has the ability to integrate with more than 1,600 third-party apps and programs including Google Suite, Outlook, Mailchimp, Salesforce, and so many others. No matter what other software tools you’re currently using in your lead generation efforts, there’s a good chance HubSpot can integrate with it for a unified experience.

5. MailChimp

Whether you’re writing a cold email, a newsletter, a survey form, or a promo email for an upcoming conference, MailChimp makes it easy to create sleek, powerful, and appealing emails.

With an intuitive user interface and tons of design tools, your sales and marketing teams can easily create “must-click” emails that maximize open rates, response rates, and overall conversion rates. Other feature highlights include simple A/B testing, powerful automation tools, and the ability to integrate with plenty of other third-party marketing and lead generation apps.

6. Unbounce

Inbound marketing is an important part of B2B lead generation. Once you get a potential lead to visit your website, Unbounce helps you move them down the sales funnel. It offers a wide variety of tools for building landing pages, pop-up offers, creating fillable forms, and more.

Unbounce also helps you collect valuable data about visitors and quickly perform A/B testing, which lets you further refine your marketing efforts and maximize conversion rates. With 100+ templates and an easy-to-use interface, it’s also super easy to get started.

7. Intercom

If you’re not already using a chatbot to help capture leads and answer questions on your website, you should be! A survey done in 2022 showed that integrated chatbots helped increase lead generation rates for 97% of marketers who used them:

• 3% saw no difference

• 14% saw an increase of less than 5%

• 25% saw an increase of 5-10%

• 26% saw an increase of 10-20%

• 17% saw an increase of 20-30%

• 15% saw an increase of 15%

Intercom is a leading provider of customizable AI and chatbot solutions for B2B lead generation. Their chatbots are easy to integrate into your website and are endlessly powerful and flexible – making them a great part of your inbound B2B lead generation strategy.

Power Up With These Top B2B Lead Generation Tools

There’s no magic wand you can wave to bring in more qualified leads and convert them to paying customers. But along with the right B2B lead generation strategy, using the right tools and software can definitely boost your odds of success. Check them out and see which ones may be right for you.

If you’re looking for more help or to outsource lead generation, remember that we are always here for you. With our full suite of B2B inside sales services, we can bring in more qualified leads, convert them to customers, and help your business thrive. Give us a call at (330) 649-8000 or contact us online to learn more about what we do.

10 Actionable Tips to Boost Your B2B Sales Campaign Today

Are you tired of the constant uphill battle to find new clients and close deals? Whether you're looking to fine-tune your strategy or take your campaign to the next level, making a few strategic changes can dramatically increase your chances of success.

And sometimes, all you need to get started is a little inspiration! To help you start on your path to future success, we’ve curated ten actions you can take right now to make your B2B sales campaign more profitable, helping you close deals faster and win more revenue.

1. Put Your Data Analytics Tools to Work

Are you making full use of the data analytics tools available to you? Data drives today’s best sales campaigns. By leveraging analytics tools like Google Analytics or CRM platforms (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.), you can uncover patterns in buyer behavior that reveal what’s working and where you might be losing traction. Use these insights to adjust your targeting, optimize messaging, and make data-driven decisions at every step.

Some of these tools—like the dashboards you’ll find in your CRM software—are designed specifically for sales and marketing team alignment. They deliver powerful insights that help you understand how your team is working together (or struggling) to engage your leads and close deals.

For instance, tracking where leads drop off in the sales process can reveal if messaging, timing, or targeting needs adjustment. If conversion rates are low at a particular stage, that might signal a need to tweak the offer or timing.

Pro Tip: Set up a dashboard to track key metrics such as conversion rates, lead quality, and sales cycle length. This will keep your team on the same page and allow you to make informed adjustments without losing momentum.

2. Customize Every Message for Maximum Impact

Generic outreach is a thing of the past. Personalized messages have a much higher chance of resonating with prospects, increasing open rates, responses, and engagement. Start by addressing each contact by name, acknowledging their role or company, and tailoring the message to their industry’s unique challenges. The more specific you can be, the better.

Get specific on what your message is about in a concise, straightforward subject line. Then dive right into the nitty-gritty on what problems you aim to solve with your products or services. Bonus points if you get a link to your website hyperlinked to highly-relevant anchor text in the first paragraph.

Why It Works: When prospects feel understood, they’re more likely to engage. With tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or email tracking plugins, you can go deeper into personalization, making it clear you understand and can meet their needs.

3. Refine and Highlight Your Unique Value

What sets you apart? An effective value proposition should go beyond features to communicate exactly how your service solves a problem for your target clients. Does it save time? Improve their processes? Drive revenue?

How does your product or service solve problems differently from your competitors? Is it less expensive? More effective? Easier to use? More comprehensive? Communicate the specific benefits that make your solution indispensable.

Quick Exercise: Try boiling your value proposition down to one sentence. Test it with different audiences until it’s clear, compelling, and directly aligned with their needs.

4. Optimize Your Website as a Conversion Machine

First impressions matter, and often, your website is the first interaction potential clients have with your brand. Is your site designed to turn visitors into leads? Make sure you have clear, enticing calls-to-action (CTAs) that address every stage of the customer journey, easy navigation, and valuable resources (such as blogs, white papers, or case studies) that speak directly to your target audience.

There are plenty of free tools that help you track your website’s performance, in addition to some great paid platforms that help you drill down into what your audience is searching for.

3 free tools we love:

GA4

Google Search Console

Microsoft Clarity

Remember: In the B2B space, websites should be built around the needs of decision-makers who value quick, actionable insights. Make it easy for them to understand your offerings, see social proof, and get in touch.

5. Invest in Content That Adds Real Value

High-quality content positions your company as a thought leader in your industry. Consider blog posts, guides, case studies, and whitepapers that address common challenges your clients face. Not only will this content drive organic traffic to your website, but it will also build credibility with your prospects, making it easier to move them through the sales funnel.

Blog content boosts your website’s performance when you post regularly, and you can use this content to help readers understand your brand and search engines understand which parts of your website are most important. Guides, case studies, and whitepapers are all great gated assets that you can use to drive your inbound marketing efforts.

Ideas to Try: Develop a blog series around industry challenges or create a downloadable resource that offers exclusive insights. Share these assets on social media, in your newsletter, or as a follow-up to cold outreach.

6. Use Testimonials and Case Studies to Build Credibility

Trust is essential in B2B sales, where high-value transactions mean high stakes. Showcase the experiences of past or current clients to illustrate the results you’ve achieved. Adding testimonials, success stories, and even client logos on your site and marketing materials can make your value tangible to new prospects.

Use testimonials on your website’s homepage, relevant product pages, and even in your email sequences. Strategically placed, they reinforce trust and provide validation at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Keep in mind that if you are using your customer’s name or logo, you’ll want to get permission to do so before taking live on your website or in your promotional materials.

For Best Results: Use specific numbers or tangible outcomes in your testimonials, like “increased leads by 50%” or “cut costs by 30%,” so prospects can immediately see the potential impact.

7. Engage on Social Media—Strategically

Social media is a powerful tool for B2B lead generation and engagement. LinkedIn, in particular, can help you connect with decision-makers directly. Share relevant content, participate in industry conversations, and engage with your prospects through meaningful comments and direct messages.

Social media platforms provide a great opportunity to build relationships. Make sure you are posting a mix of engaging content that is useful and entertaining, not just creating another wall of promotional materials.

Social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook tend to give extra visibility to new features they introduce, like video, polls, or AI tools. Adopting these features early can give you a visibility boost and show that your brand is on the cutting edge.

Use polls to understand your audience’s challenges, post videos highlighting new success stories, and experiment with AI-driven messaging or analytics tools. Embracing new features not only maximizes your reach but also signals to prospects that your business is dynamic and forward-thinking.

Pro Tip: Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to narrow down high-potential prospects and engage with them personally. This approach can turn your LinkedIn presence into a high-value extension of your sales team.

8. Fine-Tune Your Pitch and Keep Practicing

Your sales pitch should be refined regularly to keep it relevant and resonant. Remember, an effective pitch goes beyond listing features to show how your solution addresses a prospect’s specific needs. Focus on outcomes and frame your solution as a direct answer to their problem.

Schedule regular practice sessions with your team, and make sure you are all up-to-date on the latest intel about your audience and effective sales strategies.

Tip: Record your pitch and listen for areas where you could simplify language or connect better to client pain points. Use team feedback sessions to gather insights and improve your approach.

9. Implement a Thoughtful Lead Nurturing Strategy

Not every lead will be ready to buy on first contact. That’s why it’s essential to nurture leads over time through strategic follow-ups, email drip campaigns, and retargeting ads that keep your brand top-of-mind until they’re ready to take the next step.

This is another place you can put that content you’ve been working on to good use. Send prospects educational marketing materials to help them stay informed and pique their interest. Include links to engaging blogs that position your company as a trusted authority in your industry to build trust.

Try This: Use email sequences to deliver relevant, valuable content to prospects at regular intervals. This keeps them engaged and builds trust while they move through the buying journey.

10. Keep Your Sales Team Up to Date with Training

An informed, motivated sales team is critical to closing deals. Equip your team with regular sales training that covers your offerings, new sales techniques, CRM best practices, and the latest market trends. A knowledgeable sales team inspires confidence and can convey your value proposition more effectively, leading to shorter sales cycles and higher conversion rates.

Bonus Tip: Be intentional with your training. Schedule weekly, monthly, or quarterly workshops that bring together your sales, marketing, and operations teams to discuss wins, challenges, and strategies. This cross-functional approach not only keeps everyone aligned but also uncovers valuable insights and best practices from different perspectives that you might not get in siloed sessions.

Simple Solutions, Tangible Improvement

Implementing even a few of these strategies can have a huge impact on your sales success. Start small, track the results, and watch your B2B campaign become a powerful revenue driver.

Looking for your sales operations to smash your goals now and in the long-run? We can help! From lead generation and appointment setting to end-to-end sales campaign management, we provide the expertise and resources to amplify your growth.

Our team integrates seamlessly with yours, offering everything you need to accelerate your sales without the hassle of hiring or long-term contracts, and our clients close deals worth millions of dollars monthly based on leads we generate. Get in touch to see how we can help you reach your sales goals faster.

Guaranteeing Your Product/Service in a B2B Sales Environment

In a B2B sales environment, offering guarantees can instill confidence in potential clients and differentiate your business from competitors. Guarantees demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and can help overcome objections. Here are some effective guarantees to consider in a B2B sales context:

Satisfaction Guarantee

Offer: A promise that if the customer is not satisfied with the product or service, you will work to resolve the issue or provide a refund.

Benefits: Builds trust and reassures clients that you are committed to delivering value.

Example: At Incept Grows, we offer a 30-day satisfaction guarantee for our sales outsourcing services. If you're not satisfied with the results within the first month, we'll work tirelessly to address your concerns or provide a refund.

Performance Guarantee

Offer: Assurance that the product or service will meet certain performance metrics or deliver specific outcomes within a defined timeframe.

Benefits: Demonstrates confidence in your offerings and aligns expectations for measurable results.

Example: Our performance guarantee ensures that our lead generation services will provide a minimum number of qualified leads each month, or we'll extend the service at no additional cost until the targets are met.

On-Time Delivery Guarantee

Offer: Commitment to delivering products or services within agreed-upon deadlines.

Benefits: Addresses concerns about project timelines and reliability, crucial in industries with time-sensitive requirements.

Example: We guarantee that our market analysis reports will be delivered within the agreed timeframe, helping you make timely business decisions.

Related Post: 5 Ways To Utilize AI Tools Like ChatGPT In B2B Lead Generation

Quality Assurance Guarantee

Offer: Assurance that the products or services will meet specified quality standards, and any defects or deficiencies will be promptly addressed.

Benefits: Establishes a commitment to delivering high-quality solutions and mitigates concerns about subpar performance.

Example: At Incept Grows, our quality assurance guarantee means we thoroughly test and validate our sales strategies to ensure they meet your standards.

Price-Matching Guarantee

Offer: A pledge to match or beat competitors' prices for comparable products or services.

Benefits: Appeals to cost-conscious clients and positions your business as competitive in the market.

Example: We offer a price-matching guarantee to ensure that you receive the best value for our sales solutions compared to any other provider.

Security and Confidentiality Guarantee

Offer: A commitment to maintaining the security and confidentiality of client information, trade secrets, and sensitive data.

Benefits: Assures clients that their proprietary information is in safe hands, fostering trust in your business relationship.

Example: Our security and confidentiality guarantee ensures that all your data is protected with the highest industry standards, giving you peace of mind.

Flexible Contract Terms Guarantee

Offer: Flexibility in adjusting contract terms or scaling services based on changing business needs.

Benefits: Addresses concerns about long-term commitments and demonstrates a willingness to adapt to the client's evolving requirements.

Example: We offer flexible contract terms to accommodate the dynamic needs of your business, whether you need to scale up or down.

Downtime Compensation Guarantee

Offer: Compensation or discounts in the event of unexpected service downtime or disruptions.

Benefits: Provides a financial commitment to minimizing disruptions, particularly in industries where uptime is critical.

Example: If our services experience downtime, we provide compensation to ensure you receive the full value of our service commitment.

Return Policy Guarantee

Offer: A clear and fair return policy for products or services that don't meet the client's expectations.

Benefits: Reduces the perceived risk of making a purchase, especially for clients unfamiliar with your offerings.

Example: Our return policy guarantees a hassle-free process for returning services that don't meet your expectations, ensuring your investment is risk-free.

Lifetime Warranty or Support Guarantee

Offer: Assurance of ongoing support, updates, or warranties for the lifetime of the product or service.

Benefits: Establishes a long-term commitment to the client and encourages a sense of partnership.

Example: We provide lifetime support for our sales strategies, ensuring you have ongoing access to our expertise and updates.

Related Post: How Can I Be a Great Client When I am Outsourcing My Lead Generation?

When implementing guarantees, it's essential to clearly communicate the terms and conditions to clients. Be transparent about what is covered, and ensure that the guarantees align with your company's capabilities and values. Guarantees should not only provide reassurance to clients but also serve as a testament to your confidence in the quality and value of your offerings.

Understanding The Importance of Personalization in B2B Prospecting

Growing your B2B company isn’t easy. Whether you’re a startup or an established business looking for more clients, you may find yourself sending out hundreds of emails, making dozens of phone calls, and sending tons of InMail messages without getting much of a response. What gives? How can you increase response rates throughout the B2B prospecting process and bring in more qualified leads? 

The key is personalization. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the importance of personalization in B2B prospecting. By taking the time to personalize your messaging and building real relationships with potential customers, you can dramatically increase your success rates.

1. You Can Avoid Triggering Spam Filters

Focusing on quality over quantity is an essential part of B2B prospecting personalization. Rather than firing off 100 templated, generic emails in a single afternoon, it’s better to take the time to write 10 thoughtful, personalized, and helpful emails.

Your personalized emails will likely have a higher response rate – and because you’re sending fewer of them overall, you reduce your risk of getting caught in spam filters. Lots of companies have pretty strict spam filters that can be triggered by things like:

• Low sender reputation

• Large email volumes

• Using certain generic words and phrases

• Low email engagement rates

• Duplicate emails

About 45% of all emails sent every day are automatically qualified as spam. So it’s important to make sure your emails aren’t accidentally flagged – otherwise, you may never even have the chance of reaching a particular prospect.

2. Make Better First Impressions

Chances are, you’ve seen quite a few generic sales emails arrive in your inbox. Maybe the sender accidentally left some placeholders in, like “Hello [FIRST NAME]!” or “We’d love to discuss how we can help “[BUSINESS NAME}” increase sales. And in the event that these made it past your own spam filters and ended up in your actual inbox, you probably sent them right to your trash or archive immediately.

By taking the time to craft a personalized email message or voicemail, you can make a better first impression on a potential lead. This helps boost your company’s reputation, which is very important if you’re working in a smaller industry or B2B niche where there aren’t too many business prospects.

Personalization also helps increase the number of prospects who turn into qualified leads. 63% of marketers say that personalized messaging has helped boost their overall conversion rates, 43% say it helps with lead generation, and 42% say that it has improved brand perceptions.

3. Boost Engagement By Addressing Specific Pain Points

No two companies share the exact same budget, growth goals, operational activities… You get the idea. Every business is distinct, and when contacting potential prospects, it’s important to keep this in mind.

By doing a bit more research about each company, their employees, and the challenges they're facing as they grow, you can learn more about their pain points – and craft a sales message that addresses their specific issue.

For example, if you find that a prospect’s company has recently opened a second manufacturing plant and you sell ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software, you could craft an email or InMail message discussing the specific benefits of your software – like scalability, the ability to integrate multiple plants, powerful data dashboards, and other features.

4. Build Real Relationships

Prospects aren’t just numbers and data in your CRM software. They're people, too! And engaging with them on a one-to-one basis with personalized outreach can help you develop a real relationship. You can learn more about a prospect’s role, interests, and needs – and use these to create a human connection.

Being polite, respectful, and engaging makes a great lasting impression. And even if a prospect isn’t interested in what you have to offer right away, you still have the chance to stay in contact and continue building this relationship.

Perhaps they’ll keep you in mind if they move to a new company or a more senior role – or they’ll recommend your products or services to another potential prospect in their network. By personalizing your outreach efforts, you have a better chance of building these types of meaningful relationships.

5. Convert More Leads With Customized Offers

Taking a personalized approach to lead generation also helps you convert more clients with customized offers. You can learn about their pain points, budget, the structure of their business, and other specifics. These will help you come up with an irresistible offer that will turn them from a lead into a paying customer.

Related Post: What B2B Offers Help Produce More Qualified Leads? What You Need To Know

Need Help With Personalized B2B Prospecting? Incept Grows Is Here For You!

Creating a personalized B2B prospecting plan is the very best way to boost client acquisition, improve profitability, and continue growing your business. But it can be time-consuming and difficult, especially if you don’t have a large in-house sales team.

As experts in outsourced sales and B2B prospecting, we develop personalized outreach plans that help you reach more prospects and qualified leads. Whether you just need a little bit of sales assistance or you’re looking for a larger team, we’re standing by to assist you. Give us a call at (330) 649-8000 or schedule a free, no-commitment consultation with an Incept expert by contacting us online.

5 Ways To Utilize AI Tools Like ChatGPT In B2B Lead Generation

Since it was first released in late 2022, ChatGPT has been at the forefront of the AI revolution. Today, there are lots of competing LLMs (Large Language Models), including Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude.

They all function similarly – by chatting naturally with an AI bot, you can generate answers to questions, create original text, and much more. These advanced, AI-based tools open up lots of possibilities when it comes to B2B lead generation. Wondering how to use them to your advantage when seeking new customers? Here are five simple ideas.

1. Generating Email Templates

As text-based platforms, LLMs like ChatGPT are ideal for generating custom text – including email templates. With a simple prompt like “Create a sales email promoting my IT services, specifically targeting small-to-mid-sized B2B companies” you can generate a template in seconds.

You can refine your results further by trying out different prompts. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to use more casual (or formal) language, to mention your brand’s name only once, to avoid excessive “sales-y” language, and more.

You may not always get perfect results – but by playing around with ChatGPT prompts and doing a little bit of editing, you can quickly come up with some basic email templates to use when prospecting and generating leads.

2. Drafting Call Scripts

Similarly to email templates, you can use ChatGPT and similar LLMs to create call scripts for your business. The more detail you go into, the better your results will be. 

For example, you could use a prompt like “Create a cold call script for a manufacturing company in Cincinnati, Ohio. We focus on machining and fabrication and are looking for new clients in the transportation and aerospace industries.”

You can even use additional bullet points to emphasize certain parts of your business in the script. For the above prompt, this could be something like:

• We offer a full suite of CNC machining and fabrication services, as well as 3D printing

• Emphasize our quality control methods

• Include that we’ve worked with GE Aerospace and several other local companies

• Keep the script casual, and avoid pushing sales too hard

Once you get a draft, you can refine it using ChatGPT, or you can make any necessary adjustments yourself.

3. Getting Ideas For Blog Posts, Webinars, And Other Inbound Content

LLMs like ChatGPT are very helpful for coming up with ideas for inbound content. ChatGPT can help you come up with ideas for blogs, social media posts, webinars, and other content that can help promote your business.

For example, if you run a restaurant supply company and you’re looking for ideas on content that your potential customers may want to read, you could prompt ChatGPT and ask “What are the biggest challenges facing family-owned restaurants?” or “How can restaurants make sure that they're following health and safety standards?” Then, you could come up with content based on these prompts.
You can even use ChatGPT to generate blog drafts – like “Give me an outline of a blog discussing food safety best practices at a Mexican restaurant.” This gives you a great framework for writing your own content.

4. Summarizing And Repurposing Existing Content

If you already have lots of blog posts and other helpful content on your website, ChatGPT and other LLMs are a powerful way to repurpose this content in just a few clicks. For example, you can upload a long-form blog post or whitepaper to ChatGPT. Then, you could ask ChatGPT to summarize the document in 100 words for use in a LinkedIn post, to adapt it for an email newsletter, or even to turn the document into a video script. 

This allows you to do more with your existing content library and cuts down on costs, which is great if you’re focusing on inbound marketing for lead generation. And you should be using inbound marketing as part of the lead generation process! According to HubSpot's State of Marketing Report, leads generated from inbound marketing typically cost 61% less compared to those generated with traditional outbound methods. 

5. Processing Lead Information From Documents

Along with generating new text, ChatGPT and similar LLMs can also process data from attachments like text documents and spreadsheets. This can actually make it possible to quickly process lead information and add it to your CRM or other databases.

For example, if you have several sign-up sheets from a trade show as well as contact information from people who’ve filled out a form on your website, you could upload these to ChatGPT and ask it to extract the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and titles of each person into a new spreadsheet.

This can cut down on administration time significantly – freeing you up to make more calls, send more emails, write more blog posts, and take other steps to bring in more qualified B2B leads.

Need To Save More Time And Generate More Leads? Contact Incept Grows Today!

ChatGPT and similar LLMs can be really helpful throughout the lead prospecting process. But there’s definitely a learning curve to using these tools for lead generation, so it may take time to use them to their full potential. And if you’re really busy with other parts of managing your company, even AI assistance may not be enough to get the job done and bring more leads to your business.

We offer lead generation, prospecting, appointment setting, and tons of other services that help you find qualified leads and grow your business. Contact us online or give us a call at 330-994-1349 for a free consultation and find out how we can set you up for success.