Definition of B2B Lead Generation
B2B lead generation is a set of marketing and sales activities aimed at generating interest, converting it into a purchasing intent, and then into a closed B2B deal. The main top-of-the-funnel lead generation activities, also referred to as demand generation, are content creation and distribution. Bottom-of-the-funnel lead gen activities have a more targeted, personalized nature. Organizing webinars and business events, launching special offers, and podcast appearances are all good examples of B2B lead gen.
Types of B2B Lead Gen Tools
The 13 key groups of B2B lead generation tools are:
- B2B Lead Generation Platforms – comprehensive solutions that let you handle lead sourcing, database management, email sequences, and more.
- B2B Lead Generation Software – tools that are solely aimed at leads search automation and contact details enrichment.
- B2B Lead Generation Services – tools that help you collect relevant leads lists and validate their contact information at scale.
- Social Media Contest and Giveaway Tools For B2B Lead Generation – handy plugins and microtools to manage raffles and giveaways.
- B2B Lead Generation Tools For Email Marketing – software that helps you organize and send email campaigns and nurturing sequences to your leads lists.
- B2B Lead Generation Tools For Landing Pages And Forms – landing pages and forms builders that help you present your offer, quickly test and validate ideas, and capture leads.
- B2B Lead Generation Tools For Paid Advertising – ads systems that drive your traffic and leads via paid channels.
- B2B Lead Generation Tools For Webinars – platforms that can help you host webinars and interact with your leads before and after your events.
- B2B Lead Generation Services For Data And Research – marketing intelligence and content discovery tools that help you find relevant audiences and leads.
- Email Follow-Up Tools – plugins and add-ons that speed up mail merge and sequence management.
- Sales Lead Generation Tools – databases focused on corporate leads list sourcing.
- Live Chat Software For B2B Lead Generation – live chats and chatbots you can use to interact with and capture leads from your website pages.
- Surveys and Customer Insights Tools for B2B Lead Generation – software and add-ons that help with survey automation and leads insights sourcing.
The following is a comprehensive list of B2B lead gen tools that will make your sales and marketing efforts more fruitful:
B2B Lead Generation Platforms
1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Pricing: starts at $79,99 when paid annually
Serves as a Premium version of a LinkedIn account, helps you better connect with leads, offering such features as direct messaging without connects, more search filters when looking for prospects, and creating lead lists
2. Hubspot
Pricing: ranges from $45 to $3,600 a month, depending on the plan, billing cycle, and company size
CRM solution that offers sales automation, goal tracking, pipeline management, landing page building capabilities
3. Marketo
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Marketing automation platform with such functionality as analytics, lead management, and email automation
4. Pardot
Pricing: starts at $1,250 up to $15,000 a month
Feature-rich, albeit expensive email marketing automation tool, allows to conduct A/B testing, automate email campaigns, set up landing pages, and manage leads, also has Google Ads integration capabilities
5. ActiveCampaign
Pricing: starts at $29/month
Email marketing automation platform also comes with other standard features like lead scoring, audience segmentation, landing page template library
6. Outreach
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Pipeline management system with solid AI reporting capabilities; also comes with task management and tracking
B2B Lead Generation Software
1. Leadfeeder
Pricing: starts at $139/month
Contact information tracker, allows you to gather data on your website visitors
2. LeadForensics
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Website visitor identification software; uncovers the data of anonymous B2B website visitors.
3. LeadGenius
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Provider of high-quality datasets with lead contact information from all across the globe
4. Contactout
Pricing: the free version is available, and paid versions start at $99/month
Contact information gathering platform, allows you to obtain emails and phone numbers of prospects on LinkedIn
B2B Lead Generation Services
1. UpLead
Pricing: ranges from $74 to $299 a month
Contact information dataset provider with claimed 95% data accuracy
2. ZoomInfo
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Platform offering contact information datasets, sales automation, and cross-channel advertising
3. Demandbase
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
CRM solution that focuses on account-based marketing, sales automation, and B2B datasets
Social Media Contest and Giveaway Tools For B2B Lead Generation
1. Vyper
Pricing: starts at $75/month (if paid annually)
Tool for creating viral marketing contests and giveaways
2. RafflePress
Pricing: starts at $39.50 a year
WordPress plugin for giveaway management, also comes with landing page building and CRM integration capabilities
3. Rafflecopter
Pricing: starts at $13 up to $84 a month
A simplistic solution for the quick and easy creation of giveaways
4. Gleam
Pricing: starts at $97 a month up to $997 a month
A platform for creating viral marketing contests, it integrates with a range of CRMs and email marketing software
B2B Lead Generation Tools For Email Marketing
1. Mailchimp
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $13 a month
One of the most popular email marketing and automation platforms
2. Constant Contact
Pricing: starts at $9.99 a month
Email marketing and automation tool featuring a website builder and an SEO/analytics tool
3. Drip
Pricing: starts at $39 a month
Email marketing and automation tool intended for e-commerce. As the name goes, its key feature is the creation and management of drip email campaigns.
4. AWeber
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $16.15 a month
Email marketing and automation platform coming with landing page building functionality
5. GetResponse
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $19 a month
Email marketing and automation software, also with a website builder and SMS marketing functionality
6. ConvertKit
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $9 a month (if billed annually)
A simplistic email marketing automation and landing page building solution
B2B Lead Generation Tools For Landing Pages And Forms
1. Unbounce
Pricing: starts at $74 a month (if billed annually)
One of the most popular tools for creating custom landing pages, coming with many pre-built templates and A/B testing functionality
2. Instapage
Pricing: starts at $199 a month (if billed annually)
Popular landing page builder, albeit more expensive; integrates with popular Zapier, Hubspot, MailChimp, and Salesforce and offers A/B testing, analytics, heat maps, and lead capture forms
3. Leadpages
Pricing: starts at $74 a month (if billed annually)
Drag-and-drop landing page builder that integrates with Meta Ads directly
B2B Lead Generation Tools For Paid Advertising
1. Google Ads
Pricing: free to use, price is formed by several ad impressions and competition level
The most popular PPC marketing tool in the world, with rich paid ad campaign management capabilities
2. Bing Ads
Pricing: free to use, price is formed by several ad impressions and competition level
Less popular than Google Ads, a PPC marketing platform targeting Bing search users
3. LinkedIn Ads
Pricing: free to use, price is formed by several ad impressions and competition level
Paid marketing management platform, helps attract very relevant audiences in LinkedIn users, but tends to be quite expensive
B2B Lead Generation Tools For Webinars
1. GoToWebinar
Pricing: starts at $49 a month (if billed annually)
Virtual conference platform with customizable meetings, integration, and analytics capabilities
2. WebinarJam
Pricing: starts at $39 a month (if billed annually)
Webinar hosting platform offering live chat, flexible scheduling, and automated recording functionality
3. Demio
Pricing: starts at $411 a year
Webinar hosting platform coming with solid attendee engagement and analytics features
B2B Lead Generation Services For Data And Research
1. Owler
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $35 a month (billed annually)
Global business data provider, offering the latest industry news, insights on the latest acquisitions and investments, and CRM integration capabilities
2. CB Insights
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Business analytics platform and database offering the latest intelligence on private global company and investor activities
3. Mattermark
Pricing: starts at $49 a month
Market intelligence solution providing insights on fastest-growing companies and investors
4. Buzzsumo
Pricing: starts at $95 a month (if billed annually)
Content discovery and research tool, offering solid analytics and idea-generation functionality
Email Follow-Up Tools
1. Boomerang
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $4.98 a month (billed annually)
Popular Gmail extension that allows users to schedule emails and get reminders on the next follow-up letter
2. Yesware
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $15 a month (if billed annually)
Email marketing management platform that also automates email outreach activity tracking
3. Yet Another Mail Merge
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $25 a year
Google Sheets Extension that allows you to schedule and personalize emails, send them in bulk, see who opened them, and then follow up
Sales Lead Generation Tools
1. DiscoverOrg
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
B2B business contact database provider, applicable for both lead gen and recruitment needs
2. LeadFuze
Pricing: starts at $147 a month
Corporate dataset provider, allowing users to obtain emails, phone numbers, and bios of prospects
3. AeroLeads
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $49 a month
Global company database, providing phone numbers and emails of potential leads
Live Chat Software For B2B Lead Generation
1. Drift
Pricing: starts at $2,500 a year
Live chat widget that integrates with your company website and allows you to connect with your leads and accounts
2. Intercom
Pricing: starts at $74 a month
Live chat for your website, also has features for managing conversations, sending targeted messages, and publishing help articles
3. LiveChat
Pricing: starts at $20 a month (if billed annually)
Simplistic web live chat and online customer support software
4. Tawk.to
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $19 a month
Simplistic live chat tool, with its main advantage being its affordability
5. Acquire
Pricing: starts at $2,000 a month (if billed annually)
Powerful live chat platform with additional call and video chat capabilities
6. CallPage
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $19 a month
Company website widget for calling potential leads back in a matter of seconds.
Surveys and Customer Insights Tools For B2B Lead Generation
1. Crystal
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
AI-powered business personality predictor, allowing users to interact with their prospects in the most effective manner.
2. ProProfs Survey Maker
Pricing: starts at $19 a month (if billed annually)
Cloud-based online survey tool that enables users to better understand the lead’s purchasing intent.
3. Survicate
Pricing: free version is available, paid versions start at $89 a month (if billed annually)
An online survey tool for collecting feedback from your prospects, also usable in emails.
4. Qualaroo
Pricing: starts at $69 a month (if billed annually)
Tool for gathering feedback from company website visitors
5. Extole
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
Affiliate marketing tool designed to incentivize your customers to promote your product comes with a customizable reward system for performing referrals
6. Google Forms
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $12 a month
One of the most popular, easy-to-use, and affordable online survey tools.
7. Referral Candy
Pricing: starts at $47 a month (if billed annually)
E-commerce plugin designed to automate affiliate marketing comes with such features as designing emails and landing pages, as well as an analytics dashboard
8. Survey Monkey
Pricing: the free version is available, and paid versions start at $25 a month
an online survey and feedback-gathering tool that also offers great analytics and reporting capabilities.
AI Lead Generation Tools For B2B
1. Clearbit
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
AI-powered data activation and market intelligence platform, provides features like website visitor identification, ideal customer profile building, and integrations with CRMs such as Salesforce, Hubspot, and Segment
2. Conversica
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
A conversational AI platform that provides digital assistants to interact with leads and customers (via live chat, email, or phone); also comes with reporting, analytics and CRM integration capabilities
3. LeadIQ
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $75/user/month (if paid annually)
A contact information capture solution that uncovers and transfers vital contact data from platforms like LinkedIn to CRMs in one click
4. Albert.ai
Pricing: customized, contact sales team for details
A cloud-based AI paid marketing assistance platform that integrates with paid ad systems like Google Ads, Meta Ads, and Bing Ads and provides recommendations on ad campaign optimization
5. Lusha
Pricing: free version available, paid versions start at $29/user/month (if paid annually)
Market intelligence and data capture platform, uncovers and transfers vital contact data from LinkedIn to CRMs, can integrate with Salesforce
6. Meet Alfred
Pricing: starts at $49 a month (if paid quarterly)
Lead generation automation tool built specifically for LinkedIn, allows to automates such actions as sending a contact request, sending a DM or sending an email
7. Jasper.ai
Pricing: starts at $49 a month (if paid annually)
mA Multi-platform AI content generation tool that provides content recommendations and content writing for social media posts, ad copies, blog articles, emails and visual art
8. Copilot AI
Pricing: starts at $233 a month (if paid annually)
An outreach automation platform for LinkedIn that allows you to create automated lead gen campaigns, gives recommendations on the DM copies, and provides basic reporting capabilities
Why Businesses Should Utilize These B2B Lead Generation Platforms and Tools
B2B lead generation is a necessity to scale sales, and it can be a very time-consuming process. Teams can spend hours on such activities as manual email send-outs if the processes aren’t streamlined. B2B lead gen tools help automate routine tasks and save precious time.
Good B2B lead generation tools not only save time but provide teams with invaluable insights. They can aggregate massive amounts of data and assist in your market research, including dark social channel leads. They can also help you organize your data, for example, a contact database, ensuring that all information is well-categorized and none is lost.
B2B lead gen tools can assist you in organizing various special events such as webinars and giveaways. Lastly, they can connect you with your prospects with the help of their live chat and survey functionality.
Choosing the Best B2B Lead Generation Tools
To choose the best-fitting B2B lead generation tool, consider the following:
- Feature-fit: the main purpose of a B2B lead generation tool is to automate your critical sales tasks, the more the software supports and automates repeating tasks – the better;
- Intuitiveness: the tool should be user-friendly so that employees won’t spend much time navigating it and learning how to use it;
- Pricing: make sure that the tool you choose offers your business the best value for money;
- Integration: the best B2B lead gen tools can seamlessly connect with your existing software stack to exchange vital data and complement each other’s functionality;
- Customer feedback: look into the reviews on the tool you’re considering – this will give you good insights before you make a purchasing decision.
