The size of the CRM software market is pinned at $113.46 billion by 2027 (Source: Fortune Business Insights). On the other hand, recent data by Invesp indicates that companies with good sales and marketing alignment have a 20% growth rate annually. This was made possible by using proper sales prospecting tools.

You also want to learn about these tools? This blog post is a comprehensive guide on what you need to know about sales prospecting tools – why they matter, and what you should consider.

We will also cover top sales prospecting tools and their key features. Once you’re done reading the article, you’ll know how to choose the right sales prospecting tools for your business needs. Let’s start with the definition.

What are Sales Prospecting Tools?

A sales prospecting tool is software or a sales platform that helps salespersons contact potential customers or leads, aka prospects.

This type of software automates the process of finding, sorting, and contacting potential customers (leads) to make the early stages of the sales cycle more efficient.

Here’s what these tools generally offer:

• Lead Generation: They help populate prospect information from the web, social media, and other data sources.
• Data-gathering and curation: These tools help you pull in relevant data about prospects in one place (such as contact details, company data, social profiles) and bring it all together.
• Lead Scoring: Lead scoring is the algorithm by which you can manage leads and put them into categories. Research indicates that companies with mature lead generation and management practices have a 9.3% higher sales quota achievement rate (Source: CSO Insights).
• Automated Outreach: An automated outreach is a great way to save time and get detailed messages with the exact same information to reach everyone. You can use emails or even social media messages. Studies show that automated lead management leads to a 10% or more bump in revenue in 6-9 months (Source: Gartner).
• Integration Capacity: A good tool will come with capabilities to integrate with your existing CRM to make sure all prospect data stays up to date.

In other words, a sales prospecting tool is meant to enhance the quality and quantity of sales team efforts. Your team can spend less time searching for the right list of targets and qualifying the right people.

Sales Prospecting Tools Can Elevate Your Business; Let’s Learn by an Example

Suppose, a tech company specializing in web content observes that its sales team is having trouble generating and converting leads.

Their entire sales outreach system relied on lead generation, scoring, and outreach completed in a manual manner. That identified a prospect in its customer relationship management (CRM) system. This process took significant time, often allowed for poor data or no follow-up, and generally brought about poor sales performance.

Then they purchased a sales prospecting tool and connected it to their CRM which dramatically changed how the sales department operated and what it produced. Within six months:

• A 40% increase in lead generation.
• A 25% improvement in conversion rates from initial contact to qualified leads.

Benefits of Using Sales Prospecting Tools

Here are some key benefits that emerged from their experience:

• Boosted Efficiency: Automates routine tasks, freeing up time for more valuable sales activities.
• Higher Lead Quality: Prioritizes promising leads, enhancing conversion rates.
• Increased Data Accuracy: Reduces human error with automated data capture and updates.
• Scalability: Manages growing lead volumes effectively as the business expands.
• Enhanced Insights: Provides analytics for informed decision-making and strategy refinement.
• Consistent Follow-up: Maintains engagement with automated communications.
• Cost Savings: Reduces overhead costs through improved operational efficiency.

In this case, it highlights how a sales prospecting tool can make operations more efficient and improve core sales metrics beyond expectation.

Top 21 Sales Prospecting Tools

Now, let’s learn about top sales prospecting tools.

1. Prospector

Yesware’s Prospector adds search-powered prospect identification to your Gmail or Outlook, and searches more than 100 million B2B contacts, keeping you at your inbox to identify and manage prospects.

Key Features

• Advanced search filters by job title, industry, and more.
• Generates lists of leads with verified contact information.
• Easy integration with email campaigns.
• Leads management directly within your inbox.

2. Hunter

Hunter is an email-finder tool. You can put in names, names of companies, or web domains, and it provides email addresses. Hunter is a browser extension that allows you to do lead generation such as uploading lists of companies, or web domains. Hunter recently added functionality to send messages directly to the leads.

Key Features:

• Browser extension for easy access.
• Upload lists for quick lead generation.
• Campaign feature to contact leads directly.
• Finds emails using various search criteria.

3. Voila Norbert

Voila Norbert finds people’s email addresses and verifies them to give accurate results making your work easier and more efficient. People use this service for sales, recruitment, content marketing, and public relations. There’s a Chrome extension and a browser version.

Key Features:

• Accurate email finding and verification.
• Useful for various professional groups.
• Available as a Chrome extension.
• Simplified browser version for accessibility.

4. Anymail Finder

Anymail Finder is an email finder tool to search and verify email addresses, covering a wide range of industries such as sales, recruitment and marketing.

Key Features:

• Advanced search filters for precise targeting.
• Email verification to ensure accuracy.
• Chrome extension for easy LinkedIn extraction.
• API for integrating with other services.
• Pay-only-for-verified-emails pricing model.

5. Zoominfo

ZoomInfo is a go-to B2B data and software solution that helps businesses grow by connecting them to their most valuable prospects. Its platform can power your entire go-to-market engine, by bringing sales and marketing activities together around a single data set.

Thus it helps you scale by automating engagement and outreach at every stage of the buyer’s journey, and by leveraging AI-powered sales solutions to help you make the most of your interactions.

Key Features:

• All-in-one platform for sales and marketing.
• AI-driven tools for optimized selling.
• Real-time insights for targeted customer engagement.
• Automation for scaling and outreach.

6. Cognism

Cognism offers a powerful B2B sales intelligence platform, providing phone numbers and emails to enable more live contacts It claims access to ‘full, phone-verified contacts for anyone in the world’.

Key Features:

• Connects with 87% of user lists via phone-verified numbers.
• Unrestricted access to extensive person and company data.
• Easy integration with major CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot.
• Coverage across EMEA, NAM, and APAC regions for broad market reach.

7. Crystal Knows

Crystal is a business productivity tool that enriches communications by analysing B2B personality predictions and behavioral data. This tool augments your day-to-day tools to help you understand people better before meetings and communicate more effectively with colleagues and prospects.

Key Features:

• Personality insights for tailored communication.
• Integration with common workplace platforms.
• Data-driven strategies for effective meetings.
• Tools to improve response and conversion rates.

8. UpLeads

UpLead provides real-time verified 100 percent human B2B emails, mobile numbers, and intent data, and scores a 95 percent accuracy rate over leading sales platforms at a fraction of the cost.

Key Features:

• Real-time verification of contact data.
• Extensive database with 155M+ leads.
• Integration with major CRMs and sales tools.
• 24/7 support and a straightforward, no-fluff platform.

9. Apollo

Apollo is a sales intelligence and engagement platform which helps to discover prospects and manage them using functions such as artificial intelligence and automation.

Key Features:

• Extensive database with over 250 million contacts.
• Advanced filtering options using more than 200 attributes.
• Prospect monitoring for real-time updates on job changes and company news.
• AI-driven “Persona Lookalike” functionality to identify ideal prospects.
• Integration capabilities with CRMs and a useful Chrome extension for LinkedIn.

10. Wiza

Wiza is a comprehensive seller’s tool focused on sales, marketing and recruiting professionals, with a robust database of B2B contacts, ensuring accurate, always-verified contact details for ultimate lead capture.

Key Features:

• Database of over 830 million contacts.
• Verified emails and phone numbers.
• Exports up to 10,000 leads at a time to CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce.
• Free Chrome extension for LinkedIn data viewing and bulk export.

11. Crunchbase

Crunchbase is a comprehensive database of company intelligence with deep detail about private and public companies. It’s great for filtering and tracking prospects at the business, venture capitalist, and financial level.

Key Features:

• Access to verified contact data.
• Account recommendations based on specific criteria.
• Market monitoring to identify industry trends and trigger events.

12. Usergems

Usergems is a sales intelligence platform with robust account and contact prospecting features, including tracking job change within target accounts and leads that move to a new company.

Key Features

• Monitors relevant job changes within target organizations.
• Provides verified contact data and historical interactions.
• Automatically updates your CRM with new contact details when a prospect changes jobs.

13. Leadfeeder

Leadfeeder is a B2B lead-generation tool for prospecting website customers through a tracker script anyone can leave on his or her site to track and engage potential leads.

Key Features

• Identifies companies visiting your site.
• Monitors and scores visitor behavior.
• Provides email alerts for specific visitor actions.
• Integrates with CRMs for seamless data enrichment.
• Includes a filterable contact database for targeted engagement.

14. Bombora

Bombora Company Surge from Bombora, a data cooperative of editors from B2B publishers, infers business interest using machine learning to provide intent data for organizations to make buying decisions. It is helpful for marketers targeting B2B firms.

Key Features

• Scores and prioritizes prospects based on their engagement and interest.
• Enables timely and relevant outreach to potential clients.
• Identifies competitive threats by monitoring if prospects research other competitors.

15. HG Insights

HG Insights analyses millions of companies’ digital dirt to deliver actionable insights for sales.

Key Features

• Analyzes market to assess vendor penetration.
• Identifies prospects likely to purchase based on tech usage.
• Uses intent data for prospect scoring and prioritization.

16. Vainu

Vainu simplifies the laborious process of B2B sales prospecting by equipping users with a powerful data platform to find and add prospects to their sales funnel quickly.

Key Features

• Extensive filter options to create precise prospect lists.
• Real-time company data for in-depth account research.
• Workflow Triggers for automated prospecting and CRM integration.
• Supports major CRM systems with connectors and APIs.

17. Groove

Groove is a technology firm that provides a sales engagement application to enhance features such as automation and optimization on Salesforce, a widely used CRM.

Key Features

• Multichannel campaign automation with A/B testing capabilities.
• Call automation and optimization via the OmniDialler.
• Customizable online meeting scheduling tool.

18. PartnerTap

PartnerTap is a robust partner sales software designed to enhance collaboration and data sharing between sales teams and their partners, enabling seamless co-selling and driving increased revenue.

Key Features

• Real-time collaboration with partners.
• Seamless CRM integration.
• Real-time pipeline visibility.
• Efficient co-selling across systems.
• Full partner collaboration tracking.

19. Close

Close is a small-business sales CRM that helps sales teams to manage their contacts and improve their sales processes.

Key Features

• Predictive dialing with the “Power Dialler” to automate cold calls.
• Integration with existing email providers for seamless communication.
• Automated, customizable email sequences for efficient follow-up.

20. Lead Forensics

Lead Forensics is a B2B lead generation application that uses IP tracking technology to identify organizations that visit your website without leaving behind any contact details.

Key Features

• Identifies visiting companies and key decision-makers.
• Tracks visitor engagement on specific pages.
• Scores and prioritizes leads based on site activity.
• Integrates with HubSpot for streamlined lead management.
• Provides instant alerts for timely prospect engagement.

21. GetProspect

GetProspect helps B2B companies generate more leads and sales by providing validated emails and other important data.

Key Features

• Email finder extension for LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, and company websites.
• Access to a B2B database for quickly finding decision-makers.
• Data enrichment services that enhance records with 17 data attributes.

How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Business

To help you find a better process for selecting sales prospecting tools so that your search is both more fun and more successful, try the ‘F.I.N.D.’ formula.

• Functionality: Check what purpose a tool’s functionality serves. For example, do you need the tool for data enrichment or lead scoring, or for integrating your CRM?
• Integration: Figure out whether the tool seamlessly connects to your existing tech stack so that workflow and data syncing are improved.
• Necessity: What are the features you cannot compromise on? You want to make sure you can get everything you need to avoid paying for things that add no value to your team and ultimately drain your budget.
• Data-Driven Decision: Look for tools that provide analytics and reporting features to make better-though-data decisions that can improve your prospecting strategies over time.

This formula can help you decide which factors are critical. It’s a pragmatic rule of thumb that reflects what really matters.

Boost Your WordPress Sales Strategy with WP ERP

If you are a WordPress user and trying to get the most out of your sales prospecting efforts, WP ERP is the best integrated ERP tool you can get for your WordPress CRM.

It’s not only a robust WordPress CRM plugin, but also unifies sales, HR and accounting modules all under one roof on your WordPress site.

WP ERP lets you manage your leads, customers, and other data in a single customizable dashboard and take key business decisions on the spot – way more efficiently, way faster.

WP ERP has a suite of plugins that make working with WordPress sales prospects easier and improve efficiency and conversion rate:

• Contact Management: Easily organize and manage customer information within your WordPress dashboard.
• Activity Logs: Track all interactions with prospects to refine follow-up strategies and improve engagement.
• Automated Email Sequences: Create and automate one-to-one sequences directly from your CRM to keep in communication with leads.
• Lead Scoring: Score leads with points based on how they interact with your store.
• Reports and Insights: Monitor and track sales performance and enquire effectiveness at a glance.

These features make WP ERP an ideal solution to a WordPress site owner’s antics to ease their sales process and improve productivity.

Closing Words

In this blog post, we discussed several tools that can be used to make lead generation more efficient, improve conversations with clients, and drive sales. For WordPress users-Integrating WP ERP with a WordPress site can complement these powerful tools and transform how you handle sales and prospecting. With the sales landscape changing, keeping up with the right set of tools will help you to stay agile.