12 Sales Prospecting Tools Every Sales Team Should Use
Even experienced sales teams cling to outdated prospecting techniques. And the result is always the same. Low-quality leads and lost revenue.
Sales prospecting tools change that.
They assist with the entire B2B sales process, from prospecting to reporting. They automate repetitive processes, compose personalized messages, and give data-based oversight.
Let’s look at how you can put these powerful features to work in your business. For both immediate and long-term results.
Top 12 Sales Prospecting Tools to Drive Results
1. Artisan
Artisan is an AI-first outbound sales tool. The platform is built around Ava, an AI business development representative (BDR) that handles multi-channel outreach.
You don’t need to watch over her proverbial shoulder. Ava automates personalized messaging, warms up leads, and follows up on outreach.
Ava also learns about your business, communication style, and potential customers to optimize her approach. This complete automation allows you to focus on human interactions and close deals faster.
The Artisan team will help you fully set up quickly, with tailored “white glove” onboarding so you’re prepped and primed for success.
Key features:
AI BDR Ava for comprehensive campaign optimization
Dedicated B2B, local business, and ecommerce databases with hundreds of millions of leads combined
Data enrichment and web scraping with the Data Miner feature for up-to-the-minute lead details
Multi-channel outreach across email and LinkedIn
Advanced “waterfall” algorithm that sorts and selects the best personalization for each lead
Email warmup for optimal deliverability
Pricing:
Contact the sales team for a customized pricing plan.
Artisan’s AI BDR, Ava, could be your team's newest and most productive member. Get in touch to arrange a demo.
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator lets you tap into LinkedIn’s extensive first-party database. That’s no small thing. It stores data about 500 million professionals. And you can search through it with 50+ filters. However, the tool focuses on LinkedIn and doesn’t support multi-channel campaigns.
Key features:
Over 500 million database entries
Highly reliable individual and company data
Contact leads through InMail
Segment by personas
Integration with customer relationship management (CRM) apps
Pricing:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core costs $99 monthly, while the Advanced plan is $169.99. Advanced Plus pricing is available via the sales team
3. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo provides a highly reliable lead database and combines it with advanced search and filtering capabilities.
ZoomInfo specializes in data enrichment. One unique filter is “Scoops”. This allows users to identify prospects based on current news, including pain points like layoffs, open positions, and training increases. Another notable feature is the “Intent” score, which rates a prospect’s interest in a topic.
Its AI agent, Copilot, summarizes customer data and rates leads. However, it offers early and mid-funnel rather than full automation, and its high-quality data comes at a premium.
Key Features:
Over 100 million verified entries, including 70 million phone numbers
Extensive search filters
Supports many integrations
AI Copilot for quick insights
Website visitor tracking
Pricing:
Contact the sales team for pricing.
4. Hunter.io
Hunter is primarily an email campaign tool. It’s a good choice for brands with lead data that needs verifying.
Hunter also auto-personalizes emails using custom attribute fields. This makes email sequences more effective. However, it’s important to remember that Hunter is limited to email outreach.
Key Features:
Database with over 100 million email contacts
Email verification to protect deliverability
Chrome extension for use when browsing LinkedIn or company websites
Domain search feature (enter domain for associated emails)
Integration with a range of CRMs
Pricing:
Hunter offers a limited free plan. The monthly cost of its Starter plan is $49, Growth is $149, and Scale is $299.
5. Apollo.io
Apollo is a popular B2B data provider. It’s an all-in-one sales pipeline tool that offers multi-channel outreach and reporting.
Apollo offers advanced search features and allows you to create lead lists. In addition, its AI scores leads, automates follow-ups, and nurtures leads. This supports end-to-end workflows that require little management.
However, more features mean more complexity. You won’t want to skip the training.
Key features:
Cold email generation with AI
B2B database with over 300 million leads
Chrome extension for browsing LinkedIn or company websites
Custom AI workflows
Lead scoring
Data import via CSV
API for data enrichment, ultra-automated outreach, and updating workflows
Integrations include LinkedIn, Gmail, HubSpot, and Salesforce
Pricing:
Apollo offers a free tier, but for full features, you’ll need a paid plan. The Basic plan costs $49 per month, Professional costs $99, and Organization costs $119.
6. HubSpot Sales Hub and Breeze
Sales Hub is part of Hubspot's CRM empire. It helps you find new leads, contact them, and import them into the CRM.
It improves pipelines by prioritizing tasks and recommending the next moves. When a lead is marked as “qualified,” it moves to the deal board.
Sales Hub also includes Hubspot’s AI agent Breeze Copilot. It assists with tasks while Agents automate processes and Intelligence handles reporting.
All Sales Hub tiers include Breeze Copilot. However, some additional features are costly, and customer support can be scant.
Key features:
AI copilot for assistance
Strong analytics suite
Configure, price, quote (CPQ) option
Full range of functionality
Easy CRM integration through Hubspot
Triggers and notifications
Pricing:
Hubspot Sales Hub offers a limited free tier. Paid monthly and per seat, the Starter plan is $20, Professional starts at $100, and Enterprise begins at $150.
7. Seamless.ai
Seamless is a B2B outreach tool that offers solid lead data enrichment and verification. It provides all the standard search features and filters.
The Seamless “Autopilot” automatically curates lead lists based on set criteria, including buyer intent data. Seamless.ai is primarily a data resource and won’t fully automate lead prospecting.
Some reviews suggest that stored phone numbers lack accuracy.
Key features:
Integrates with LinkedIn
AI messaging
Data enrichment, including job change data
AI data validation and research
Prospector with advanced search filters
Pitch intelligence
Chrome extension for data collection when browsing
Pricing:
Seamless offers a free tier. Contact the sales team for Pro and Enterprising plan costs.
8. Outreach.io
Outreach creates workflows for the entire . Its adaptable AI generates personalized email content, learning from industry terms and communication styles.
The Smart Deal Assist feature suggests the best next outreach step and predicts lead outcomes, including close date and deal size. It streamlines campaigns by showing leads' most recent actions and standardizing processes with templates.
However, some reviewers suggest that its customer service is limited.
Key features:
Smart Deal predictions
Email finder tool
Extensive training offered
Task prioritization
Integrates with Hubspot
API available
Customizable email templates
Automated speech recognition and call transcription
Pricing:
Contact the Outreach sales team for pricing.
9. Gong
Gong helps brands boost revenue through better sales engagement. Its features assist with the entire customer lifecycle.
Gong provides insights that help you understand prospects’ signals. It also uses Smart Trackers that detect keywords in conversations. This sales prospecting software tells you whether you’re using the best messaging and observes objection trends. It can also draft highly personalized emails in seconds.
Gong’s “ask anything” feature allows users to question its AI and gain quick insights into leads and conversations. The feature can also predict revenue outcomes. Mid-sized brands favor the company.
Key features:
AI to-do lists
Data mapping and verification
Coaching for sales teams
Personalized email drafts
“Ask anything” AI chatbot
Extensive analytics
Call recording and Call Spotlight for summaries
Pricing:
Gong only offers customized pricing. Contact the team for more information.
10. Salesloft
Salesloft is a revenue orchestration platform that scales outreach. It uses AI to transcribe, analyze, and summarize messages. A key feature is Rhythm, which recommends your outreach steps based on buyer signals.
However, it lacks LinkedIn automation, limiting multi-channel campaigns. And although there is ample training, understanding the platform takes time.
Key features:
Solid set of integrations, including Salesforce
Extensive coaching available
Trend prediction with Rhythm
Nurture your pipeline with AI
Pricing:
Contact the Salesloft team for details.
11. Reply.io
Reply is a multi-channel lead generation tool. Its AI sales development representative (SDR) agent, Jason, automates outreach, sends messages across multiple channels, and schedules meetings.
Reply will identify prospects with high buyer intent so you can prioritize them. It will also warm up leads before emailing, improving deliverability.
On the negative side, some users report challenges integrating other tools with the platform.
Key features:
Multi-channel outreach, including emails, calls, SMS, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn
LinkedIn lead finder Chrome extension
AI SDR agent Jason for automation
Deliverability Toolkit for emails
Extensive analytics and reporting
Pricing:
Reply offers three tiers. The “Email Volume” plan is $59 per month, Multichannel is $99, and Agency costs $210.
12. Pipedrive
Sales and CRM platform Pipedrive offers excellent visual pipeline tracking. It also speeds up email outreach with AI-personalized messages based on simple prompts.
Pipedrive offers flexible pricing. This makes it a good fit for small to medium businesses.
It can be integrated with other tools to form an end-to-end multi-channel system. For example, a tool like JustCall enables phone compatibility.
Key features:
Integrates with many tools and email providers
User-friendly interface
Multi-channel compatible
Automatically schedule meetings
AI email customization
E-signature feature
Pricing:
Paid monthly, the Essential tier is $24, Advanced is $39, Professional is $64, Power is $79, and Enterprise is $129 per month.
Where Do Tools Fit in the Sales Prospecting Journey?
The best sales strategies outbound automation to streamline outreach. This reduces repetitive tasks, freeing sales reps to focus on phone calls and demos.
Tools support end-to-end prospecting by providing insights that add intelligence to your .
Stage 1: Identifying Potential Leads
Manual lead discovery can feel a bit like playing Where’s Waldo? Except every misstep costs time and money.
But tools provide a roadmap.
Platforms give you access to mammoth databases. From there, just a few clicks on the relevant filters can build rich prospect lists.
Unlike , which may contain dubious entries, a good AI prospecting tool ensures data is verified and current. They also draw from many sources to provide deep insights.
For example, Artisan’s database contains over 500 million verified entries. It stores data from:
Verified public databases
Social media accounts
Fundraising databases
Directories
Company websites
B2B enrichment providers
Press Releases
The data is regularly updated, with hygiene and accuracy checks. It helps you conduct thorough searches and discover genuine leads fast.
Here’s an example of an enriched lead profile from Artisan:
Want to see how Artisan can connect you with thousands of eager, ready-to-buy leads? Get in touch to book a demo.
Stage 2: Researching and Qualifying Leads
It’s time to start thinning the list. After all, you don’t want to drag mismatched prospects through the sales funnel. Certainly not kicking and screaming.
To prevent this, the outbound sales team needs a well-defined ideal customer profile (ICP). Consider every variable, from company role to pain points.
In addition, highlight leads who are:
Likely to benefit from the product
Will gain sufficient ROI
Will provide sufficient ROI
Business decision-makers
Ready to purchase
Deals should be mutually beneficial. This will result in a higher average customer value, greater loyalty, and customers who sing your praises.
You can follow a set approach, such as the Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing (BANT) framework, which checks whether prospects meet basic criteria.
However, tools with make vetting prospects easy. They can automatically analyze prospects to find your best fit.
Stage 3: Perform Outreach
Tools provide the resources you need for outreach, including contact information and templates. They also automate bulk messaging.
This means you can send more emails in an hour than a handful of sales professionals could manage in a week. Sales automation features allow you to tailor communications easily.
For example, Artisan automates both outreach and personalization. This allows you to make more effective recommendations, boosting your conversion rate.
Here’s an example of a typical outreach flow:
Brian Tracy, author of The Psychology of Selling, wrote, “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.”
It’s a good reminder.
Prospects have a million and one things on their to-do list. Personalizing messages, especially subject lines, helps grab their attention. Emails personalized with a name or company name in the subject line are 66% more likely to be opened.
Stage 4: Following Up With Prospects
Leads only become customers with trust. However, building trust requires multiple touchpoints and follow-ups. 87% of B2B brands have sales cycles longer than three months.
However, avoid over-messaging or overwhelming buyers. You certainly don’t want contacts marking emails as spam.
A prospecting tool makes following up with the right message at the right time easier. It analyzes past communications to create optimal messages.
Tools also allow you to take a multi-channel approach without losing track. This is key because 75% of B2B vendors report better results when they combine multiple .
Stage 5: Analyzing and Refining the Process
Your first pipeline won’t be your strongest – even for a Herculean sales team. There is a wealth of insights that are best unlocked by tracking and analysis tools.
Tactics like A/B testing allow you to try different approaches for achieving the most effective funnel. Testing shows what’s working and what’s not.
A platform can create granular reports and optimize campaigns autonomously in real time. That means no more slogging through graphs and spreadsheets waiting for “Ah-ha” moments.
Tools can then segment this data based on categories, such as industry, company size, or job title. This allows you to react optimally to customer cues.
Platforms also supply insights into human touchpoints, including which closing techniques worked and the best ways to overcome common objections. This will guide you when it comes to finding B2B leads and nurturing them more effectively.
Simplify the Sales Prospecting Process With a Single Solution
Tools ensure that sales engines keep running. They make the entire pipeline more efficient, intelligent, and effective.
There are many available tools. However, managing multiple point solutions can quickly become untenable.
Artisan is a consolidated sales platform that can supercharge your entire prospecting pipeline.
Artisan’s AI BDR Ava handles all the following tasks:
Prospecting from dedicated databases of B2B, local, and ecommerce leads
Customer segmentation based on your ICPs
Ongoing lead enrichment and hygiene monitoring with a feature called Data Miner
Email warmup and deliverability testing
Human-quality personalization at scale with Artisan’s unique algorithm
Background A/B testing and campaign optimization
Multi-channel campaigns via email and LinkedIn
360-degree insights and analytics
Want to discover how Artisan can improve your sales performance through smart, automated, personalized outreach? Get in touch to book a demo.
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