7 lead generation tools to accelerate business growth

Key takeaways

• Lead generation tools help you reach potential  customers to continue marketing to them and move them closer to a purchase
• Consider investing in B2B-specific lead generation tools if your customers are businesses rather than consumers
• Lead generation tools can help you improve the customer experience and encourage quality leads to provide contact information they might not share otherwise

If you want new clients, you need leads. Leads are potential customers who express interest in your products or services. Much like a mall retailer can turn casual shoppers into customers by using retail signage to entice them into the store, you can make leads part of your loyal customer base with consistent marketing efforts. This makes generating leads an essential step for business growth.

However, manually finding and reaching out to your target audience can be time-consuming and often ineffective. If you want to gain leads faster (and even in your sleep), using lead generation software is key. Discover seven of the best lead generation tools you can implement into your business to reach your goals.

What is a lead generation tool?

A lead generation tool is a type of software that helps you capture the contact information of people who are interested in your business or specific products or services you sell. It automates the process of gathering client details—such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other helpful information—so you can save time and gain new leads around the clock.

Lead generation tools can be as simple as a contact form for your website visitors to fill out. However, many of these sales tools are becoming more advanced every year—for instance, form builders allowing more custom fields. The more advanced the sales tool, the better chance business owners have of gaining more qualified leads.

7 effective lead generation tools and how they work

Lead generation software can take many shapes and forms. The best part is, you don’t have to limit yourself to one type. You can combine lead gen tools to benefit from the best features of each marketing software option. Here are seven tools to consider and how each can help you accelerate your lead captures.

1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Starting price: $79.99 per user per month, billed annually

With over 800 million members, LinkedIn is easily the largest professional network in the world. If you own a business-to-business (B2B) brand—meaning you sell products or services to other companies instead of consumers—it’s a good place to find potential leads. However, LinkedIn as a social media platform has limited capabilities beyond running simple marketing campaigns, which is why many sales teams turn to LinkedIn Sales Navigator for advanced functionality.

Sales Navigator is a lead generation tool that recommends B2B leads for your business and provides real-time updates about your prospects. It helps you find the right person to chat with so you can direct your outreach toward decision-makers.

If you prefer moving your interactions off-platform, you can easily transition your lead management from Sales Navigator to a customer relationship management (CRM) tool like Salesforce. With LinkedIn’s integrations, you can sync notes about your leads with your CRM platform of choice.

2. Mailchimp

Starting price: Free

Building your email list allows you to regularly re-engage leads with the information they need to finalize their purchase decisions. Mailchimp’s free plan makes it easy for you to create eye-catching forms and landing pages with a drag-and-drop builder. With the help of appealing content, you can encourage potential leads to engage with you and provide their email addresses. When you gain email opt-ins, your leads are instantly saved on Mailchimp, which you can use as your email marketing tool.

Mailchimp allows you to trigger a series of welcome emails (or any other email campaign) for specific segments of your audience, based on the signup source. For instance, if you own a spa and gain a subscriber from a landing page focused on facials, Mailchimp can instantly send your new lead a discount on facials so they feel like they’re getting a personalized email rather than a generic, cold email.

3. AeroLeads

Starting price: $49 per month

You don’t have to wait for inbound leads to pursue a potential customer. When you have a prospect in mind, AeroLeads can help you find their business emails, job titles, locations, and more. Simply add potential leads from LinkedIn, Xing, Crunchbase, and other sources to AeroLeads through its Chrome extension. This can eliminate the bulk of research from your workflow.

You can also search their database of over 650 million prospects and filter based on your preferred audience.

Once you get the information you need to reach out to your lead, you can transfer your data to an external lead management tool like Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Mailchimp, or Zapier.

4. Yelp

Starting price: Free

Millions of consumers each month use Yelp to search for local businesses, often within a day of making a purchase. This means the platform is filled with high-quality potential leads—people who know what they need and are ready to buy.

To start, add or claim your Yelp Business Page, then update your business details and add high-quality photos. Businesses with a complete Yelp Page see 135% more page views on average, so it’s a great way to stand out from the crowd.

Claiming your business page is free and allows you to get real-time notifications when people use the Request a Call, Request an Appointment, or Request a Quote feature or otherwise message your small business. Yelp automates the process of capturing their contact information and details about their needs so you can follow up with them directly.

To increase your lead generation capabilities, you could also invest in Yelp Ads. With Yelp Ads, your business listing shows up in a number of key places on the site and app, including above relevant search results and on your competitors’ pages. You can choose from a variety of call-to-action (CTA) buttons based on your ad goal—like boosting website traffic or receiving more calls—and customize your own ad copy, target keywords, target audience, and ad budget.

5. Datanyze

Starting price: $21 per month, billed annually

Datanyze is a lead generation tool that helps start meaningful conversations with your B2B leads. On top of helping you find contact information and company data, Datanyze suggests icebreakers (such as relevant current events) to help you connect with prospects on a deeper level. By capturing your lead’s attention with personalized messages or calls, you can foster trust and boost conversion rates, or the percentage of people who ultimately become customers.

6. Landbot

Starting price: $31 per user per month, billed annually

Landbot is a marketing automation tool that helps you build chatbots to collect contact information, feedback, and other data from your website visitors, even when your team members aren’t available. You can even create automated conversations for WhatsApp, Messenger, and other API-enabled platforms your potential leads are using—no coding required.

By making your lead generation process more conversational, you can make a good impression on people who interact with your chatbot and improve the customer experience.

7. Gleam

Starting price: $10 per month (for competitions app only)

Hosting a giveaway can be an effective way to get new leads into your sales pipeline, which is the process that consumers go through before deciding whether or not to buy from your business. With the incentive of a possible big prize, shoppers may be more willing to provide their email addresses, phone numbers, and other contact details.

Gleam is a marketing platform that lets you customize interactive contest templates to make it simple and convenient for people to provide their information. Whether you want to host general sweepstakes or offer contest entries in exchange for referrals or feedback, this lead generation tool can help. Gleam even offers social media integrations so you can authenticate entries for higher-quality leads.

Accelerate your lead generation—and your profits

Lead generation tools can speed up your business growth. When you have the contact details of people who are interested in your business, you can continuously engage them and ultimately lead them to make a purchase. No matter your lead generation idea—whether it’s sending customized emails, hosting a contest, or improving the customer experience with chatbots—lead generation tools can help you stay on track and organized.

Not sure how to keep your leads engaged once you’ve captured them? Try these digital marketing strategies to build brand awareness and attract new customers.