7 prospecting tools to generate quality leads
Are you equipped with the best prospecting tools to generate qualified leads and boost your sales? Prospecting is part of the sales strategy adopted by every business, whether you're a self-employed entrepreneur or in the sales department of a large group. It's the key to reaching new potential customers and increasing your sales.
How can you promote your sales development and guarantee a good return on investment? To help you find the software that's right for your business, we've selected seven prospecting tools and detailed their uses.
Definition: what is a prospecting tool?
A sales prospecting tool is quite simply software that helps your sales force in its search for new prospects, whether it's BtoB or BtoC prospecting.
In practical terms, prospecting software is useful for :
- Define the outlines of your prospecting plan,
- target your prospects
- finding prospects,
- segment your base of contacts in your prospecting file,
- track the history of your prospecting for each contact,
- monitor your prospecting campaigns,
- personalise your sales approach (sales pitch, etc.) and your contacts,
- generate qualified leads,
- convert more prospects into customers,
- increase your sales.
What do you need?
To determine which prospecting tool is right for you, you need to identify your needs in advance. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you make your choice.
☞ Do I need access to all the information in a single tool that centralises all the data and enables me to track the progress of each customer case?
☞ Do I have a lot of time to spend gathering information on leads, or do I need a sales intelligence tool that does it for me?
☞ Data obsolescence and contact database maintenance: how can I ensure that information gathered a few weeks or months ago is still valid?
☞ Do I need a collaborative tool so that my entire team has access to the same information in real time?
Mistakes to avoid to optimise your prospecting
Prospecting with your head down
You've just asked yourself what your needs are, but have you asked yourself what your prospects' needs are? That's the first question you need to ask yourself before you start prospecting. The answer will determine the profiles of prospects you are trying to reach and will guarantee a good customer relationship in the long term.
Knowing your prospects' needs is essential if you are to know which targets to aim for and how to meet their needs with your product or service.
Running generic campaigns
The lack of personalisation is one of the reasons why many marketing campaigns fail. Personalising your campaigns means showing your prospects that they are unique and starting to build a lasting relationship of trust.
1out of 2 B2B marketingdecision-makersregularly send personalised messages based on the profiles involved in the purchasing process.
Le baromètre des décideurs BtoB
Doing things by halves
If you're missing information about your prospects, you're less likely to convert that lead into a customer. It's as simple as that.
It's vital to have all the information you can gather about your prospect so that you can close the sale. What's more, by personalising your marketing campaigns and your sales relationship, you'll be in a better position to respond to the prospect's objections, and so, ultimately, you'll increase your chances of signing.
Don't use all the levers
SEO, emailing, events... there's no shortage of ways of prospecting. And yet companies often only use some of the levers available to them.
For example, 57% of B2B decision-makers are not familiar with the concept of marketing automation.
Le baromètre des décideurs BtoB
What about you?
Choose a free prospecting tool
Free software can be an interesting tool if you are just starting up your business and your cash flow does not allow you to invest in paid software. That said, you will quickly come up against the limitations of these solutions in terms of :
- hosting and data security
- limited or optional functionality
- lack of interoperability with your CRM, etc.
Top 7 best prospecting tools
1 of 6
 Bypath |  Corporama |  Decidento |  Easybusiness |  Sparklane |  Visiblee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| For all companies | For companies with more than 1 employees | For companies with more than 1 employees | For all companies | For companies with more than 1 employees | For all companies |
| See software | See software | See software | See software | See software | See software |
| Learn more about Bypath | Learn more about Corporama | Learn more about Decidento | Learn more about Easybusiness | Learn more about Sparklane | Learn more about Visiblee |
The software we have selected is aimed at companies of all sizes, from very small businesses to large groups.
ByPath, sales intelligence for prospecting
ByPath, a sales intelligence solution, is based on Big Data combined with data from the Kompass database. Its algorithms analyse data collected online: social networks, blogs, press, etc. Each lead generated is qualified.
Each lead generated is qualified. You know :
- who to contact
- why to contact this person at this precise moment
- and how to approach them.
Identifying decision-makers is much simpler and faster, as is securing closures. You know all the risks and the levers of influence on your contacts. It's easier to develop your sales prospecting strategy, because you have all the information you need to convince your contacts and close the sale.
ByPath in figures :
- over 200 million contacts,
- 12 million companies,
- 200K sources,
- 20 million emails,
- 60 countries covered.
Connect your CRM to ByPath to optimise your prospecting processes and save time. ByPath updates your data automatically.
Bypath
Corporama feeds your pipeline daily with smart B2B leads
Corporama is a benchmark intelligent B2B database for qualifying a database of prospects.
More than 2,000 marketing and sales managers from SMEs and SMIs use the platform to its full potential:
- to qualify B2B prospects: the platform's built-in business intelligence cross-references data from a database of 11 million prospects with 60,000 sources of information;
- to refine and segment their database using 35 available search criteria (location, financial, by business sector, etc.);
- to work intelligently with their CRM tool: Corporama is interoperable and enables them to monitor prospects and follow up with constantly updated information.
Focus on SmartLeads: by following the profile of your ideal customer and your selection criteria, the solution establishes a predictive scoring of prospects to contact by detecting strong signals from companies. It notifies sales representatives daily by email: they receive a list of prospects where opportunities have been identified.
This solution is particularly recommended for sales managers with limited processing capacity, given the size of their market.
Corporama
Decidento, turnkey generation of targeted leads
Thanks to its monitoring technology and its experts, Decidento collects, sorts and synthesises Big Data on your behalf. This data can be accessed free of charge, but it can also be paid for and confidential. In figures, this means 72,000 business signals detected per year and 3,500 filter keys available. There are several advantages:
- you can exploit contextualised data that you wouldn't be able to collect yourself;
- you save precious time on the search for qualified leads, which you can then devote to converting them into customers;
- You get to know your customers better, so you can build loyalty and generate additional sales more easily;
- you can take advantage of sector, competitive and local intelligence to adapt your prospecting techniques;
- you'll benefit from personalised support and a solution tailored to your specific needs;
- your sales teams are better equipped and appreciate the collaborative workspace where everything is centralised.
Decidento also monitors return on investment through the generation of reports, and guarantees regular b2b prospecting, fed by notifications of company news corresponding to your targets. Qualification of prospects and segmentation of contacts, combined with consent management for compliance with the RGPD: all the conditions are in place to benefit from a high-quality, compliant database, and generate sales!
Decidento
Easybusiness, the all-in-one prospecting tool
Easybusiness is a database of over 16 million companies worldwide. It enables you to target your prospect searches very precisely using more than 60 filters, including :
- geographical location,
- business sector
- number of employees
- manager (with or without email address),
- turnover, etc.
Easybusiness also includes tools for running relevant marketing campaigns. Its advanced features allow you to create your own customised search lists, which you can then export.
With Easybusiness, you have access to this data 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The data is hosted in France. You can also connect your applications to Easybusiness to perfect your commercial prospecting.
Easybusiness
lead, using data science to generate leads
97% of your visitors leave without leaving any contact details, so they remain anonymous. So many lost sales opportunities!
Here's how lead proposes to remedy the situation:
- rather than buying irrelevant B2B contacts, the solution generates your own leads by identifying those who have already visited your site and expressed an interest in it;
- lead then segments your audience by marketing profile (persona) according to sector of activity, geographical area and browsing behaviour;
- you can use lead scoring to monitor their level of interest and prioritise your prospecting strategies;
- you then feed your sales force when these leads are mature.
API documentation (included in the package) is available to guide you through connecting Lead with your other tools, in particular to synchronise your data with your CRM and promote sales automation. For example, for each visitor identified, a record is automatically created and then assigned to a sales representative. The latter can also receive emails every Monday with the leads to be followed up during the week.
Predict by Sparklane, predictive lead scoring
Would you like to target your prospects more effectively and speed up your sales prospecting? Predict by Sparklane could be the tool for you.
The strengths of Predict by Sparklane lie in several areas:
- global exploitation of your market: automated targeting, identification of the total available market, on-boarding of your data, etc;
- saving time: predictive scoring, automatic score calculation, improved conversion capacity on your accounts, account suggestion engine;
- improved conversion rate: business signals, personalised sales approach, better response to objections;
- a shorter sales cycle: detailed information, better targeting of needs, improved responsiveness from your sales force.
Predict is highly interoperable with CRM systems such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. As for the security of your data, it is hosted on servers in France, benefits from the highest security standards and is backed up daily.
The sales intelligence solution saves you time tracking and analysing the information you receive about your leads, and optimises your sales actions. It includes a predictive lead scoring engine based on artificial intelligence, and displays the results of leads according to your sales results. In other words, the more you use the solution, the more you'll see the benefits.
Sparklane
Visiblee to generate qualified leads
Orbite, the company that publishes Visiblee, has made a clear observation: only 3% of visitors to your web page leave their contact details so that we can get back to them.
The benefits of Visiblee are twofold:
- to generate qualified leads for your sales team
- and to identify visitors to your website.
By identifying visitors to your website in real time, Visiblee enables you to generate three times as many qualified leads by targeting your prospecting. Your visitors are no longer anonymous.
The functions offered by Visiblee allow you to :
- identify individual visitors or companies that visit your website,
- obtain their contact details (telephone numbers and email addresses),
- Enhance your contact databases by scanning the web and retrieving information such as a company's workforce, turnover or new contact data,
- identify the hottest prospects
- contact these prospects as a priority
- convert your leads into customers through lead nurturing and personalisation.
Visiblee
Prospecting tools to help you make the right first contact
Sales prospecting has come a long way since the days of telephone prospecting. The digital transformation of companies and the advent of Big Data mean that publishers can now offer powerful prospecting tools that make salespeople's jobs easier.
Sales teams no longer waste time prospecting; they can focus their energy, time and actions on personalising sales actions to close more sales.
Take care of the first contact - it's often decisive. Now it's your turn to win new customers!
Updated article, originally published in May 2018.
Article translated from French
Maëlys De Santis, Growth Managing Editor, started at Appvizer in 2017 as Copywriter & Content Manager. Her career at Appvizer is distinguished by her in-depth expertise in content strategy and marketing, as well as SEO optimization. With a Master's degree in Intercultural Communication and Translation from ISIT, Maëlys also studied languages and English at the University of Surrey. She has shared her expertise in publications such as Le Point and Digital CMO. She contributes to the organization of the global SaaS event, B2B Rocks, where she took part in the opening keynote in 2023 and 2024.
An anecdote about Maëlys? She has a (not so) secret passion for fancy socks, Christmas, baking and her cat Gary. 🐈⬛