Anyone who wants to grow their business needs a powerful sales pipeline. Like any machine, everything gets thrown out of whack if one component is off. In other words, you can have great salespeople, but you still need leads.
Prospecting tools help us improve the sales process to always have leads and close sales. Today, you can find great tools to help you in every aspect of the prospect process. We’re lucky to have many more options than the traditional cold calling or cold email tactics (namely, new methods like asynchronous videos).
In this article, we’ll define sales prospecting tools, effective tools to use, how to improve your strategy, and how video can play a critical role in successful prospecting.
What is a prospecting tool?
A prospecting tool helps you find and connect with people likely to buy from your business.
Various prospecting platforms assist in finding and managing information on target accounts, such as contact data, phone numbers, and email addresses. Great tools help map relationships, target qualified sales leads, and successfully close deals. These tools work well with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, use artificial intelligence, and include advanced analytics to identify and communicate with your target audience.
Prospecting tools usually fall within the following categories:
Identification tools: Find qualified leads.
Management tools: Nurture prospects.
Communication tools: Meet with prospects and offer your solution.
How do prospecting tools help sales?
Sales prospecting software helps us find the right people at the right time to close the sale. Tools increase efficiency and success rates and make the workflow more productive.
But the key isn’t using dozens of different platforms—that can be counterintuitive. Instead, it’s finding a core group of platforms that work together towards the same prospecting goals.
Let’s look at some of the best tools to get started.
9 best prospecting tools that boost sales
1. Loom
Loom lets you seamlessly capture and send video messages that can turbocharge your sales prospecting efforts.
Here are some examples of how you can improve prospect communication with Loom:
Create an asynchronous presentation so you can walk prospects through your solution or present your offer.
Add notes and collaborate as the prospect watches your video.
Send a video before a meeting to add context, propelling leads forward in the buyer’s journey and saving time.
You can also build a library of videos that your prospects can easily check out (or as you share your solutions on social media). Whether addressing inquiries or crafting personalized videos for specific prospects, it's a surefire way to amp up your conversion rate.
Mastering the art of connecting with prospects is key for the best sales reps, and that's where the power of Loom and video communication shines. Prospecting can be more humanized than traditional methods using Loom to record videos. Click here to learn more.
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
We know how great LinkedIn is for connecting with people who need solutions and services. However the social media platform offers more key features to integrate your prospecting process.
The Sales Navigator works with your CRM and other sales tools, helping you get valuable information on your network. It keeps tabs on job title changes, new job transitions, decision-makers, and even suggests qualified leads—offering valuable sales intelligence resources. It's perfect for understanding your target audience's latest changes and needs, advanced search filters, and perks to help you communicate your offer to prospects.
3. Mailshake
Mailshake is an email engagement platform that boasts doubled reply rates for cold emails. It’s a great way to contact brand-new prospects and make a first impression.
Mailshake’s platform avoids getting into spam folders by landing more emails in inboxes. It also offers analytics that help qualify leads for better email campaigns. The high-quality platform provides top LinkedIn sales automation features and multi-channel outreach. It has CRM integrations so you can optimize your prospecting strategy.
4. Hubspot’s Sales Hub
Sales Hub is an excellent choice for businesses aiming to improve their sales prospecting strategy, especially if they already use HubSpot.
The software incorporates a user-friendly experience, making it a breeze to reach out to prospects, schedule meetings, and leverage efficient management solutions to foster customer relationships.
5. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is an all-in-one platform solution to manage your sales prospecting. It has a variety of solutions like SalesOs, MarketingOS, OperationsOS, and others to lead a successful sales strategy.
It helps you engage with customers through many channels with powerful data analytic tools. Users can utilize ZoomInfo to identify and close customers. It's great for any company size, whether it’s an enterprise or a small business.
6. Calendly
Nailing that initial chat in sales prospecting can be challenging, and scheduling is a big factor. With Calendly, you can effortlessly set up your calendar.
When you send an invitation to your prospects, they choose from your real-time schedule, and the time zones get sorted automatically. It transforms a task that might typically take 3-5 prospecting emails, over several days, into a quick single action.
This way, there’s no more playing phone tag while juggling multiple phone numbers on your prospect list. Nor is there difficulty meeting with new leads. Calendly’s automation tools make the process easy, with no contact information necessary. A prospect gets your link, accepts it, and everyone has everything they need (like a Zoom or Google Meet link).
7. Social platforms
Not everything is straightforward. Countless Facebook groups and Subreddits host thriving communities with possible future customers. Social apps like Threads, Instagram, and other platforms are everywhere. There are hundreds of worlds on the internet where you can find leads.
Sales representatives should find out where their prospects like to hang out most and become part of the conversation. Through social media engagement, sales teams can add value to groups or community members and begin to nurture their audience. When they’ve identified qualified prospects, they can start the sale.
8. SparkToro
A big chunk of the sales job is trying to understand customers. Sales professionals can pick up on common needs, hesitations, and traits with experience, conversations, and analytics, but sales teams still miss information.
Sales pros might not know common interests, hobbies, or worldviews within their target audience. While it might not seem directly relevant to the need and solution, it can play a big part in connecting and understanding audience members to close the sale.
SparkToro gathers information across websites, social accounts, podcasts, and more to find common demographics, behaviors, and vital social data across the internet.
9. Salesforce
Salesforce has long been the traditional platform for prospecting and sales. It combines data management, AI technologies, and integrations into its robust CRM—making sales engagement efficient and easy.
You can use its tools to build ideal customer profiles, automate lead management, and identify potential customers. It’s a great platform to cover your bases and develop a strong prospecting strategy.
Better engagement: More ways to improve your prospecting strategy
Now that your toolbox is ready to go, you have to use it efficiently—after all, the tools depend on the person using them. You can improve your prospecting strategy by following these best practices:
Don’t wait: go where they are
It’s second nature to want to stick with what you know. Maybe you have a favorite platform or go to the same networking and community events yearly. But if your prospects aren’t there, you’re working overtime to make it work.
Instead of trying to sift through the masses to find prospects or hope and wait for your prospects to start showing up, you need to go where they are. Every industry and audience member gravitates towards certain platforms.
For example, creative communities might be on Pinterest, Tumblr, Etsy, and specific Subreddits.
On the other hand, a tech audience might be on Reddit, X, and Github. A B2B audience might be on LinkedIn. If you can narrow it down to specific LinkedIn groups or Facebook groups, that’s even better. The key is to tap into existing communities where your prospects network and build a lead generation pipeline.
Share consistent value
It’s hard work reaching out to prospects. You can’t help but smile when they come to you instead (inbound leads). It’s the best feeling! And you can build a bigger inbound pipeline by commenting and adding value on platforms.
When someone asks a question, chime in. If there is a webinar or workshop, join and add value based on your expertise. The more you show up, the more likely prospects will find you.
Record asynchronous presentations
Asynchronous presentations are any kind of demonstration that’s not live (for example: immersive videos). Async videos are amazing, not only because they’re the fastest-growing preference for consumers to get information (91% of businesses use video for marketing) but because they live forever as assets that work for you.
Using tools like Loom, you can record a walkthrough presentation showing your solution. People get first-hand, intimate experiences by watching your videos. You can send prospects demos and other use cases to nurture your relationships and get close to closing that sale.
Sales teams can also use Loom to walk through success stories. They can hold a presentation showing slides of results, use cases, and real-life examples of their solutions. Teams can share these videos with prospects to kick off their conversations.
Publish articles and resources
As you create and distribute articles, ebooks, and other digital assets, you help build an audience and increase engagement on all platforms. This earns trust and nurtures your audience.
Whether you reach out to them or they come to you, you can build relationships by giving first so that your prospects listen to your offer with ears wide open.
Constantly request referrals
Word-of-mouth and referrals will always be the most powerful and quickest way to earn business. There’s nothing like a friend telling their friend how much they love a product or service.
Sales professionals should always ask for referrals to improve their prospecting strategy.
Provide personalized attention
Teams can personalize their prospecting by answering specific questions to an individual. Imagine having a direct message conversation on LinkedIn and learning a prospect has concerns. Or, let’s say you just had your first meeting with a prospect, which ended with some lingering questions. You can record a quick five-minute video with Loom that walks prospects through their questions. Not only do you answer them, but you show them what it looks like yourself as the app records your screen to easily demonstrate your points or presentation.
Focus on connecting, not communicating
Leadership expert John Maxwell famously states, “Everyone communicates, few connect.” When we speak with a prospect or share content online, we must remember that we aren’t the only ones. Different things compete for attention, like social media, news, and distractions. And not everyone will be open to hearing from you. But when we connect, it changes everything.
Connecting with someone means listening to and understanding them and using that information to nurture the relationship and offer relevant answers.
How to incorporate video in your prospecting strategy
Videos are the best way to connect with prospects and close the sale. And Loom is the number one tool for making and sharing videos. Named one of the world’s most innovative companies in the world by Fast Company, the leading async platform makes video creation seamless with just a simple click, and it records your screen and you simultaneously. There’s virtually no learning curve with its easy desktop application, Chrome extension, and additional integrations.
You can share customized videos anywhere by link, embeds, or email invitations. You can also create a library of timeless videos that answer common questions for prospects to view.
Loom adds customizable CTAs to videos with collaboration features, custom branding, engagement insights, and content security—the perfect features for an effective and smooth prospecting experience.
With Loom, you can improve outreach, accelerate the sales cycle, optimize engagement, and simplify onboarding. Loom videos make the sales process and prospecting personal. Click here to record for free.