When it comes to achieving your sales and marketing goals, generating leads is just the start of the story. 

In fact, according to HubSpot, only a relatively small percentage of the leads you generate through inbound marketing will be ready to make an immediate purchase. This means that without a strong lead nurturing strategy, more than 90% of your inbound leads are likely to take their business elsewhere!

To turn more of these prospects into buyers, you need to take the time to build trust, rapport and relationships with your leads. From the moment a potential customer shows interest in your company’s product or service, it’s your sales team’s job to guide them along the path to purchase by speaking to them in a way that feels authentic and personal. 

To do this effectively, you’ll need a robust digital toolkit that’s centred around convenient yet human customer communications. And luckily, getting this set of tools together doesn’t have to break the bank! 

Today, we’ll be walking you through the 5 most effective (and affordable) tools for nurturing your inbound and outbound leads: 

#1 HubSpot - CRM

No lead nurturing strategy would be complete without a great CRM system, so where better to start off this list?

HubSpot’s Sales and Marketing platforms are widely considered to be the best in the business - and with good reason. 

We’ve been using HubSpot ourselves for the past year, and have been extremely impressed with the features that both its Sales and Marketing platforms have to offer. 

In particular, we adore HubSpot’s email marketing and automation features, as HubSpot offers advanced personalisation and segmenting options, and the insights the platform gives you into each email’s performance is unmatched by any other CRM we’ve tried. 

‍‍Pricing: Free, with paid plans starting at $50 per month.

#2 telbee - Voice messaging for business‍

Of course, this list wouldn't be complete without a of mention our own voice recording and messaging platform, as we built it specifically to ensure that businesses have a far more personal, efficient and human way to communicate with their leads and customers.

When you sign up for an account with telbee, you can create and customise your own pop-up voice recorder and add it to your website, whether embedded into your page, hosted on its own page, or available when your visitors click a button or tab. These pop-up voice recorders will allow you to capture the attention of potential new leads immediately. 

Your website visitors can then record voice notes for you, which arrive in your inbox for your whole team to listen to and share. You can then begin the lead nurturing process by replying directly in your own voice - adding text, images and links if you like - or assign the voice note to someone who may be better suited to speak with them.

When you use your voice to nurture your leads quickly, easily and personally, you’ll start building real relationships with prospects and customers - and encourage them to convert time after time. 

After all, voice is humans’ most powerful relationship-building tool - and has been for millennia. Talking is our fastest, easiest and most natural method of communication - and sometimes typing simply doesn’t cut it. When you bring the subtle nuances of tone, tempo and emotion into your lead nurturing strategy through voice, you’ll start seeing better results than ever. 

What’s more, as exchanging voice notes via a business’ website is a relatively new concept, you’ll build a reputation as a far more innovative (and more human!) brand than the rest. 

‍‍Pricing: At telbee, we offer a free plan for up to 2 users, with paid plans starting at $12 per user per month. 

#3 Hunter - Email address finder and verification tool‍

Ever found yourself missing some of an exciting lead’s contact information, had multiple sales emails bounce immediately or wondered whether the email addresses you’ve got in your database are actually legitimate or up-to-date?

Email finder and verification tool Hunter solves these problems by tagging a confidence score to each email address and domain name in your system. Hunter also lets you quickly search for the email addresses of over 200+ million professionals and companies worldwide.  

This keeps email bounces to a minimum, ensures the information in your system is always up-to-date, and allows you to reach out to your leads more confidently (and successfully) than ever. 

‍Pricing: Hunter offers a free plan for up to 50 monthly email verifications, with paid plans starting at $49 per month. 
‍

#4 Outgrow.co - Interactive email design tool

Want to ensure your emails are engaging your leads and prompting them to interact with you?

Outgrow is a tool that allows you to create beautiful emails with interactive elements (such as calculators and quizzes!) - all of which have been optimised to increase conversions and drive engagement with your brand. 

At telbee, we’re all for innovative communication, and we believe keeping your comms interesting and thinking outside the box with tools like Outgrow is the key to staying top of mind for your leads and customers.

‍‍Pricing: Outgrow is currently offering a limited edition free plan (during COVID-19), with paid plans starting at $14 per month. 

#5 Hootsuite - Social media monitoring tool‍

Many of the leads your marketing team generate will come to you via social media. So take the opportunity to engage with them where they feel most at home by keeping the conversation going across your social channels!

Hootsuite is one example of a great social media tool - not just for scheduling content and reporting on key metrics, but also for continuing the conversation with your customers post-purchase. 

In particular, Hootsuite’s ‘streams’ are where the power lies, as this functionality allows you to monitor your social channels as a whole; keeping an eye on your DMs and mentions, while simultaneously tracking popular hashtags and monitoring your competitors’ social feeds. 

In this way, Hootsuite makes staying in touch with your customers a breeze - and also gives you the leg up you need to become part of the wider conversation. 

‍Pricing: Hootsuite offers a 30 day free trial, and paid plans start at $25 per month. 

Final thoughts‍

Ultimately, lead nurturing is an ongoing process, but it should never feel boring - for either you or your customers!

When you’re looking for tools to help up your sales game, our biggest tip would be to only invest in tools that have relationship-building at their core. 

We hope these tools have introduced you to a side of lead nurturing technology that’s more innovative, efficient and - above all - human. When you keep your focus on having authentic and personal interactions with your leads, you'll find they reward you with their time, business and loyalty!
‍
‍

To find out how our voice recording and messaging platform could help supercharge your business’ sales and lead nurturing processes, please get in touch with the team at telbee today. We’d love to hear from you!