5 Tools to Include in Your Outbound Prospecting Tech Stack for 2022

That’s why we compiled a list of the five best tools to add to your outbound prospecting tech stack - if you haven't already. Not only that, but we’ve also shared the most significant benefits of each, and some alternatives to consider if they aren’t within budget or reach.

1.  LinkedIn Sales Navigator

What is it?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sophisticated sales tool that provides outbound prospecting teams with a wealth of information about companies and a large database of contacts that they can reach out to. At Juro, we use it to identify potential prospects that align with our buyer persona and connect with them in a more meaningful way.

How does it help?

One of the biggest benefits of using LinkedIn Sales Navigator is that it delivers accurate and recent data about prospects and their companies. This data enables us to deliver far more personalized and well-researched outreach emails and messages, which subsequently allows us to resonate better with potential prospects.

One of the strongest examples of this is that we look at employee count, and how it’s increasing over time across different departments. This data point alone enables our outbound team to quickly and efficiently identify whether companies are scaling quickly enough to feel the growing pains that our contract software is trying to ease.

The software also enables you to filter potential leads in a more advanced way than most platforms, including the standard LinkedIn search tool. Instead, LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers filters such as seniority level, years in current position, company headcount, and company type.

Being able to sift through thousands of potential prospects in this way is invaluable to Juro’s BDRs since we have an extremely specific person we seek to sell to, and this ensures we can minimize the time we’re wasting on leads that will potentially get disqualified further down the line for not aligning closely enough with this. These filters can also be used to create up-to-date dynamic lead lists of prospects that align closely with our ideal customer profile.

Lastly, our outbound teams also use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to contact these leads traditional channels like email fail. For instance, if a BDR emails a prospect and this email bounces, Sales Navigator’s InMail feature serves as a secondary means of contacting the prospect, and this is possible regardless of whether they’re a connection on LinkedIn yet or not.

Are there any alternatives?

• Zoominfo
• Appollo.io
• Lusha

2.  Salesloft

What is Salesloft?

Salesloft is a renowned sales engagement platform that’s designed to make managing different stages of the sales process easier and more visible to the wider team. The software is used to document sent emails, call logs, scheduled meetings and a wide range of other interactions that take place throughout the sales cycle.

How does it help?

Salesloft is a valuable outbound prospecting tool since it enables us to keep a comprehensive audit trail of what different interactions have taken place and when. This enables our BDRs to have a clearer insight into the way certain leads are progressing through the funnel and when additional action is required to follow up with certain prospects. This in turn lets us assess and build repeatable and measurable cadences when outreaching to prospects.

However, potentially the biggest benefit of Salesloft is that it provides actionable insights for our outreach team, and these insights are used to consistently improve our process. For instance, Salesloft enables BDRs to track and analyze email response data. From this, they can identify who is responding to which types of emails and determine which outreach templates work best for different audiences. This information shapes the way we outreach to other personas in the future and usually ensures our emails have a stronger impact.

Salesloft can also add value when it comes to testing certain templates as it enables us to set up A/B testing for emails within our cadences. Again, this information is essential in improving the results our team gets from outbound prospecting.

Are there any alternatives?

• HubSpot Sales Hub
• Groove
• Outreach.io
• Inside Sales Playbooks
• Freshsales

3.  Loom

What is Loom?

Loom is a simple yet effective video messaging tool that enables users to record and share video messages with colleagues and prospects without needing to arrange a Google Meet or a Zoom call. It’s a one-way video recorder, so outbound prospecting teams can use it to record their screens as they go through certain processes or to record themselves, which can add a personal touch to outbound emails. These Looms are then sent using a shareable link.

How does it help?

Although we only have a finite number of instances where we use video prospecting, Loom is still one of the best pieces of software to have in your tech stack. There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly, video prospecting platforms like Loom provide a fantastic opportunity to capture a prospect’s attention and create a lasting impression, particularly since the majority of cold emails are built from plain text. By enriching your sales emails with rich media like videos, BDRs can get their message across more directly and stand out amongst what are otherwise very repetitive email structures.

But Loom also offers value internally too. This is because it provides team members with the opportunity to quickly and efficiently share knowledge, document new processes and respond to queries quickly without the entire team needing to jump on a Zoom call. Instead, these snippets of information can be accessed as and when the BDRs need them and can go be referred back to in the future. Having this technology and process has certainly enhanced the way we manage both our time and resources in this regard.

As a result, a tool like Loom is an extremely effective means of communicating both externally to potential prospects and internally for team coaching and knowledge-sharing purposes. 

Are there any alternatives?

• Clip
• Snagit
• Camstasia
• Hippo Video

4.  Gong

What is it?

Gong is a call analysis tool that provides detailed and in-depth insights into the way your team’s sales calls are both received and conducted. It aggregates data from outbound teams’ sales calls and provides a comprehensive breakdown of different metrics that can highlight the strengths and weaknesses of individual cold calls and larger collections.

How does it help?

Gong adds value in lots of areas, but the most obvious area is for reflection purposes. Since Gong provides detailed analytics into sales calls and advanced playback functionality, our outbound prospecting teams are able to identify and map their strengths and weaknesses during cold calls. This data can then be used to inform any areas for improvement and identify ways that they can capitalize on missed opportunities in the future.

Gong also functions as an excellent training resource for outbound prospecting teams. Since the software acts as a repository for past calls, you can direct your team to listen back to colleagues’ cold calls and get them to analyze which opening lines and language trigger the most and least successful responses from prospects. This can be an invaluable learning experience for BDRs and assist them in perfecting their own tone and messaging when conducting these calls.

Even better, the depth of the data that can be extracted from cold calls using Gong makes it easier to benchmark the approach taken by different members, covering everything from how long their longest monologue is to the words they most often use and what their speaking to listening ratio is. As all successful outbound prospecting managers know, this data can contribute massively to the continued progression of sales teams.

Are there any alternatives?

• Chorus.ai
• Outreach.io
• MeetRecord
• SalesLoft

5.  RocketReach

What is it?

RocketReach is a comprehensive database of contact details commonly used by sales teams to search for professional emails and phone numbers associated with certain individuals. This type of tool is perfect for when the outbound prospecting team has identified a strong prospect and hopeful lead but isn’t able to source their contact details easily elsewhere.

How does it help?

Whilst the concept behind the software is simple, having a tool like RocketReach at your disposal for outbound prospecting is essential. Foremost, it reduces the amount of time BDRs are required to spend manually searching for contact information as it quickly compiles these details in seconds using the advanced search functionality.

Without this, we’d need to search company websites for contact details or try to extract it from other online profiles. In the worst-case scenario, we’d have to neglect what could be a perfectly good lead altogether, simply because we couldn’t find a way to successfully contact them.

Are there any alternatives?

• ZoomInfo
• DiscoverOrg
• ContactOut
• Lusha
• Hunter