Does your CRM encompass thousands of leads but lack their additional details and insights? Are you exhausted from gathering and analyzing detailed information about prospects? 😟 If yes, this guide is written for you, presenting six of the best lead intelligence software designed to help you make the most of lead generation, intelligence, and enrichment. 😊
Before starting the momentous part of introducing the leading business intelligence software, let’s first explore what lead intelligence is with clear examples and why it is essential for business recovery.
Moreover, the differences between lead intelligence and lead generation are explained at the end of the article. 🔚
What Is Lead Intelligence? All You Should Know from A to Z
Lead intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing the leads’ detailed data and insights in order to find out how to engage with them to boost the lead-to-customer conversion rate.
Lead intelligence helps you understand who the leads are, what their needs, interests, preferences, and concerns are, how they behave, and what they are looking for.
In other words, lead intelligence focuses on deepening our knowledge of leads to move beyond just having the basic data of leads to having their inclusive details.
Leads’ names, emails, and phone numbers are some of the common data found easily everywhere. If you want to strengthen your relationship with leads, you need to know more about them.
When you have broader knowledge of leads, you can easily decide which methods are better for converting these leads to paying customers, how to persuade them to start collaboration with you, and what to say and avoid in your interactions.
Why Is Lead Intelligence Important?
Lead intelligence is important as without knowing enough details and data about prospects, the probability of conversion decreases significantly.
Some of the main reasons behind the importance of lead intelligence are as follows:
- Target the Right Leads: If you know details about leads, you can focus on leads that are more likely to be converted.
- Personalization: You can personalize the messages you send to leads based on their needs, interests, and preferences to boost sales efficiency.
- Improved Conversion Rates: Your tailored messages and conversations increase the conversion rates.
- Enhanced Sales Efficiency: It allows sales teams to prioritize high-value leads and reduce time spent on unqualified prospects.
What Is a Lead Intelligence Tool?
A lead intelligence tool is an automatic software designed to discover and gather the details and actionable insights of leads in bulk and in real time for marketers and sales specialists to simplify sales and marketing and speed up the progression through the sales funnel.
Lead intelligence software compiles data from various channels helping marketing teams fully understand leads, finding their requirements, challenges, worries, and favorites.
For instance, when you know the job title of the lead who you are talking with on the phone, you can better tailor your message. If you are talking directly with a manager or decision-maker, you should keep the conversation short to respect their time, focus on the values you provide for them, and address their decision-making factors like ROI.
But if you want to talk with a simple employee who doesn’t have purchasing power in that company, you should try to discover their problems and needs, gather information, and ask for a referral to their managers.
The next part will clarify what points you should keep in mind when you want to select the best lead intelligence software.
Guidelines for Selecting the Right Lead Intelligence Software
If you have decided to use automatic lead intelligence software to enrich your CRM and datasets in no time, it’s recommended that you first improve your knowledge of how to find a reliable lead intelligence tool.
Otherwise, you may lose time and resources investing on a wrong lead intelligence software. Below, we have listed the key features that a leading business intelligence software should have.
- High Data Accuracy: You should select the lead intelligence tool that guarantees high data accuracy and precision.
- Ease of Integration: Choose a lead intelligence tool that can be synced to your CRM or automation tool seamlessly without interruption.
- G2 Score: Check the score of the selected tool on G2 website, where you can compare various software easily to find the best.
- Update Mechanism: Ensure that your chosen tool updates its database regularly, at least on a monthly plan.
- User-Friendly: It’s recommended to use a tool that has an intuitive interface and is simple to navigate.
- Transparent Pricing Plans: Avoid using tools that don’t mention their prices clearly on their websites, as they include hidden costs in the future.
- Compliance: Make sure that your selected lead intelligence tool complies with data regulation rules like GDPR or CCPA.
- All-Inclusive: Apply the tools that have inclusive databases of both companies and individuals worldwide.
- Support and Training: Select software that offers 24/7 support and provides enough tutorials.
Now that you have been informed of how to choose the best lead intelligence software, read the next sector in which we have introduced some of the top lead intelligence tools for professionals who want to make every minute count.
Please read their introductions, pros and cons, and compare them to find the best solution for your specific needs.
6 Leading Lead Intelligence Software to Make a Difference
After learning more about lead intelligence, its importance, and the features that a premium lead intelligence software should have, It’s time to introduce the best AI-powered lead intelligence systems that can bring your business to the next level.
Six of the most trustworthy lead intelligence tools are showcased in this section, and we guarantee that you can easily decide which one to use for achieving your desires in the end.
1. CUFinder.io
CUFinder is a well-known name in the world of lead intelligence, helping sales teams to make the most of their efforts in B2B, B2C, and even local businesses. Getting a high score on the G2 website demonstrates that CUFinder is a faultless solution for sales and marketing teams.
CUFinder’s scope of activity is not limited to lead intelligence. It acts also as a professional data-driven lead generation and enrichment platform. Whatever the sales and marketing teams want are gathered in CUFinder website providing a simplified and economical lead management process.
CUFinder finds targeted leads based on the search parameters chosen by the users. Then, it provides the contact information and valuable insights about these leads in no time, such as the companies’ emails, addresses, locations, phone numbers, number of employees, social media URLs, domains, revenues, industries, employee data, founding years, overviews, logos, etc. or the individual’s cell phone number, job title, interests, skills, salary, location, and email for lead generation.
In fact, whatever you need to know about a company or an individual is provided by CUFinder in large quantities and instantly, helping sales reps to qualify leads, personalize their messages, and benefit from lead scoring.
CUFinder changes your business environment as it has simplified the process of lead intelligence to a piece of cake! Just a few clicks lead you to the world of verified business data from all around the world, covering all continents.
✔️ CUFinder Pros
- Guaranteed 98% data correctness and exactness rate
- User-friendly, simple to use, and fast interface
- Monthly update of its company and contact databases
- Containing +265M companies & +419M individual profiles
- Transparent & flexible pricing plans with no hidden costs & free trials
- Seamless integration with various CRMs and automation tools
- 24/7 customer support, training, and tutorials
- API and Chrome Extensions for data extraction
- Various search parameters for pertinent and targeted results
✖️ CUFinder Cons
- There is no integration with mass emailing providers
CUFinder offers free credits to all users, which are renewed every month. To see how it works and ensure its high data quality, it’s recommended to sign up for free now.
Try CUFinder to find joy and fulfillment in lead intelligence!
2. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is another popular old sales and marketing automation tool that helps to improve your lead intelligence efforts and sales strategy.
Sales development representatives and account executives are the main users of ZoomInfo to discover leads with their insights and intent data, such as their names, companies, job titles, industries, states, revenues, SIC code, and employee headcount.
ZoomInfo integrates with CRMs and automation tools to seamlessly deliver data in bulk, enriching your datasets in the shortest possible time with minimal faults and breaks.
ZoomInfo provides various competences and features covering many needs of sales reps and making them free from manual data searching and entry. With a few clicks, users can generate prospects and their additional fresh data with the ZoomInfo platform.
However, the high prices of ZoomInfo, as well as its complicated website, have made many of its users unsatisfied. Many tutorials and training are needed if you want to make the most of ZoomInfo, and without proper preparations, you just waste time with no efficient results.
✔️ ZoomInfo Pros
- Containing a wide range of services and features for automation
- Free certification courses and live training sessions
- Getting notified if any people get added to your saved search criteria
- Advanced filtering system with precise search criteria
- CRM integrations, Chrome Extensions, and APIs
✖️ ZoomInfo Cons
- High-pricing plans that are not economical for startups
- Prices are not mentioned on its website, resulting in hidden costs
- Auto-renewal system without any prior notification!
- Very difficult to understand and use the interface
- Frequency of outdated data of individuals and companies
3. Apollo.io
The third lead intelligence software we are going to offer is Apollo. It is used by account executives and sales reps to generate potential customers and find their rich insights, including leads’ contacts, company data, and publicly available data.
Apollo is an efficient AI-powered system reducing the manual tasks of sales specialists and helping them to focus on other important parts of their job rather than manual lead and data extraction.
Sitting a long time behind the desk to check numerous websites and social media to find leads’ insights is not meaningful when an automatic tool like Apollo can do the same job for you in a few seconds with higher data accuracy!
Manual data search and entry is risky and prone to errors while automatic services guarantee the data trueness and relevancy using rigorous AI algorithms for data verification.
✔️ Apollo Pros
- Simplified lead intelligence as it is easy to use
- Competitive and transparent pricing plans
- CRM integrations, Chrome Extension, and APIs
- Wide range of tools for various requirements
✖️ Apollo Cons
- The low number of verified email addresses of leads
- Limited data, mostly covering only the data found on LinkedIn
- Occasional system lags and problems with customer support
4. Cognism
Cognism is another prospecting and lead intelligence platform created to help SDRs find potential customers in bulk based on searching filters.
It identifies valid phone numbers and emails to connect with managers, and integrates into Salesforce for contact export.
Cognism is widely used for improving sales prospecting, marketing campaigns, and recruitment efforts by providing accurate business intelligence.
However, its prices are higher than many other competitors causing this platform to not be the choice of many SMBs.
Nowadays, the only way of becoming successful in lead management is to benefit from automation. Manual lead intelligence methods are no more sufficient as they lead to inaccuracy, duplications, and limitedness.
On the other hand, automatic tools like Cognism are established to simplify the process of lead intelligence and avoid low data accuracy and restrictions by using big data and AI technology.
✔️ Cognism Pros
- Integration with HubSpot, LinkedIn, and Salesforce
- Quality data of European contacts
- Easy to use and navigate
- Chrome Extensions and APIs
✖️ Cognism Cons
- Low data accuracy and late database update
- The difficult searching mechanism in its dashboard
- No free trial is available for quality check
- Low accuracy of its cell phone numbers
- Limited and imperfect data coverage
- Cognism’s pricing tends to be on the higher end
5. Seamless.AI
The other famous cloud-based lead intelligence software introduced in this guide is Seamless.AI, capable of finding prospects and their insights in bulk for SDRs and CEOs.
Its user-friendly interface, integrations, and professional filtering options made it a top choice for prospecting and lead intelligence.
Seamless.AI has a complete database of leads with over 121 million companies and 1.3 billion contacts worldwide helping you to connect directly with your ideal customers to close more deals faster. It can provide the data of ready-to-buy leads to improve the conversion rate.
Today, sales persons are more in need of automatic services for all steps of their job from lead generation and intelligence to lead tracking and data analysis. And Seamless.AI is one the automatic facilities available to lessen the manual responsibilities of marketers for lead searching on the web that is challenging and laborious.
✔️ Seamless.AI Pros
- Simple to use and user-friendly interface
- Integration with CRMs and automation tools
- Free credits with no need to add a credit card
✖️ Seamless.AI Cons
- Its prices are increased regularly
- Low data quality and accuracy
- Data isn’t updated and fresh mostly
6. UpLead
UpLead is a lead intelligence platform and B2B data provider that is professional in providing leads’ phone numbers, emails, intent data, etc. It covers various sales and marketing purposes as it has complete databases of both companies and persons.
UpLead plays an important role in simplifying the process of prospecting, data enrichment, and lead intelligence. It assists marketing and advertising teams to find the leads who are most likely to buy and connect with them through the contact information given by UpLead before competitors do.
With the help of UpLead, there is no need to search data manually on Google and social media networks. Instead, the users ask UpLead to automatically discover rich information in bulk and then sync this data to their CRMs directly. Even there is no need for manual data entry that is prone to errors and mistakes.
✔️ UpLead Pros
- Providing various features and capabilities
- CRM integration, Chrome Extensions, and APIs
- Simple lead management features
✖️ UpLead Cons
- No user-friendly interface for data exporting
- Search parameters cannot be saved
- Limited amount of data
- Low data accuracy and precision
- The low number of search criteria
- No free trial for quality checkups
- Advanced features are pricey
💡 We recommend you to not only read the features and pros and cons of the lead intelligence software mentioned above but also check their scores on G2 (Business Software and Services Reviews Website) to find the best platform that meets your needs at reasonable prices.
🔔 Remember that data accuracy and completeness are the most important features that lead intelligence software should have, but they are not the only ones! Moreover, a quality tool should offer economical prices, professional support, an intuitive interface, and bulk data access.
What’s the Difference Between Lead Generation & Lead Intelligence?
All important points are mentioned above except one: Is there any difference between lead intelligence and lead generation?
Lead intelligence and lead generation are two fundamental concepts in the world of marketing and sales. Some sales specialists use these terms interchangeably, but if they know their differences, they won’t do it anymore!
Lead generation is the process of discovering new potential customers for our products and services and capturing their key contacts like emails, domains, or phone numbers.
On the other hand, lead intelligence is the process of deepening our knowledge of leads by learning who they are, what they are searching for, and how they behave.
In lead generation, we only focus on identifying new prospects with their main contacts, but in lead intelligence, this limited data is not enough. We go further to find more and more insightful details.
Let’s explore more through an example ⤵️
Today I have found ten new leads from LinkedIn and extracted their emails and phone numbers from Google. Then, I manually entered this data into our CRM. This is the process of lead generation in which new leads are found with their basic contacts.
Tomorrow, I am going to find additional data about these ten leads, including their job titles, educations, interests, skills, experiences, etc. What I will do tomorrow is lead intelligence, through which I will discover wide-ranging particulars about leads.
Lead generation is essential for finding qualified leads and connecting with them via email or cold calling but it is not enough at all!
Imagine a cold call conversation in which I only know the name of the lead. I will introduce my company and showcase my offer. Is it enough for establishing an efficient conversion?
Of course, it isn’t! Compare this cold call with another one in which I know that the lead talking on the phone is a decision-maker recently searching for new solutions for their concerns, and our product is that certain solution!
In the second cold call, I keep the conversation short to respect the time of this manager, keep my tone professional and directly address his concern and offer the solutions and values that we can provide to convince him that we are a problem-solver not merely a seller.
📌 Another concept that is similar to lead intelligence and sometimes confuses people is sales intelligence. Lead intelligence focuses on gathering detailed data to engage potential customers, while sales intelligence emphasizes analyzing information to enhance the effectiveness of direct sales efforts and strategies.
A Final Look
This article is written with the aim of explaining lead intelligence in the simplest possible way with clear examples, suitable for any person who is new to this field.
After clarifying lead intelligence and the reasons behind its significance, the best lead intelligence software was examined and introduced. Moreover, the readers learned how to select the leading lead intelligence tools and what their most important features are.
If you are exhausted of time-wasting for manual data extraction from websites and social media and you have decided to maximize your outreach and sales efforts by automation, compare the six lead intelligence software explicated in this guide to choose the finest one based on your preferences.
FAQs
1. What is the best software for lead management?
CUFinder is the best software for lead management, finding leads, and providing fresh contacts and rich insights in real-time.
2. What software do you use for lead generation?
CUFinder is one the most reliable lead generation software designed to discover prospects in large quantities based on the selected search attributes of users.
3. What is a lead intelligence agency?
Lead intelligence agency is responsible for finding the insights and data of potential customers like their job titles, salaries, interests, skills, etc.
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