Account-based marketing is a powerful way to generate highly qualified leads for your business and improve your chances of closing them.
However, it’s not an easy strategy to pull off and you’re going to need tools to support your efforts. If not, you’ll be spending all day in Slack with your team asking questions about what’s being done, who is having conversations with prospects, and manually updating your CRM records.
These tools are going to help you craft an ABM strategy and improve your team’s sales productivity.
Let’s dive in and take a look at them.
What are Account-Based Marketing Tools?
ABM tools are designed to help you engage with qualified prospects in the most personalized way possible, typically across multiple channels.
ABM tools can help you with prospecting before running an ABM campaign, as well as help you manage cold email and cold calling campaigns.
They’re used by teams that want to target prospects in a highly granular way and ensure their outreach efforts get seen and engaged with by prospects.
In the next section, I’ll show you some essential features to look for in your ABM tools.
Features to Look For in ABM Tools
Here are some key features to look for and considerations to have in mind when choosing your tools.
1. Fits Your Company Goals
There is a wide variety of ABM tools out there, each with its own unique features. But not all of them will fit your business. Focus on the core tools that will help you achieve your goals.
For example, do you just need a way to source prospects at scale?
Do you need a tool to find email addresses?
Or, do you need a platform designed to let you cold email people?
It’s better to use only a few essential tools that have an actual use case in your business, rather than shopping for a bunch of tools that you’ll never use because we mentioned them in here.
Your team can focus their energy on mastering a smaller set of effective tools, instead of dividing their attention across a multitude of them.
2. Integrations with Your Most Used Tools
When considering ABM tools, always check for integrations. A good ABM tool should be able to integrate with your existing marketing stack, CRM, and any other sales or marketing software you’re using.
Integrations save you time and developer resources that you can redirect towards tasks with higher value, as anyone can easily set up helpful workflows. Integrations between your tools also minimize mistakes by reducing manual data input, so it’s a key factor to consider.
3. Collaboration Features That Work For Your Team
An ABM tool should make it easy for your team to work together, regardless of location. ABM is a team effort that takes sales, marketing, and even upper management involvement to pull off a successful campaign.
Having the ability to add multiple team members to a tool ensures that everyone involved in your ABM campaigns knows who is working on what and the next steps required at any given time.
8 Best Account-Based Marketing Tools to Close More Deals
1.QuickMail
Start conversations with high-level decision-makers with personalized cold email outreach.
QuickMail is a sales engagement platform designed to get your emails delivered to your prospect’s main inbox.
The first key feature is the ability to send personalized emails to your prospects, even at scale. This is thanks to attributes – you can personalize emails based on any attribute in your prospect list, including names, company names, job titles, and even entirely custom sentences based on the recipient. This level of personalization is critical for successful ABM campaigns and will ensure your emails stand out in a busy inbox.
If someone doesn’t reply, QuickMail can send an automatic follow-up after a specified delay, which is proven to boost reply rates.
To ensure your emails are never sent to the spam folder by email service providers, QuickMail offers a native integration with MailFlow, a free email warm-up tool. MailFlow generates engagement on your email inbox and shows ESPs that you’re a trustworthy sender. You can then track how your emails are landing in each ESP’s inboxes using MailFlow's deliverability testing tool.
As you would expect, QuickMail integrates natively with CRMs like HubSpot and Pipedrive, as well as having a Zapier integration – so you can connect it to thousands of other tools and build custom, automated workflows.
Pricing: Try QuickMail with a free trial, paid plans from $49 per month
Key features:
Start conversations with key decision-makers using personalized cold email outreach
Automatically follow-up to boost reply rates
Integrates with all major sales and marketing services to automate your workflow
2.ZoomInfo
One of the most extensive B2B databases available, with detailed behavioral data to track purchase intent.
Finding the right target accounts to target is at the core of any ABM strategy. ZoomInfo is designed to solve that problem. It includes a database of over 100 million B2B contacts that you can filter through using any criteria you set, such as company size, revenue, or company location.
When you find a prospect, ZoomInfo will show you details on the person’s LinkedIn and Twitter account, show you key information about their background, job title, and company – all of which are invaluable when personalizing your emails.
Plus, this account-based marketing software comes with buyer intent data, which can help you understand what problems companies are researching and the challenges they’re currently facing. You can create targeted outreach campaigns that speak to their specific pain points, boosting your reply rate and helping you close more deals.
Pricing: Available after a product demo
Pros:
One of the largest B2B data platforms available
Intent data makes tracking target account activity simple and improves your outreach timing
Integrates with most sales tools and CRMs so you can automate repetitive tasks
Cons:
Not all data is up-to-date as B2B databases always decay every year as people switch jobs and companies
Capterra users report that non-US companies’ data is a bit lacking
3.BuiltWith
Technographic data platform to identify target accounts based on the software used on their websites.
BuiltWith is a technographic data platform that enables users to find out what websites are built with. You can add any technology into the search bar, and BuiltWith will return a list of every company it can identify using that software on their site. You can then export your list, find the email addresses, and start reaching out to those companies.
A tool like BuiltWith is vital for running ABM campaigns as it means you can level up your personalization and prove to your target prospects that you’ve done your research and have a relevant offer for them.
Additionally, BuiltWith offers powerful market analysis tools, sales intelligence, and lead generation. For example, if you have an ideal prospect that isn’t ready to buy, BuiltWith can show you competitors who have shown to be more willing to spend money recently based on their technology adoption. Or, if you have a list of target accounts, you can run a search for common tools used by all of them to craft a more targeted outreach campaign.
Pricing: Individual basic searches are free. Plans start from $295 per month
Pros:
Quickly identify your ideal prospects based on the tech stack their company uses
Powerful API to automate sales tasks and connect BuiltWith to other tools
Cons:
Relatively high monthly price – but if you’re running effective campaigns, ROI should still be there
Capterra users found some data to be missing or inaccurate, but this is a problem with all B2B databases
4.Aircall
Cold calling software with a power dialer and call tracking tools to improve outreach productivity.
Aircall is a cold calling platform that offers unique features and benefits for businesses running cold call campaigns. With Aircall, you can easily dial your prospects and have real conversations with key decision-makers.
The tool integrates with popular CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot so your notes from sales calls, or conference calls with your team and a prospect, are automatically added to your CRM so your whole team knows where each prospect stands.
There’s also a direct integration with QuickMail, so you can add cold call steps to your multi-channel outreach campaigns and make calls from your AirCall account inside QuickMail, saving you the need to switch between tools all day.
The call analytics is another helpful feature for your next ABM campaign. You can quickly see which accounts are engaging with your outreach and what type of interactions are being made. You can also set up automatic triggers to notify you when an important call comes in from a target account if they call you back after you left them a voicemail, so you never miss an opportunity to connect with a decision-maker.
Pricing: Plans start from $30 per month.
Pros:
Power dialer that automatically calls through a list of prospects
Track your call analytics to judge overall campaign engagement levels
Integrates directly with QuickMail to speed up your outreach workflow
Cons:
Users on Capterra say the quality of calls can vary
5. Gong
Get insights into your sales calls, emails, and meetings, and manage your deals and pipeline more effectively.
Gong is a sales intelligence tool to help you optimize your sales campaigns and tell you what is working, what isn’t, and give you suggestions on how to improve conversions.
It’s ideal for ABM campaigns because you can use it to track conversations with different decision-makers at an account, surface sales objections that different prospects have, and then build a plan to overcome those and win over the key decision-makers involved in the buying process.
Gong also has a call recording system that will automatically transcribe your sales calls and highlight questions that prospects are asking. This means you can base future engagement strategies on real data to improve how your prospects receive your messages.
Pricing: Available after a product demo
Pros:
Actionable data analytics that covers your sales process
Sales training tools that give you insights on ways to improve conversations
Call recordings that you can share with your team
Cons:
Steep learning curve and you can expect to spend some time training your team
Some Capterra users have reported that exporting data outside Gong can be frustrating at times
6. Chorus
Track and improve interactions prospects have with your business.
Chorus’ ABM software uses artificial intelligence to transcribe and analyze sales conversations in real-time, providing your team with actionable insights to help them close more deals.
The transcription and sales conversation analysis is extremely helpful for your ABM efforts – by understanding what is being said in sales calls, you can identify areas where your messaging or approach may need to be tweaked in order to be more effective based on questions or objections your prospects have.
For example, a particular customer might repeatedly mention a specific sales objection during sales calls related to pricing and contract duration. You can then proactively address that objection by addressing that in your sales deck or sending an update to prospects before your next call with key details on contracts.
Having actionable data on your calls that can be shared with your team is going to ensure every touchpoint and interaction in your ABM campaigns is designed to improve your chances of converting each prospect.
Pricing: Available after a product demo
Pros:
Get insights on how to improve your sales calls
Tailor your messaging based on real data and signals prospects are showing
See how often key terms and questions get mentioned in sales calls
Cons:
Some Capterra users complain about the accuracy of the transcription software
7. Rollworks
Easily identify qualified target accounts to target in your ABM campaigns and track them through their buying journey.
Rollworks is a platform that provides a suite of products that allow businesses to better target, engage, and convert their prospects through ABM campaigns.
You can use Rollworks to generate a list of target accounts matching key criteria, then, either choose to export those leads and use them in a cold email tool like QuickMail or run targeted ad campaigns across multiple channels tailored to your target account list.
Additionally, the platform offers a powerful retargeting feature. You can use this to identify prospects that match your criteria who have visited your website or interacted with your brand in some way but haven’t converted into a customer yet. Then, you can reach out to them in future ABM campaigns.
Pricing: The starter plan costs $975 per month
Pros:
Improve your campaign targeting and personalization with Rollwork’s prospect tracking
Create highly-relevant ads for your target accounts and retarget potential prospects to keep your brand top of mind
See where prospects are in their buying journey based on engagement signals
Cons:
Very pricey – although most users claim it’s worth it
The standard reporting is relatively simple, and you’ll need to customize reports to get the most actionable data
8. Terminus
An ABM platform that includes features to help engage leads at every stage of your entire sales pipeline.
Terminus is an account-based marketing tool designed to help you identify and engage with more qualified prospects.
One of Terminus’ most interesting features is the Data Studio. There, you can find all sorts of data – firmographic (e.g., company size, industry, location, and revenue), intent (what companies are researching online), behavioral (how companies have interacted with your brand), psychographic (companies similar to the ones you're already targeting), and more, to help you identify the best target accounts to reach out to.
After you reach out to prospects, you can use Terminus’ live chat to instantly identify when qualified prospects you’re trying to close are on your website and asking questions.
Pricing: Available after a product demo
Pros:
Get all of the data you need on prospects to craft the perfect outreach campaign
Target individuals or entire departments with the powerful segmentation and outreach tools
Increase on-site engagement with live chat tools
Cons:
No A/B testing functionality for your outreach templates (QuickMail does have A/B testing)
Wrapping Up
Picking the right account-based marketing tools will help you identify more qualified prospects to reach out to, improve your targeting, boost response rates, and ultimately, close more new deals.
The difficulty is in picking the right one based on your goals and needs. For example, if you're a small business on a tight budget, you'll need a different tool than if you're enterprise-level with a large sales team.
Make good use of the free trials provided by ABM tools, talk to the sales team at each company, and see which ones feel most relevant to your business. And remember, tools are just that – tools. What matters is the strategy and execution of your account-based marketing campaign.
If you need a cold email tool to reach out to prospects as part of your ABM activities, try QuickMail with a free trial today. You’ll see how easy it is to automate your cold outreach and start conversations with prospects and potential customers.