15 Best B2B Marketing Tools For Companies Ready to Grow in 2021

B2B marketing tools have made it possible to scale what only recently consisted of face-to-face meetings with business decision-makers. And it’s a technology like marketing automation and machine learning that’s made this possible.

How many digital marketers out there have gasped upon your first overview of the budget allocated to conferences and travel? I certainly have, multiple times.

And maybe that’s why digital marketing will be the top area of marketing spend for 56% of B2B companies in 2021. It’s no secret, with a solid strategy in place, the ROI of B2B digital marketing is significantly better in the large majority of cases. And it’s software that’s driving this dramatic shift.

So, what are the best B2B marketing tools to add to your arsenal right now? We’ve broken our 15 favorite tools into the following categories:

• Marketing Engagement Software
• Account-Based Marketing Software
• Events and Webinar Software
• Conversion Rate Optimization Software
• Content Marketing Software
• Lead Generation & Lead Management Software

Marketing Engagement Software

Proactive engagement with consumers using marketing automation tools such as chatbots proves to be effective time and time again. Use the following live chat software and its suite of omnichannel marketing tools auto-engage your audience in real-time.

#1. B2B Marketing Tools for Live Chat Software

The best live chat software allows you to proactively engage with customers and prospects in order to grow revenue, generate leads, and offer real-time support across multiple channels.

Having the ability to use live chat software tools on multiple marketing channels, all from one unified inbox, is a game-changer that only the best chatbot technology can deliver.

Customers.ai has live chat marketing automation tools for:

• Live chat widgets
• Unified multi-channel inbox
• Live agent take over
• Audience segmentation and targeting
• Lead generation and qualification 
• Opt-in tools for web chat, SMS, and more
• Hot lead notifications and alerts
• Chatbot analytics
• Live chat mobile app for iOS and Android

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing is fundamentally different from traditional marketing and often requires a completely different tech stack. ABM focuses on quality, and aims to produce fewer new opportunities for sales, while also closing more deals and larger accounts.

The following tools will prove to be a strong addition to kick your ABM strategy into gear.

#2. B2B Marketing Tools for Relationship Management

When you’re prospecting dozens or even hundreds of highly targeted relationships, it’s easy to lose track of conversations, even when it’s a promising lead.

Cloze is a relationship management tool built for ABM (account-based marketing) that allows you to see everything about your contacts in one place.

Whether it’s email, phone calls, notes, scheduled meetings, follow-up notifications, or customer profiles, Cloze has you covered.

Cloze learns who’s important to you and reminds you of the things you’re most likely to forget about. Additionally, Cloze prompts you to keep in touch with your contacts and will provide you the proper context to do so automatically.

Cloze automatically keeps track of your email, phone calls, meetings, documents, Evernote, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and dozens of other services.

And it’s all organized for you by contact, company, meeting, etc.

Cloze even continuously grabs all the email signatures in your inbox in order to make sure your contacts are always up-to-date.

#3. B2B Marketing Tools to Build Sales Pipeline

Metadata.io is an AI-powered demand generation platform that helps to optimize ABM campaigns across paid media at scale. 

Although Metadata.io isn’t “cheap” software by any means, it’s a solid option for SMBs that want the capabilities of a Terminus or Demandbase at a cheaper price point.

To use Metadata.io, you’ll first need to connect the tools in your marketing tech stack that hold significant data. For example, you’ll want to connect your CRM along with your social media accounts. 

Once you’ve connected your apps, you can discover and visualize your ideal customer profiles based on your data and use them to create lists of target accounts and personas.

After discovering your ideal customer profiles and creating lists of target accounts to go after, let Metadata’s AI operator execute campaigns for you.

All you need to do is drag-and-drop your marketing creative (images, headlines), content assets (e.g. eBooks, whitepapers), and the audience segments you created in the platform and hit ‘Launch’ to execute hundreds of campaigns at once.

Finally, after running your campaigns through Metadata.io, the platform will enrich leads before syncing them with your CRM. Then use reports and your KPIs dashboards to monitor performance based on pipeline generated, target-account information, existing pipeline impact, and more.

Software for Events and Webinars

With the dramatic uptick in virtual summits and online events since the Covid-19 outbreak, B2B marketing tools for events and webinars have reached peak importance.

#4. B2B Marketing Tools for Both Online and Offline Events

Bizzabo is a holistic platform that provides your team with all the tools they need to create rewarding events, while surfacing insights to help your events grow both on and offline.

With Bizzabo, you can: 

• Fully orchestrate your visitor to attendee experience with enriched and stunning forms, multiple ticket types.
• Build a branded event website with an editor that’s integrated with your event registration software and event app.
• Send email invites and promotional campaigns that drive interest and registrations with the help of personalized content.
• Increase audience engagement via push notifications, one-on-one networking, interactive agendas, and live polling all work together both in and outside the mobile event app.
• Give your sponsors unique opportunities, including custom splash screens, special offers, automated push notification shout-outs, sponsorship tiers, and the data to accurately measure sponsor ROI.

Bizzabo claims to be different from the competition because their platform has advanced personalization capabilities, account-based marketing specific feature sets, and is “the only event success software on the market.”

#5. B2B Marketing Tools: Webinar Software

If you’re looking for an affordable webinar solution that’s fairly simple to use and will save you tons of time, WebinarJam and EverWebinar working together could be a great solution.

EverWebinar is a great tool to add to your growth marketing strategy because it allows you to create evergreen webinars.   

Same as your brand’s most valuable content that you can share multiple times with your audience – known as evergreen content – EverWebinar facilitates the sharing of the same webinar as many times as you’d like.

The best part of the webinar platform is that the audience always feels like they’re watching the live recording.

For example, after you’ve recorded your webinar, you can add comments, questions, live polls, and more. All of which appear to be asked in real-time to every new viewer. This way, it always feels like you’re one of many audience members actively watching and participating, which increases engagement.

Additionally, you can add countdown timers to your website that makes it look like a brand new webinar is about to start in (for example) 10 minutes. Even though it’s a recording that could have made a year ago, interested site visitors will sign-up with urgency thinking they got there just in time.

So, although EverWebinar is somewhat deceitful, once you get good at using the platform, you’ll be able to generate hundreds and possibly thousands of leads over time with just 1 solid recording.  

Running webinars already on Zoom? Check out how to use chatbots for Zoom to invite more people.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Next, we’re going to cover some B2B marketing tools that are great for CRO. 

Capitalizing on your website traffic is extremely important due to the increased difficulty to convert and/or capture contact details on a B2B website as opposed to a B2C website. 

Use these tools to increase your conversion rates and save lots of time in the process.

#6. B2B Marketing Tools for Building Landing Pages

Unbounce is one of the most popular landing page builders for B2B marketers with no coding skills required. 

When you’re running highly-targeted campaigns, such as account-based marketing campaigns, you need your entire funnel to be tailored to its audience. This is why custom-built landing pages are so important.

Think about it…

For example, let’s say you click on an ad that’s promoting chatbots for marketing agencies and you landed on the Customers.ai homepage. The homepage doesn’t immediately mention marketing agencies, so the chances of that traffic bouncing are higher than if you had landed on a page that says in big bold letters, “The Best Chatbot Platform For Marketing Agencies.”

When you build your marketing funnels, make sure that people find exactly what they were looking for when they landed on your page. Conversion rates are guaranteed to go up, and search engines will reward you for it.

With Unbounce, you can duplicate your most successful landing pages to save time and build high converting pages in bulk. Furthermore, you can A/B test variations of landing pages to see which messaging and designs perform best.

Lastly, Unbounce’s Conversion Intelligence and Smart Traffic features help to set it apart from the competition.

#7. B2B Marketing Tools for Web Page Optimization

Marketers have so much data available to them nowadays that we forget just how much we could learn by watching people explore the website.

Sometimes Google Analytics doesn’t have all the answers. And that’s when heat mapping and screen recording tools like HotJar save the day. 

With HotJar, you can dramatically lessen the need to make assumptions when it comes to your UI/UX.

If you want to find out exactly why your website visitors are not converting, use HotJar. 

Although HotJar’s heatmaps and conversion funnels are extremely useful, I personally have found most of the platform’s value in the video recordings of visitors on my web pages. 

More than once, by watching just 5 or so video recordings each day, I’ve identified opportunities that dramatically increased conversion rates, or found something on the site that was broken, which was costing the company thousands of dollars.

#8. B2B Marketing Tools for Customer Journey Optimization

Autopilot is all about building a lead generation and lead nurturing process that can then be automated. 

It’s a visual marketing automation tool makes it easy to design personalized customer experiences that capture and convert.

Autopilot allows users to: 

• Customize journeys based on audience behavior. 
• Build workflows to automatically send messages through multiple channels. 
• Generate reports about customer journey progress and more.

The platform comes with a drag-and-drop interface that can automate workflows and personalized messages.

Autopilot also includes features such as measuring campaign ROI and optimizing the revenue funnel based on real-time performance. Lastly, Autopilot integrates with other popular platforms such as Salesforce, InsideView, GoodData, Zapier, Slack, and Twilio.

Content Marketing Software

The following content marketing tools can handle your social media management, Facebook ads, keyword research, content creation, search performance analytics, and more.

#9. B2B Marketing Tools for Facebook Advertising

Customers.ai is a multi-channel chatbot platform that enables companies to proactively engage with audiences via web chat across multiple channels in order to generate leads, re-engage customers, and offer real-time support.

One of the many social media marketing tools available on the platform is built specifically for Facebook Messenger ads.

Facebook Messenger ads are an opportunity that savvy digital marketers are taking advantage of in 2020. 

And that’s because Facebook Messenger ads are different from regular Facebook ads. Most importantly, Messenger ads perform better than normal Facebook ads because they start a more engaging conversation with chatbots.

A couple of types of Facebook Messenger ads exist. There’s an ad viewed on any Facebook property that directs traffic to Messenger. And then there’s sponsored content that’s native in Messenger.

Another awesome thing about Facebook Messenger ads is that they can take place across the Facebook family of apps, including:

• Facebook newsfeed
• Instagram newsfeed
• Facebook and Instagram Stories
• Marketplace
• Facebook Messenger, and others

And Facebook Messenger ads differ from your average Facebook ad because they always lead to a conversational experience between your business and the consumer.

Here are the top 4 reasons to use Facebook Messenger ads:

• Messenger ads outperform other ads by 2X-10X
• Instant lead and data capture
• More features available for personalization
• Automated lead qualification and follow-ups with chatbots

Check out the top 7 Facebook ad hacks of all time to conjure up even more ideas.

#10. B2B Marketing Tools for Social Media Automation

Agorapulse is an all-in-one social media dashboard that simplifies the understanding of social media metrics. And the platform is particularly great for B2B companies.

You can use AgoraPulse to gain audience insights and capitalize on otherwise missed opportunities with full monitoring and engagement tools for social media.

AgoraPulse has many options to build a pipeline for your content calendar. Additionally, you can store unlimited posts tied to particular themes, and queue them up for publishing.

Reporting and analytics are what AgoraPulse does best. 

It’s easy to export reports with key metrics and analysis on engagement and growth, and content reports let you identify posts that achieve the best reach, engagement, and clicks for any given period.

Lastly, you can use AgoraPulse to show your marketing team’s impact on conversions and revenue, as well as encourage more positive engagement with your ads across social channels.

Check out our list of the 18 absolute best social media marketing tools to add to your marketing tech stack in 2020. 

#11. B2B Marketing Tools for Sending Mass Cold Emails 

After much trial and error with different cold email software, we’ve had by far the best results with Woodpecker.co.

Woodpecker is the best tool for B2B companies who contact prospects with automated personalized email drip campaigns. 

The platform is specifically designed for cold emails and follow-ups that you can send directly from Gmail and other major email clients.

One of the most common issues with cold emails is getting blacklisted or ending up in spam folders. We have found Woodpecker to be the most secure email client for automated campaigns to mass email lists. 

Furthermore, Woodpecker is a great marketing agency tool for sending bulk emails because it’s easy for agencies to switch between client accounts and track results.

#12. B2B Marketing Tools for Sales & Marketing Emails

SalesHandy is a pretty cool email productivity tool that I’ve only recently learned about. And its email platform does a few things that are not only super useful for B2B marketing and sales but are also rare features to find on one platform.

SalesHandy provides recipient engagement data and a nine-stage automated follow-up process. 

Some of the cool features I mentioned above consist of

• Smart email templates
• Email attachment tracking tools
• Built-in email verification to ensure higher deliverability rates

Most email marketing tools require a third-party vendor to account for all three of the above features.

Marketers use SalesHandy to their benefit by setting behavior-based auto follow-ups, scheduling their emails at the right time, and more. Furthermore, SalesHandy is another email marketing tool that makes sure marketers stay safe from spam filters.

Interested in a marketing channel with 5X the open rates of email? Take a look at the latest SMS text message marketing statistics. They will blow your mind!

#13. B2B Marketing Tools for Content Writing

Marketers often lose sight of the content that really resonates with their audience, which is what makes Atomic Reach powerful. 

This AI-powered web app scores content and provides actionable tips to drive more conversions from readers. Atomic’s AI learns in real-time how to write for your audience in the style they prefer. The result, ideally, should be more page views, increased time spent on-page, and greater conversions.

Atomic Reach is kind of like Yoast SEO on steroids. And it has three tools that make up the process by which it works:

1. Profile: Profiles analyze your existing content to learn what actually works for your audience.
2. Optimize: Optimize your content for better results with one click
3. Measure: Dashboards track and show the impact of Atomic AI on your content performance.

Marketers can use Atomic Reach through a browser extension or a WordPress plug-in for easy accessibility.

Lead Generation & Lead Management Software

The following B2B marketing tools have everything required to convert more prospects into customers. You’ll find everything you need from lead generation to lead enrichment software.

#14. B2B Marketing Tools for Website Visitor Identification

Leadfeeder is a website visitor identification tool designed for B2B marketers and salespeople. Its tools tell you which companies visit your website, even if they never fill out a form or otherwise contact you.

Yes, you read that right.

All you need to do is install the Leadfeeder Tracker to your website and connect your account to Google Analytics. Once you do, it can show you other details such as:

• Which pages visitors looked at and how long they spent there
• Where visitors came from before landing on your site
• Key details about the company including industry, employee count, and contact information

Do not miss out on the opportunity to make leads out of web traffic that doesn’t fill out one of your forms. As long as the cost per lead is below your existing average cost per lead, tools like Leadfeeder are worth giving a shot. For many, it has become a no-brainer.

#15. B2B Marketing Tools for Lead Enrichment

Clearbit has rapidly become one of the most popular and powerful B2B marketing tools on the market. It’s a marketing data engine for all of your customer interactions.

The platform can be used to better understand your customers, identify future prospects, and personalize your marketing and sales interactions. It literally cross-references 250+ sources and covers up to 85 unique tags. All marketers need is an email or corporate domain to fill in the rest.

Clearbit has three separate but integrated tools that it’s well known for:

• Reveal: Unmask anonymous web traffic to personalize for target accounts
• Enrichment: Turn any email or domain into a full person or company profile
• Prospector: Discover your ideal accounts and leads with complete contact info

Keep in mind that Clearbit is not a cheap service, and if you don’t know how to use it, you can quickly run up the bill by acquiring too many leads. That’s why you need to use the tool properly, carve out your target audiences, and then harness the platform’s power to consistently fill your sales team’s pipeline with quality leads and data.

#15. B2B Marketing Tools for Multi-Channel Lead Generation

Customers.ai is a multi-channel chatbot marketing platform that instantly connects customers and prospects to brands through live chat, SMS text messaging, Facebook Messenger, and other popular messaging apps, all from one platform.

Most web chat software is only found on a company’s website. However, with OmniChat™ technology by Customers.ai, you can instantly talk to customers across multiple channels, including: 

• Live chat for website
• SMS text messaging 
• Facebook Messenger 
• Other popular messaging apps like Instagram and WhatsApp

Customers.ai’s drip campaign features for web chat, SMS, Facebook Messenger, and other popular platforms allow you to set up a sequence of messages delivered at specified intervals.

Additionally, just like mass email marketing, Customers.ai has an automated, reliable method of sending mass content all at once to your audiences across multiple channels.

Check out its Facebook Messenger Chat Blaster feature, as well as its SMS Blaster to see how to send bulk messages in both Messenger and text messages.

You don’t have to worry about coding with Customers.ai either, because it offers marketing templates for every industry, and is built for both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy marketers in mind.

Customers.ai is a great way to grow your contact list and generate leads. And one of its best features, autoresponders, can turn your social post commenters into leads.

The platform is fully integrated with a Facebook Comment Guard feature that allows you to automatically add contacts to your Messenger contact list each time someone comments on your post. All you need to do is to install the comment guard on your Facebook post.

Ready for More Marketing Tools?

Looking for more B2B marketing strategies or more digital marketing tools?

Check out our June 2020 webinar done in collaboration with Growth Marketing Conference on “How To Win Customers & Influence Sales with B2B Messaging.”

If you need more tools, we have you covered! Browse through hundreds of more marketing tools in the following lists:

• Free marketing software
• Tools for digital marketing agencies,
• Marketing automation tools
• Trending digital marketing tools
• Social media marketing tools
• Ecommerce marketing tools
• Instagram marketing tools

B2B Marketing Tools: Important Next Steps

Ready to start with and/or upgrade your chatbot marketing game?

See all the tools in Customers.ai’s multi-channel chatbot platform by signing-up for a free Customers.ai account.