Overcoming lead generation challenges is hard for small businesses. Which is why, they heavily rely on word-of-mouth marketing, guerrilla marketing and client referrals to capture leads.
Some of them (the smart ones) fancy automation.
#1. GetResponse
This tool is 360 marketing automation suite with advanced email marketing capabilities. GetResponse has recently forayed into mainstream marketing automation. Its pricing starts from $15 a month. The Pro package is the most popular one. It costs only $49.
At a throwaway price, SMBs get to add 5,000 email addresses in their subscriber’s lists. That’s not all. They get to access additional lead gen supportive features like visual workflow editor with drag and drop facility enabled, automation segmentation and online events tracking.
The Max package is equally attractive. It costs only $165 a month but offers a laundry list of benefits. Besides 10,000 email subscribers, it offers campaign consulting, salesforce integration and managing webinars with 500 attendees. For B2B startups, the Max package is nothing short of a boon.
#2. Hello Bar
The brains behind Hello Bar knows the importance of CTA and the toil small enterprises have to take in order to optimize the CTAs on their landing pages. So they released Hello Bar. The tool is not exclusively for small businesses, but they can benefit from it.
They can create bars on the website that show the right message to the right audience. Now if we dissect this line what follows is Hello Bar employs smart algorithms to identify repeat visitors, gauge the likelihood of purchase and display the message that a business desires to deliver.
The best uses of Hello Bars include:
- Displaying newsletter and email subscription message bar. The tool can merge subscriber data with email automation solution providers like Mailchimp and Aweber.
- Displaying social media follow button in customized format to increase the number of social followers.
- A/B testing of several bars to pick the one that best suits the site.
Content promotion begets lead capturing. Hello Bar promotes content across social media outlets like Pinterest, Buffer, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The bars are all scrolling-unaffected.
For companies with a small operating budget, the biggest advantage of using Hello Bar is the free version offers almost all the previously mentioned features. The premium version offers them the freedom to syndicate RSS feed.
#3. SalesAutoPilot
The name of the tool indicates its functionality. Yes, the tool puts marketing needs of a small business on autopilot. SalesAutoPilot is used chiefly for e-commerce startups, who depend on the online resources for capturing leads.
The major aspects of lead generation includes:_
- Conducting surveys
- Arranging polls
- List buildup
- Email response rate tracking
- Split testing.
SalesAutoPilot has an entire module dedicated for the aforementioned operations. The module comes with a vast array of solutions for email marketing challenges. The E-commerce module meets the exclusive needs of e-commerce startups.
Handling stock keeping units eats up a lot of time. The e-commerce module automates the entire process. It also offers PayPal integration so businesses don’t have to hire developers separately for payment gateway integration. Order tracking and multiple payment options ease e-commerce stores.
The main reason SalesAutoPilot is beneficial for small business lead capturing is the premium version only costs $12 a month, that too with multichannel communication capabilities – very hard to believe.
#4. Spokal
This inbound marketing solution meets the content marketing needs of small businesses. Content marketing is now the bottom line of lead generation. Spokal automates content marketing. Its aim is to drive sales through engaging content.
Spokal lets inbound marketers harness all categories of content, including whitepapers, case studies, blogs, podcasts, videos, etc. The key takeaways for small businesses are:
- The automatic scheduling of old posts is a very useful feature. Because of low budget, a business may not publish too many new posts. Old posts can fill the gap.
- Users can search for Flickr images and use the drag and drop feature to add those images to the content, without leaving the window. They can also edit images.
- The keyword effectiveness metrics is meant to explore quality indicators. It gives marketers an idea of how their content is performing across search engines, and how keywords contribute to that performance.
All in all, Spokal is a great lead gen platform for small enterprises. Even though it doesn’t fixate on email marketing (and any type of outbound marketing for that matter), it does integrate seamlessly with ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp.
Last but not the least, the price is pocket-friendly – only $49 a month, with 2 weeks free trial period.
#5. Hootsuite Pro
This tool is recommended for small businesses that eye at garnering leads from social media. The USP of Hootsuite Pro is automatic posting of content 24/7. In business, time is money. A small business can save plenty of it by using Hootsuite Pro.
Here’s a quick rundown of what Hootsuite Pro offers:
- The Hootsuite Pro mobile app is a great organizer. It keeps everything organized on social media. As all accounts are consolidated into a unique dashboard, enterprises can manage profiles, publish content and engage with their audiences at once.
- The social listening feature of Hootsuite Pro is top notch. Small businesses can listen to online conversations mentioning them, but respond to them too. This can be a great help in managing reputation online.
- Hootsuite’s most exciting feature is social media performance measurement. The metrics center around responses received on content.
When it comes to pricing, Hootsuite Pro is nothing special. Still, this tool is recommended to small businesses as it filters leads from social media in less time.
Summing up
Lead capturing is the first step of closing a sale. Unless the captured leads are nurtured well, the sales prospect will remain grim. True, automation can lend a hand in this, but creativity needs to be thrown into the mix to capture leads.
In other words, the five tools discussed here should be used in tandem with killer marketing strategies. Then success will be a reality for the SMBs.
Image: Keyboard with keys for online marketing
Prices in this article are correct at time of publishing
