There are plenty of tools available to help you manage business to business sales, streamline the sales process, or generally help your B2B business run smoothly. With so many different tools all designed to solve specific problems, how do you choose the best for your business? In this blog post, we’ll look at ten common problems faced by B2B companies, and the need-to-know business to business tools you should be using to help boost your operation and overcome these issues.
You may feel as though your B2B company is running perfectly fine as it is. As a result, you don’t need any tools to help you to do your job. While your business may be running smoothly, implementing some of these tools might just take it to another level. Any good business owner is always on the lookout for things that can help their processes, boost their sales, or increase business growth. Tools like those we will be discussing today can really help you along this journey. So, let’s take a closer look…
What are the need-to-know business to business tools you should be using for your company?
The best tool for getting feedback on your email attachments
If you’re part of a B2B company, the chances are that a fairly large part of your job involves sending over materials to prospective clients. These materials could include sales brochures, more detailed information about a specific product, or even special offers. And, they’re most commonly sent over email. While you can download plenty of tools that help you know if an email has been read, what about the attachments? Ever wondered exactly what happens to the documents you email over to clients or prospective leads? Are the people you sent them to actually opening them? A tool like Attach.io can help you gain plenty of insight into this very thing.
The tool can feed you data which tells you whether your attachments are being opened, how much of them are being read, and what pages the sendee pays the most attention to. These are some really valuable insights, as you’ll be able to see exactly who you should be chasing up, helping to take the guesswork out of this frustrating part of business.
Any alternatives?
- PandaDoc is a good tool if you want to do multiple things at once, as it combines signatures, document organisation and storage, document creation, analytics, and more into one handy tool.
- HelpRange is another simple tool that helps you to find out who is viewing your documents, as well as when and where.
- SalesHandy allows you to track your emails and their attachments, so provides another good alternative.
Struggling to convert website visitors into sales?
Having a great website for your business is one thing that you’re probably aware of. As a result, you may have invested a significant amount of time and money into developing an amazing site. But it’s no use having a site that looks good if it’s not converting visitors into paying clients. Is this something that you struggle with? It’s a common problem for B2B and B2C businesses alike. Utilising a B2B tool like Leadfeeder can help you on this journey. This tool can give you major insights into who is visiting your site, even if they don’t take any actions while they’re there, such as filling out a contact form. So, you can work out which companies your site visitors are coming from. Then, you can use this information to reach out to contacts from that company. After all, they have already shown an interest in your website, so they have the potential to convert into a paying customer, too. This is just one example of how researching the right B2B tools for your business can help you overcome common problems.
What other similar tools are available?
- LeadForensics is another tool that uses IP address data to help track visitors to your site, so that you can convert them into paying customers.
- VisitorTrack cites themselves as ‘caller ID for your website’, so they’re another great option for tracking who’s visiting your site.
Struggling to find contact information for key stakeholders?
As a business to business company, it’s vitally important to foster working relationships with key stakeholders in the businesses you want to work with. Simply reaching out to them and letting them know that you are there is often the first step in this. Having said this, it can sometimes be difficult to know how to get in touch with them. Have you ever thought about finding a tool to help you do just that? Something like Lusha can help you to find the right contact details you should use to get in touch with the people that matter most. When it comes to need-to-know business to business tools you should be using, this type of tool is simple but definitely effective!
What else is available?
- ZoomInfo is another good tool for delivering contact and business information that can be really useful for your business.
- UpLead is a great platform to help you find countless amounts of contact information, basically instantly!
Need to stay organised?
As a business owner, staying organised is absolutely vital for success. To stay organised, many business owners like to keep as much as they can in one place. There are plenty of B2B tools out there that can help you with this sort of thing and offer a good CRM system, so it can be hard to know which ones to pick. Hubspot is a CRM system that covers email marketing, sales, customer service, scheduling, and more, all under one roof. It has so many features that can be utilised for the benefit of your B2B company, so it’s a top choice for a lot of business owners. And, it’s fairly easy to use, so there is nothing too confusing to get your head around. If you’re looking to keep all of your B2B leads and their associated admin organised, HubSpot will definitely lend a helping hand.
Any other tools to look into?
- There are so many great CRM systems out there that you can look into. It’s all about finding the one that works best for you and your unique B2B company. Some similar ones to look into include Sendinblue, Salesforce, and Pipedrive. You’ll probably want to try out a few before you commit to what works best for you.
Want to focus in on your website’s SEO?
SEO is your best friend when it comes to creating a B2B focussed website that generates organic traffic. There’s plenty involved in a good SEO strategy, from keyword research, to backlinks, and even writing blog posts. It can be difficult to keep track of, especially if you’re not well versed in the SEO world. As a result, many B2B company owens turn to various tools to help them make sense of it all. One of the most popular tools to use is AhRefs. It helps you to research keywords, keep tabs on your competition, find opportunities for backlinks, and so much more, all in one handy place. It’s one of several comprehensive SEO tools out there that can help you stay ahead of the competition and help your website to thrive, so you attract more B2B leads for your products and services. So, if AhRefs doesn’t work for you, there are more out there to choose from.
What other SEO tools are worthwhile?
- If you’re looking for a free tool, UberSuggest is probably your best bet. If the free version is too basic, even the paid version is far cheaper than other competitors. It’s not quite as sophisticated as other tools, but it definitely covers the basics.
- Some other, paid, alternatives include Moz and SEMRush.
When it comes to need-to-know business to business tools you should be using, don’t ignore social media
Many B2B companies simply write off the use of social media. They don’t think that it’s a worthwhile thing to use. After all, how many of your prospective clients are on social media? The true answer is, probably more than you think. B2B companies should definitely be using social media marketing. You just might need to approach it a little differently, compared to a B2C company. Are you looking to supercharge your social media strategy, or simply make your first foray into the world of socials? Whatever your situation, many business owners like using a tool to help them keep track of and schedule their social media posts. Automating your social media posts helps you to save time and resources. One such tool to help you do it is Buffer. You can simply schedule them in advance so you don’t need to worry! And, you can use Buffer’s features to monitor the performance of your posts, so you can see what works well for your B2B audience, and what you need to improve.
What else could I look into?
- There are many different social media scheduling tools available. It all depends what you want them for. Do you solely want to schedule posts for yourself, or are you looking for other features such as analytics or the ability to schedule posts for multiple businesses? Finding the right tool may take trial and error, but some good alternatives are HootSuite, MeetEdgar, and Sprout.
What’s the secret to holding professional webinars?
In 2020, the concept of the webinar really came into its own thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic. It seemed as though everyone was getting online in order to keep in touch with friends and family, as well as in a professional capacity. And, in 2021, the concept of remote working looks like it’s here to stay. So, if you haven’t got a preferred webinar tool already, now is the perfect time to choose one! So, if webinars are a part of your marketing strategy, or you would like to incorporate them in the future, using a tool like Zoom can make the whole process comparatively easier. And, with features like view-only audiences and dual-screen presenting, this is one of the superior webinar tools out there.
Zoom isn’t a completely unique tool.
- 2020 was the year of the ‘Zoom call,’ the term that seems to encompass all video conferencing! You’re probably already aware of the many alternatives out there, but check out Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and Skype first.
Want to start using LinkedIn to its full potential?
Do you use LinkedIn to help you make sales? If not, you really should consider it. After all, it’s the only social media platform that is completely business-focused. And, with millions of profiles (and the number growing every day), the chances are that your ideal B2B customer is already on there. But how can you find them? Using a tool like the built-in LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be really handy here. It helps you to easily find leads that match your ideal customer profile, track up-and-coming companies, the career moves of your customers, and much more. If you’re an avid user of linked in, this is one of the most need-to-know business to business tools you should be using, to make your life easier.
What else can you use for this purpose?
- This tool is operated by LinkedIn itself, so there’s not really a comparative alternative, especially as it is completely dedicated to one platform and not the whole suite of social media sites. If you’re interested in the services LinkedIn Navigator provides, it’s probably worth the investment.
Struggle to find the time to follow up on emails correctly?
Following up on emails that you’ve sent to prospective leads can be time consuming. As a result, most people only send one or two follow up emails to their B2B leads. But, it can take a lot more follow-ups than this to convert them into a paying customer. Just think of the potential business that you could be missing out on. Even though this can be great for getting new customers, many business owners still struggle to find the time to do it, and actually do it in the high-quality way that genuinely converts people. So, using a tool such as Followup.cc makes this whole process a lot easier and quicker to do. It’s a simple Gmail extension that you can use to schedule emails, set reminders, and auto-follow up on emails until they reply. So, if you hate this part of the sales process and you use Gmail, you can’t miss out on this one.
Any others to look into?
- Salesflare is a good tool for automating various parts of the customer relationship journey to help free up more of your time.
- FollowUpThen is a really simple tool that will remind you to follow up on key emails at regular intervals set by you.
Hate writing sales emails?
This is a really common problem that business owners of all kinds face. You know that you could write better emails, but it’s difficult to find the knowledge to do so, not to mention the motivation. After all, writing sales emails is a tricky art. Different people respond better to different things, so there’s not really a one size fits all approach that you can take. But have you ever thought about the wealth of tools out there that can help you with this? A tool such as Crystal can help and improve your conversions as a result! It auto-analyses your prospective customer and uses what it finds to recommend how you should word your emails to them, helping you to get more responses. If you struggle with email writing or don’t have the time to personally tailor each one you send, looking into a tool such as this could be a great business decision for you.
What alternatives are available?
- This is a genuinely unique tool out on the market that there’s really not many viable alternatives for. If you think that you could benefit from what it does, it is really the only good option out there, but the results do tend to be very effective.
Need-to-know business to business tools you should be using: conclusion
As you can see, there are so many business to business tools you should be using out there that can make your life easier as a business owner. No matter what you do in the B2B space, there is probably a tool that can assist. And, with more and more B2B tools being developed on an almost daily basis, business owners really are spoilt for choice.
If you liked this blog, have a read of these ones:
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What’s the difference between marketing and selling? The things you need to know
The importance of action plans and why your business needs one to grow
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