In our independent editorial review of retail CRM solutions, learn about the top options along with their primary use cases.
Lead nurturing software are typically CRMs or marketing automation software that help sales and marketers attract, qualify, and engage leads to turn them into customers. The top software offer features like contact management, pipeline management, automated follow-ups, and drip marketing campaigns to guide prospects through the sales funnel and optimize conversion rates. To help you choose the right one for you, we’ve evaluated the best available options.
Here are the six best lead nurturing software:
In our evaluation, we first identified the top six weighted categories important to lead nurturing software and assigned each category key subcriteria. From there, we used the subcriteria to give each category a score out of five, and summed them all together to give each option an overall score out of five, including the identification of primary use-cases. Take a look at our specific evaluation criteria below:
Note: All per-user prices are with a one-year commitment unless noted.
All software we evaluated are good options for businesses looking to capture leads and convert customers. However, Zoho CRM emerged as the best lead nurturing software, scoring the highest for core CRM features and customization and tying for cost. Read on to see how each CRM performed in each category.
Helps capture and nurture leads from multiple sources such as email campaigns and websites.
Price Range: Free to $52 per user, per month (15- to 30-day trial)
Zoho CRM is sales software known for its multichannel marketing features that help generate and nurture leads. Its robust marketing integrations notify you when a lead engages with your social media, emails, or website, enabling you to respond immediately. You can identify leads who are most likely to convert using Zia AI, then build a relationship on their preferred platform, making Zoho CRM ideal for businesses that connect with leads via various online channels.
Although Zoho has robust core features and customization options, its user support isn’t top-notch. If you’re needing reliable customer service, check out EngageBay, which won in this category.
Allows businesses to engage, attract, nurture, and close leads using robust automations.
Price Range: Free to $69 per user, per month (21-day free trial)
Freshsales is a contact management platform that helps improve lead nurturing by tracking and engaging leads throughout the sales pipeline. It allows companies to use automated workflows to create and send targeted lead outreach — these automated tasks, emails, call reminders, and notes make Freshsales a great option for salespeople and teams that want to consistently nurture their leads without having to manually reach out.
While Freshsales has powerful workflow automations, it lacks the advanced marketing features that other CRMs offer. If having a free plan with robust sales and marketing tools is important for your team, look into Zoho CRM.
Offers free sales and marketing tools to nurture leads with the ability to upgrade.
Price Range: Free to $1,200 per month (Sales Hub)
HubSpot CRM is a free marketing and sales software with robust contact management features. Qualify leads through calls, emails, and live chat, and set up chatbots to automatically ask website visitors discovery questions. Then track which channels drive the highest engagement with built-in analytics so you can optimize pages, offers, ads, and traffic sources. Upgrade to paid tiers for advanced features like predictive lead scoring and automatic lead rotation.
Even though HubSpot’s free plan is flush with sales and marketing tools, upgrading to higher tiers can be expensive and you’ll need to pay more for additional users. If you need a robust free version with affordable paid tiers, try Zoho CRM, which won for features and tied for pricing.
Features top of the line marketing tools for email nurturing campaigns and sequences.
Price Range: $29 to $149+ for 1,000 to 2,500 contacts (14-day free trial)
ActiveCampaign is a lead nurturing email marketing software with marketing automation in one interface. Businesses can run highly-effective, targeted email campaigns using templates and segmentation, which trigger automated, personalized emails to nurture leads. The platform also comes with built-in A/B testing so users can see what’s working in their campaigns, so ActiveCampaign is great for companies that nurture their leads largely through email.
While ActiveCampaign is a great automation platform and offers basic CRM functionality, it lacks the advanced features that true CRMs have. If your team needs a fully-featured option, try Zoho CRM, which is one of our top email marketing software.
Offers easy-to-use lead nurturing tools and a color-coded sales pipeline.
Price Range: Free to $24+ per user, per month (14-day free trial)
monday sales CRM is an easy-to-use and customizable software offered by monday.com. It features unlimited custom pipelines, which you can manage simultaneously to visually track the leads in your sales process. Edit deal stages and add multiple columns using its colorful kanban-style boards, and share them with your team. You can use its sales pipeline templates to forecast revenue, generate insights, and learn where to focus your lead nurturing efforts.
While monday sales CRM has highly-visual pipelines, its support solutions could be better. If you’re looking for a software with a visual pipeline and great customer service, check out Freshsales, which offers live chat, email, and phone support.
EngageBay is an all-in-one software for sales, marketing, and service that offers stellar customer support for salespeople and teams. It has great reviews from real users for having a responsive support team that you can talk to via 24/5 live chat, email, and phone. It also provides onboarding assistance to new users and has a comprehensive knowledge base with detailed documentation, tutorials, and FAQs so you can troubleshoot common issues.
While EngageBay has support solutions, you need to upgrade to more expensive tiers to get the best of its lead nurturing tools. If you’re looking for a CRM with robust sales and marketing tools at a lower price point, consider Freshsales.
The top CRMs for lead nurturing offer these features:
Store, organize, and track your leads’ information in a centralized location so you and your sales team can access it anytime.
Track and manage every stage of the sales process using visual boards, a drag-and-drop interface, and custom deal stages.
Rank your leads automatically based on predefined criteria so you can direct your lead nurturing efforts on those with the highest potential for conversion.
Record your touch points with each lead, such as emails, calls, meetings, and social media outreach to optimize your drip campaigns or other content and to know when you last contacted each lead.
Lead nurturing is essentially customer relationship management, but businesses can’t afford to waste time focusing on the wrong leads. Lead nurturing software zeroes in on the right leads, then enables teams to engage their audience with tailored lead-to-customer journeys. The top six lead nurturing software to help you drive potential customers through the sales funnel. To know more about converting leads into customers, read our article on lead nurturing.
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