It’s time to elevate your LinkedIn game. Here’s all about CRM with LinkedIn integrations

LinkedIn is a powerhouse for lead generation, sure. But what if you could up its effectiveness even further? Dive into this guide to discover five CRM systems that seamlessly integrate with LinkedIn. They’ll for sure take your lead gen game to the next level.

If you’re still not sure what you can achieve with a CRM integration for LinkedIn, here is an example of an actual use case of NetHunt CRM’s LinkedIn integration:

Haski’s lead generation team uses the integration to fill their database with high-quality leads. With CRM LinkedIn integration, they can add leads with a single click.  The system adds all the necessary information from a LinkedIn profile automatically. NetHunt CRM’s LinkedIn integration also allows them to instantly and automatically check their database for duplicate leads, ensuring no prospect gets added to the CRM twice.

Based on our review, our top picks for LinkedIn CRM are:

Based on our review, our top picks for LinkedIn CRM's are:

• Best LinkedIn CRM for sales automation: NetHunt CRM
• Best LinkedIn CRM for bulk messaging: Octopus CRM
• Best LinkedIn CRM for enterprise-level businesses: HubSpot CRM
• Best LinkedIn CRM for personalised pitches: Octopus CRM
• Best LinkedIn CRM for sales engagement tools: NetHunt CRM
• Best LinkedIn CRM for large-scale outreach: HubSpot CRM

What is a CRM integration with LinkedIn?

Simply put, a CRM integration with LinkedIn lets you pull valuable data directly from LinkedIn into your CRM system. Think job titles, company names, and even contact details — all at the click of a button. No more tedious manual data entry.

Some LinkedIn CRM integrations take it a step further. For example, they can update the customer card with the user's recent posts. A select few even allow you to message your prospects right from the CRM suite.

Key features to look for in CRMs with LinkedIn integration

So, what should you pay attention to when choosing Linkedin CRM tools?Automatic contact import and synchronization. Remember that time when you spent hours updating your contact info? Forget about it. With the best CRM for LinkedIn, you can effortlessly import and synchronize contacts automatically. This keeps your database fresh and accurate. For instance, NetHunt CRM shows users which LinkedIn profiles are already a part of your CRM and which ones are new. Other than that, you can import contact data to LinkedIn Sales Navigator and use it for creating personalized outreach messages.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration. From now on, you no longer need to switch between platforms as you can directly access LinkedIn data within the CRM. Sales teams can leverage LinkedIn's advanced search capabilities and lead recommendations within the CRM. In addition to that, they can send InMail messages and track communications with LinkedIn connections. For instance, NetHunt’s LinkedIn CRM tools automate lead capturing and enrich lead profiles with details like first name, company, title, etc.

Activity tracking and engagement metrics. You already know that LinkedIn CRM integration lets you interact with LinkedIn profiles directly from your CRM. What you don’t know, however, is that the feature allows you to transfer the LinkedIn data directly to your CRM for further reporting and analytics.

Customizable integration settings. What works for a small-scale business won’t necessarily work for an enterprise with complex workflows. That’s why the best LinkedIn CRM is a solution that one can customize according to their needs whether in terms of data points synchronization, data updates, alerts and notifications, and reporting/analytics.

For instance, if your sales strategy focuses on building long-term relationships, you might prioritize syncing contact information and engagement history as well as receive notifications each time a user updates their profile.

Security and data privacy considerations. Look for solutions that use robust encryption standards to protect data both at rest and in transit in order to prevent unauthorized access. Additionally, a CRM that integrates with LinkedIn should comply with data protection regulations, such as GDPR in Europe, and offer access control features so users can ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive LinkedIn data. Oh, and don’t forget regular security audits and updates — before you integrate LinkedIn with CRM, ensure the provider has protected it from security threats.

User-friendly interface and setup process. Sure, larger enterprises would definitely benefit from LinkedIn CRM with a complex functionality. But don’t forget that using such a CRM requires extensive training. Meanwhile, it is better for smaller businesses to prioritize ease of use and choose a LinkedIn CRM whose integration doesn’t require much technical expertise.

Top 5 Best LinkedIn CRM Integrations

We’ve told you once, we’ll tell you again; there are loads and loads and loads of CRM platforms. Choosing your best CRM for LinkedIn is no easy task, especially if your top priority is to generate leads on LinkedIn.

We’ve put together a list of 5 different CRM options; different prices, different features, and different focuses. Learn more about them and choose your next CRM system.

NetHunt CRM for LinkedIn

NetHunt CRM is natively integrated with LinkedIn offering a full LinkedIn lead generation feature. With NetHunt's integration with LinkedIn you can:

• Add new Contacts and Companies from LinkedIn to CRM in a few clicks
• Automatically have all the information from LinkedIn profile in a CRM record: first name, last name, job title, company, contact details, etc.
• See on LinkedIn the profiles and companies that are already added to the CRM.
• See on LinkedIn all the previous interactions and tasks related to person's profile and company (if they've been previously added to CRM).
• Added profiles and companies will automatically have a Source in a CRM record (source: LinkedIn).

How to generate leads from LinkedIn with NetHunt CRM:

1️⃣ Sign up with NetHunt CRM.

2️⃣ Download the NetHunt CRM for LinkedIn extension from the Google Chrome Web Store.

3️⃣ You’ll notice a little NetHunt icon next to the LinkedIn profiles you visit. This is the magic button, one hit from which will scrape all of a LinkedIn connection’s LinkedIn data into your NetHunt CRM workspace. Any data that’s publicly available to you on LinkedIn will be kept tidily as a CRM record in NetHunt CRM with all the matching fields.

4️⃣ If a lead isn’t already in your CRM system, the NetHunt icon will be white. If they’re already there - it’ll be blue.

5️⃣ You’ll know a record has been created when their CRM context pops up on the right hand-side of the screen. There you’ll find their CRM data as per the record, a timeline of events related to their CRM activity, and any relevant tasks that need to be completed in relation to their deal.

✅ Et voila! Your LinkedIn lead is generated and captured in the LinkedIn CRM.

This is a full-scale CRM platform with useful LinkedIn functionality. Apart from LinkedIn features, NetHunt CRM offers:

• Customer base organisation and segmentation.
• Custom sales pipelines to see revenue stuck at every stage and block deals.
• Individual emails with custom variables for personalised pitches.
• Bulk email functionality: email templates, unlimited sends, mail merge, mail tracking.
• Sales automation: from lead capture to sequences, tasks, and notifications.
• Integrations with Messenger, Intercom, Google Data Studio, LinkedIn, and more
• Reports, analytics, and sales forecasting

💰 NetHunt CRM features a 14-day free trial, pricing starts at $48/month.

Octopus CRM for LinkedIn

Octopus CRM is a dedicated LinkedIn automation CRM platform.

It helps marketers, business owners, and sales teams conduct lead prospecting, generation, and outreach on a large scale through LinkedIn. Octopus CRM users can reach hundreds of LinkedIn prospects in a day, sending automatic connection requests and messages to specific connections based on LinkedIn’s native search function. Scrape CRM leads straight into a LinkedIn sales funnel.

This is LinkedIn for sales at scale.

• Bulk connection requests
• Bulk messaging between connections
• Endorse skills automatically
• Look at hundreds of LinkedIn profiles a day
• LinkedIn sales funnel

💰 Octopus CRM features a seven day free trial, prices start at $6.99 thereafter.

HubSpot CRM for LinkedIn

HubSpot CRM is a CRM platform with a LinkedIn integration.

HubSpot is a huge CRM provider. If you want to access their LinkedIn integration, your business needs to be subscribed to either HubSpot’s Sales or Enterprise plans. You’ll also need a LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription. HubSpot CRM’s LinkedIn integration can’t currently import contacts, but you can view LinkedIn data and send InMail from HubSpot’s hub.

HubSpot Sales Hub is a big CRM provider with a LinkedIn integration.

• Full CRM functionality
• Sales engagement tools
• Quote and invoice functionality
• Reporting, analytics, forecasting
• LinkedIn integration

💰 HubSpot Sales Hub prices start at $45; LinkedIn Sales Navigator starts at $99.99

Is LinkedIn good for lead prospecting?

Yes. LinkedIn is a social platform built for professional networking. It facilitates sales teams to find their target audience precisely. There are two types of LinkedIn profile: Company profiles and personal profiles.

B2B businesses can gain a lot by finding out the company they’re targeting; their needs, wants, and even an insight into their existing processes. Then, they can target specific decision-makers within that company via their personal profiles.

It’s a place where professionals connect with like-minded professionals and organisations; a place where they store and make available all their professional data for sales teams and marketers to build better CRM profiles. In addition to these capabilities, the WhatsApp integration with CRM can significantly enhance communication efficiency, allowing for immediate follow-ups and personalized engagement with prospects identified through LinkedIn. If you're exploring tools like Notion, integrating LinkedIn data can similarly enrich your project management and collaboration efforts.

In company profiles you can find important information such as location, industry size, contact information, and content. Personal profiles display names, company names, job titles, locations, and even phone numbers and email addresses... if you’re lucky.

If you can’t find an email address, take advantage of LinkedIn’s native email service. InMail is useful for reaching out to LinkedIn profiles that you’re not yet connected with. InMail is a premium feature, and you’ll receive a monthly allowance of InMail credits depending on which LinkedIn subscription plan you’re on. Learn more about LinkedIn subscriptions.

Alas, if you were to choose just one lead generation channel, it should be LinkedIn.

Benefits of CRM that integrates with LinkedIn for Lead Generation

You might be wondering, "Why do I even need CRM with  LinkedIn integration?" Well, let's break it down.

First off, it streamlines your lead generation process. No more juggling between LinkedIn and your CRM; everything is in one place.

Second, it enriches your CRM data with up-to-date LinkedIn information. This makes your lead tracking and email campaigns more targeted and effective. And let's not forget automation. From sending bulk connection requests to automating follow-up messages, a LinkedIn CRM takes the grunt work out of networking. In short, it's a game-changer for your sales strategy.

The best LinkedIn CRM (yes, there is such if you select your LinkedIn CRM tools wisely) combines the professional networking capabilities of LinkedIn with the customer management efficiency of a CRM system, enhancing business processes and relationship management. Here are some key benefits:

• Easily import LinkedIn contacts into the CRM as leads, ensuring no potential connection is missed, and all data is centrally managed.
• Access comprehensive insights on leads and contacts directly from LinkedIn profiles, including work history, mutual connections, and interests, to personalize sales approaches.
• Automate tasks such as data entry and lead tracking, allowing sales teams to focus on relationship building and closing deals.
• Track all interactions with LinkedIn connections in the CRM, from messages to engagement on posts, facilitating more meaningful conversations and follow-ups.
• Minimize manual data entry errors by automatically updating contact information from LinkedIn profiles in CRM.
• Leverage LinkedIn insights to tailor marketing efforts to your audience's specific interests and needs, increasing engagement and conversion rates.
• Monitor how your LinkedIn network evolves over time and how it impacts your sales funnel, enabling more strategic networking efforts.
• Share LinkedIn insights and interactions with team members within the CRM, ensuring a unified approach to managing relationships and opportunities.

Who Can Benefit from Linkedin CRM?

Short answer — everyone. Small businesses and middle-scale enterprises can extend their reach and start competing with bigger players. Sounds great, right? But wait, they can also eliminate the need to hire larger marketing and sales teams (and potentially save costs).

Other than that, both startups and corporations can integrate the LinkedIn CRM with already existing solutions. For instance, once you integrate NetHunt CRM with LinkedIn, you get an opportunity to manage your email campaigns right in the CRM after the LinkedIn data goes straight to the system .

As for the larger enterprises - CRM with LinkedIn integration helps such businesses expand their corporate networks, perform large-scale marketing campaigns, and generally use the LinkedIn data for in-depth reporting and analytics.

What about company departments? Whether you’re a sales representative needing better lead tracking or a marketing specialist aiming to reach a wider audience, a LinkedIn CRM sync can automate your LinkedIn lead management. This leaves you more time for other tasks and helps you capture more leads. Even recruiters can benefit from using LinkedIn CRM once they learn how to streamline candidate sourcing with CRM.

Still not persuaded that LinkedIn CRM can bring your business to a new level? Let us tell you a story. There once was a company called HURMA - a rapidly growing startup, in fact, that already tried to grow even faster with Pipedrive CRM. Unfortunately, the solution didn’t match the company’s needs. What HURMA needed was a customizable and cost-effective CRM that could improve lead tracking and streamline company’s communication with customers and prospects.

So, they switched to NetHunt LinkedIn CRM. Did it help them? Oh, yes:

• It eliminated the need for manual lead distribution (finally, the right salesperson could contact the right leads and, eventually, sell faster);
• Ensured automatic data updates (for instance, if a customer changes their LinkedIn profile data, NetHunt automatically changes it as well and notifies you about it);
• Integrated our CRM for HURMA with the Google Workspace for better client communication.

The best part? The company could finally forget about multiple tabs and started managing all its processes in one place.

Another great example of how NetHunt CRM helps businesses grow more clients with effective communication (read as ‘social media integration’) is the case of Recom, the company helping businesses generate more clients. The biggest problem? 90% of the time business developers were prospecting, and they had to communicate with prospects and clients MANUALLY.

So, how did NetHunt LinkedIn CRM help Recom gain x5(!)  more clients?

• We’ve provided full Gmail integration to centralize the company’s workflows (yes, you got it right - one place for all operations);
• We’ve integrated NetHunt LinkedIn CRM with the company's communication channels to automate lead management and streamline outreach. For instance, LinkedIn integration with CRM helps sales teams to automatically sync contact information, track leads, and schedule follow-ups, all based on the LinkedIn data;
• We’ve also automated entire email sequences and integrated the system with Looker Studio so Recom could generate reports on the number of emails sent, customer responses, etc. Obviously, due to the LinkedIn CRM sync, Recom could use the data extracted from the LinkedIn profiles for more accurate reports and forecasting.
• Voilà! This is the secret to how one startup gained 5 times more clients. You call it magic? We call it NetHunt CRM.

FAQs

Bottom line

If you’ve been looking for an all-in-one tool that takes your sales and marketing game to a brand new level - you’ve found it. With LinkedIn CRM, you can supercharge your lead generation, sales, and contact management processes. Import and sync your LinkedIn contacts, get access to valuable customer data, and craft personalized messages without missing a beat.

In the end, less manual work - more time to close important deals, right?

Most enterprise-level businesses will find HubSpot to be the best Linkedin CRM option due to its complex functionality. However, middle-scale and small businesses will like the simplicity and user-friendly design of other systems on the list.

Meanwhile, NetHunt CRM combines the best of two worlds. It offers the beauty of simplicity with its intuitive interface, effortless navigation, and customizable features, all powered by robust LinkedIn integration.

Still sitting on the fence?  Try NetHunt CRM today to convert more leads tomorrow. Don’t worry, it’s free - no credit card required.

Google Workspace has Contacts, Drive, Documents, but do you know what it’s missing? A CRM!

If your primary work environment is Google Workspace and you’re looking for a CRM, you’re in the right place.

CRM software helps you streamline customer data, automate tasks, and improve customer engagement. With the right CRM with Google integration, you can significantly boost sales and build strong customer relationships.

Here's how NetHunt CRM's clients benefited from our integration with Google Workspace:

• Recom increased its customer base in 5 times within 2 years.
• Powerglide saves 2 working days with automations.
• 100systems expirienced 30% increase in sales within a year.

This article looks at the 10 best CRMs for Google in 2024. We’ll discuss their features, benefits, and pricing to help you make an informed decision.

Ready to discover the best Google CRM for your business? Keep reading to find out more!

10 best CRMs for Google in 2024

To make your search of Google CRMs easier, we've compiled a list of the 10 best Google CRM systems.

NetHunt CRM: Full Google integration

NetHunt CRM is the best CRM with Google integration for small, medium and large businesses that is fully integrated with Google.

Being highly regarded in the CRM industry, it’s recognised by badges, awards, and positive reviews. NetHunt CRM boasts a 4.8 rating on Capterra, which is proof of these claims.

It's a powerful, yet very flexible CRM that’s able to suit every customer's needs.

NetHunt CRM has a seamless two-way integration with virtually every tool within the Google Workspace, transforming Gmail into your primary communications hub and placing your VoIP dialers, previous communication history, customer data and files into your Gmail inbox.

The events on your timeline also get automatically synced with your Google Calendar, and all files received from clients are uploaded to the Google Drive. This means that at no point during the sales process do you need to leave the Google Workspace ecosystem. No NetHunt CRM feature is locked away behind menus and there are no integrations to install — it's all just there.

You could also utilise the integration with Looker Studio to create visualised reports, allowing you to track important metrics in real time.

NetHunt CRM is an excellent tool for every department in your business. You can mix and match various features to get what's right for you…

• Contact management functionality to store and segment contacts
• Multiple sales pipeline management and visualisation
• Collaborative functionality such as tasks, mentions, and shared databases
• Email marketing functionality like bulk emailing, email tracking, custom SMTP, email templates, and reporting
• Integrations with LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger and Intercom for lead generation
• Zapier integration to connect NetHunt CRM with tools that you love
• Sales automation functionality such as automated lead capture, automated task assignment and distribution, and notifications
• Drip campaigns to nurture leads automatically
• Reporting functionality to create different types of reports

The developers, management, and customer success work fast to make sure your NetHunt CRM experience is always at a high standard.

Pros of NetHunt CRM

✅ A full-power CRM system that integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace
✅ Robust sales automation capabilities
✅ Email marketing capabilities such as email automation and email campaign management
✅ Contact management functionality
✅ Creation and management of multiple sales pipelines from within Gmail
✅ Various integrations that tie your tech-stack together
✅ You’re able to customise NetHunt CRM to a high degree, making the system truly your own
✅ Intuitive navigation
✅ Stellar customer service

Cons of NetHunt CRM

❌Basic reporting functionality
❌Some advanced features are only available for Business and Advanced subscribers

NetHunt CRM’s prices start at $24 per user/month. To start using NetHunt CRM, go over to the website.

Streak: Full Google integration

Streak is another Google Workspace CRM with full integration with Google; there aren’t many of those.

This CRM offers 11 pre-made project templates, but if they don’t seem like your cup of tea, you can always just make your own.

This CRM for Google is definitely one you’d want to keep an eye on…

• Contact management capabilities
• Email marketing features like view tracking, merging and thread splitting
• Full and seamless Google Workspace integration
• Sales pipeline management features with search, filter, group, and sort functions that can assist navigation
• Various input types in a wide range of formats, from numbers, to text, to lists, and even down to formulas and contacts
• Task management functionality

Pros of Streak CRM

✅ There’s a free version available
✅ It’s really easy to use, with a gentle learning curve
✅ Full, seamless Google Integration
✅ A mobile-friendly interface
✅ A Zapier integration for tools that it doesn't integrate with natively
✅ Sales reporting functionality
✅ Automatic task reminders

Cons of Streak CRM

❌ You can only merge 400 emails a day
❌ A limitation on the amount of sales pipelines
❌ No sales or email automation capabilities

Streak CRM starts at $49 per user per month annualy, and can be found here. You can see some of the top Streak alternatives in this piece.

Copper CRM

Copper CRM is a Google CRM that is meant to look and feel just like the rest of Google's interface. Thanks to this, you won't have trouble getting used to the CRM's interface — even though the majority of Copper CRM's functionality is located outside of your Google Workspace tabs.

Despite only offering a partial integration with Google, Copper CRM is still considered to be one of the top players in the Google CRM software market. Managing leads and contacts, visualising the sales pipeline, and assigning tasks can all be done from within the suite.

For instance, you can keep track of everything going on in your inbox and find previous communication history using the Copper Gmail sidebar. Every interaction with customers is kept in one place.

The key features of Copper CRM include…

• Lead management capabilities
• Sales report generation capabilities
• Sales pipeline management functionality
• Sales automation functionality
• Collaboration enablement features
• High degree of customisation
• Email marketing toolkit

Another noteworthy detail is that Copper CRM comes in a large variety of languages.

Pros of Copper CRM

✅ Has a sales automation toolkit
✅ Customisable to a high degree
✅ Intuitive to use
✅ Greatly facilitates collaboration

Cons of Copper CRM

❌ The bulk email functionality is limited to 200 recipients at a time
❌ Unless you're using one of the more expensive packages, you’re limited to 2500 contacts
❌ The same as above can be said for email marketing, with the functionality only available to business and advanced plan clients

Copper CRM starts at $25 per user/month, and can be found here.

Hubspot CRM: Gmail sidebar integration

HubSpot is used by millions of users worldwide, making it an important part of the CRM market. HubSpot offers Google integration, but it is far from native.

The HubSpot Chrome extension only allows you to use certain features. For the rest, you’ll have to switch tabs to the main suite.

The HubSpot Google integration's primary features reflect the above statement…

• Sales pipeline management
• Automated email outreach
• Customisable email templates
• Simplified meeting scheduling

HubSpot and its Google integration are so popular because a large part of the functionality is accessible for free as long as you have an account. The other features, however, are locked in different packages.

Pros of HubSpot CRM

✅ Offers a free version of the product
✅ The reporting functionality is incredibly robust
✅ Contact management toolkit
✅ Email marketing and campaign management toolkit
✅ Sales automation capabilities

Cons of HubSpot CRM

❌ A fairly steep learning curve
❌ Only offers basic level of customisation
❌ Creating new contacts within each separate deal might quickly become tiresome
❌ The integration with Google is only surface level, so if you’re looking for a full integration you’re in the wrong place
❌ The free version is very limited

HubSpot has a free version. Still, prices for the advanced version start at $45 for two users/month. HubSpot can be found here.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is not only one of the oldest names in the CRM industry, but it’s also one that’s still highly regarded today.

The vast majority of features this Google CRM provides still look and feel fresh even in this age. Besides, Zoho receives a lot of public love on platforms like Capterra and G2, which is another indicator of them knowing exactly what they’re doing.

Zoho CRM's features aren’t just robust, they’re also various. One could argue that Zoho has more features than a small or medium business could require.

Pros of Zoho CRM

✅ Really affordable price
✅ Packed with features for companies both small and enterprise.
✅ Stellar customer service
✅ Very robust report generation functionality
✅ Integrations with the rest of your tech-stack
✅ Has a free version

Cons of Zoho CRM

❌ Very limited in customisation
❌ Most of the integrations are surface-level
❌ A very steep learning curve, meaning this Google CRM will take a while to get used to

Zoho CRM prices start at $15 per user/month, and can be found here.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is up there with the market's most well-known and established CRM vendors. Having been in the game for a while, Pipedrive has successfully cracked the formula of a likeable and easy-to-use Google CRM.

Nonetheless, it might not be an ideal option for someone interested in a CRM that integrates with Google Workspace seamlessly. This is where exploring Pipedrive alternatives becomes valuable, especially for those seeking more robust Google Workspace integration.

The problem elm is, Pipedrive’s primary function is as a sales management tool. Therefore, it lacks some essential marketing features, such as email marketing functionality. As a result, Pipedrive users only enjoy a Gmail sidebar integration and not a potent Google integration.

But for what it is, the Pipedrive Gmail add-on is pretty good. It serves as a calendar and tasks list — all the tasks and activities planned for the day are left front, and centre.

Pros of Pipedrive CRM

✅ Task management capabilities, meaning no deal falls through the cracks
✅ A very compelling price point
✅ A free trial is available, allowing you to try before you buy
✅ Integrations with third-party tools are also available
✅ Intuitive interface

Cons of Pipedrive CRM

❌ No email marketing functionality available, prompting you to look at other tools.
❌ Customer service isn’t always fast, meaning you could have to wait before you get your issues resolved
❌ Sales automation capabilities aren’t as robust as could be expected
❌ The Google integration is very limited

Pipedrive starts at $12.50 a month, and can be found here.

Insightly

Insightly is one of today's most prominent Google CRMs. It offers a decent level of integration with Google Workspace and along with a varied list of other features. However, it is much more an enterprise-size Google CRM than a small- or medium-business sized one.

Although it’s only partly integrated with Google, the Gmail sidebar application is still robust enough to place it as a strong Google CRM solution. It works well for managing contacts, generating leads, and managing tasks.

Pros of Insightly CRM

✅ Works great with Gmail
✅ All modern contact management functions are included
✅ Free for companies with under 3 accounts
✅ Sales pipeline management capabilities
✅ Lead capture and enrichment

Cons of Insightly CRM

❌ The process of customising Insightly is quite difficult
❌ The platform has an outdated feel, although this might be a benefit for the fans of all things vintage
❌ Insightly is definitely on the more expensive side of the CRM market
❌ Falls short when it comes to email marketing, meaning you’d have to get another system to handle email marketing campaigns

Insightly is priced at $29 a month and can be found here.

Salesmate

Salesmate is a well-known and relatively feature-rich Google CRM solution.

This CRM solution is packed to the brim with features. Every department imaginable can find something useful for them within this Google CRM. Many third-party applications are also integrated into this CRM for Google solutions.

One of the most notable integrations of Salesmate is its integration with Gmail. Transforming your Gmail inbox into an extension of your CRM.

Pros of Salesmate

✅ Salesmate automatically syncs with your Gmail, essentially moving your emails to the CRM
✅ A 15-day free trial is available
✅ Email marketing automation and managing functionality is also a part of this suite
✅ A really affordable price point
✅ Several native integrations are offered to Salesmate users
✅ One of these is a Quickbooks integration that can significantly increase the efficiency of how accounting is done within the sales department
✅ Zapier is available to integrate with Salesmate, in case a part of your tech stack doesn’t integrate natively with Salesmate
✅ Contact management functionality is included

Cons of Salesmate

❌ The Gmail extension causes a significant strain on your inbox, leading to a slower experience overall
❌ There is a daily send-limit for emails, meaning you might have to get a plan that comes with features you don’t need to use

Salesmate is priced at $12 per user/month, and can be found here.

Can't choose between Salesmate and Pipedrive? It's a tough choice, we know! Read this piece to see how they compare.

Nutshell

Nutshell CRM serves hundreds of users, and is a pretty neat Google CRM solution.

Nutshell is really easy to get your head around, and yet still offers a sizeable degree of power.

Nutshell CRM offers extensive functionality for both departments, feeling pretty well-balanced between sales and marketing, making it a good Google CRM solution.

Pros of Nutshell CRM

✅ Very intuitive in the systems usage
✅ It’s very light on the budget, meaning it’s an affordable option for teams regardless of size
✅ A Free 14-day trial is also available
✅ Fast and professional support from the customer service department
✅ Very advanced email marketing capabilities for a Google CRM this size
✅ Workflow automation, sales automation and marketing automation are all offered by the suite

Cons of Nutshell CRM

❌ There is very little customisation
❌ There are no products that Nutshell CRM integrates with natively
❌ Mobile app is very limited

Nutshell is priced at $20 per user/month, and can be found here.

Capsule CRM

Capsule is definitely worthy of your attention, although its only a newcomer to the industry.

It's easy to navigate, powerful, and packed with features. It is considered to be the best Google CRM for small business with no need for “the most” specialised solutions.

Additionally, it has a variety of integrations that can make the CRM more sales or marketing focused. And it wouldn’t be on this list without having a Google Integration

Pros of Capsule CRM

✅ Intuitive in design and usage
✅ Has a free version and a 30-day trial, which is longer than most competitors
✅ You can access Capsule CRM through the Gmail application
✅ Dedicated customer support team
✅ Subscribers to the more expensive tiers have access to powerful integrations
✅ The CRM is very mobile friendly, allowing you to take advantage of the features even on the go
✅ A lot of customisation options are available

Cons of Capsule CRM

❌ The free version is capped at a certain number of contacts, meaning you’ll have to upgrade eventually
❌ You cant integrate any of your tech stack into the free version

Capsule CRM is priced at $12 per user/month, and can be found here.

What is a Google CRM?

A Google CRM is a CRM suite that integrates natively with Google Workspace, meaning it doesn’t just link to your Gmail Inbox and the rest of the G Suite but becomes a part of it.

A CRM with Google integration links with tools such as Google Contacts, Google Drive and the rest of the Google apps that Workspace offers.

As a result, implementing a CRM for Google turns your Google Workspace, not only into a powerful collaboration tool to be used by your teams, but into a customer relationship management powerhouse.

Who needs a Google CRM?

In short… If you use Google Workspace as your primary work environment, you need a CRM for Google Workspace!

But why?

Without G Suite CRM (that's what it was called before), you’re unable to utilize the full potential of the G Suite, leading to an immense workload on your teams. They’ll need to do tasks that a CRM for Google can simplify down to the click of a button.

The modern B2B sales environment requires you to provide customers with lightning-fast support and a clear, value-based proposition. Both are difficult for smaller companies to keep up with. However with a Google CRM, being there for existing customers, building meaningful business relationships with prospects, becomes more accessible than ever.

Benefits of a Google CRM

A Google CRM impacts your business in several ways. All of them are sure to significantly boost your performance in both the short and long term.

Some benefits of a CRM for Google Workspace are…

• With a Google CRM, your contacts database becomes more organised and easy to navigate.
• A Google CRM helps increase customer loyalty, and better customer relations.
• Implementing a Google CRM creates better team alignment.
• A Google CRM helps you keep a finger on the pulse of your business performance.
• A Google Workspace CRM can help you automate routine tasks.

Can you just use a CRM in Google Sheets?

Of course!

You can always use Google Sheets as a CRM, but that would be like riding around on horseback instead of riding a car. Sure, horseback looks more heavy metal, but cars are more efficient. The same goes for CRMs, it’s not about how heavy metal you look or how old-school it feels, it’s about the results it brings to your processes.

In that regard, any proper Google CRM blows Google Sheets out of the water.

So the next time you think about just using spreadsheets as a CRM, think to yourself…

Why would I?

Key features of a Google CRM

Google CRMs come with many features that vary from system-to-system. There are some features that you should always look out for when struggling to find the best CRM comparison for Google Workspace.

The critical features of a CRM with Google integration are…

Contact management

Contact management refers to storing, collecting, and structuring your contact database. It is the core functionality of any CRM system, representing the fundamentals of what the other systems are based on in a CRM for Google.

Lead management functionality

Capture, qualify, and nurture leads. A good Google CRM captures leads from various sources, such as websites, social media, and your Gmail inbox.

Email marketing functionality

Email marketing functionality is crucial for creating, managing, and tracking email campaigns. A sound Google CRM system should allow you to create email templates, comfortably sort your mailing lists, trigger automatic email responses, and track your email campaign performance.

Pipeline management functionality

This allows you to monitor your leads throughout their customer journey. Ideally, your CRM for Google should also allow you to create multiple pipelines for different purposes. For example, a separate marketing and sales pipeline.

Sales automation functionality

This functionality allows teams to focus on tasks that require human attention to complete. Any business-related activity requires routine work, such as sending reminder emails or moving leads to a different stage.

These tasks can be handed off to a machine, allowing employees to focus time and energy on tasks that require a human.

Reporting functionality

Keeping a finger on the pulse of your business is vital.

Most CRMs for Google come with built-in report generation functionality, often allowing you to see the updates to the reports in real time. This ensures you never miss out on an essential change in the metrics you track.

Some Google CRM systems, such as NetHunt CRM, also come with a Google Looker Studio integration. This allows  you to visualise data and create smooth, dynamic visual charts. Data becomes all the more impressive.

Employee management functionality

A good CRM for Google offers employees a personal space to individually track their hours, tasks, meetings, sales numbers, and goals.

A great Google CRM system also helps managers and the C-Suite keep track of employee activities and day-to-day accomplishments.

Interaction management functionality

You must have complete access to your customer and lead communication history, if you want to understand them better. Look for a CRM for Google program that includes interaction tracking capabilities. Most do.

Every email sent and received, every chat message sent, and every conversation made between a sales representative and a lead or customer should be linked. There should be a notes feature within contact records to scribble important information.

Customisation

A Google CRM should simplify sales procedures and reduce workload,rather than add new tasks. Therefore you must be able to tailor your Google CRM to fit your specific needs and processes best.

NetHunt CRM, for example, allows you to customise your CRM to a large extent…

• Change the appearance of your dashboard
• Change the stages within your pipelines
• Change the contact record fields and their order
• Create as many custom views as you need
• Sort your contact folders

Integrations

You probably already have a collection of business tools that you use for marketing and sales. Utilising your established, reliable technology shouldn't be hindered by implementing a new CRM. Instead, you ought to incorporate current apps into your CRM for Google.

Collaboration-enabling functionality

CRM is a technology to align all of your organisation's departments and bring them closer together. Look for a CRM system that has robust collaborative features and enables real-time collaboration between members of different teams working on the same projects.

Security

Your CRM solution must be secure because many people within the company have differing access to CRM data. The security of your customer database shouldn't be in danger from a spiteful employee or a knowledgeable hacker.

The Bottom Line

Choosing the best Google Workspace CRM for your business is a crucial decision you simply can’t make without doing a lot of research and considering various points.

Although there are many great Google CRM products on the market, it can be hard to choose which is best for you.

Luckily, we have an in-depth guide to help you understand what to look at when choosing a CRM!

CRM Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Right CRM for Your Business | NetHunt

Download the e-book and discover how to choose the right CRM for your business & how to integrate it in the everyday workflow of your team.

NetHunt CRMValerie Kakovkina

With this article, and the buyer's guide to choosing a CRM, you'll have everything you need to pick the CRM that suits your business needs!

And if you're interested in a Gmail CRM, we have a list of CRM solutions for Gmail specifically — check it out!

Looking for a CRM similar to Notion? Here are the seven ones you should consider.

Are you finding Notion CRM lacking in essential features for your growing business?

In this article, we explore top Notion CRM alternatives to help you find a CRM that meets all your demands.

We’ll review the seven best solutions highlighting their unique features, benefits, and pricing for you to decide which one fits your business best.

Why are businesses looking for Notion CRM alternatives?

Notion is a versatile tool known for its project management, organizational capabilities, and database functionalities. With the help of templates, Notion can be repurposed into a basic CRM. Its high degree of customization and the abundance of CRM templates available — both from Notion itself and the user community — make it an attractive option for some businesses.

However, it's important to understand that Notion is not a dedicated CRM system. Despite the advanced templates, it lacks key features found in true CRM software. This is why many growing businesses start looking for alternatives to Notion CRM.

Here are some common issues businesses face when using Notion as a CRM:

• Data problems: There's a high risk of unclean — duplicate and conflicting — data as well as incomplete customer records. The latter stem from the inability to create required record fields in Notion. This can result in missed sales opportunities, poor customer support, and high levels of customer churn.
• Productivity issues: Notion has limited sales automation, which can hurt productivity. Important data can easily be overlooked without automated systems.
• Lost deals: Sales reps often lose deals because they lack comprehensive information about leads. A lack of a systematic approach to tracking client interactions can be damaging.
• Data security risks: When a sales rep leaves the company, they might take all customer data with them. The risk of data deletion and limited sharing permissions adds to the security concerns.
• Low adoption of the CRM among teams: Notion requires a lot of manual work, which can make the team reluctant to use it as a CRM. This results in low CRM implementation success levels and leads to a decrease in CRM ROI, less sales, and a shrink of the bottom line.
• Steep learning curve: Notion is known for its steep learning curve, which can lengthen the onboarding of new sales hires and slow them down. This also hinders the work of existing employees as they might not know how to perform certain tasks in Notion CRM.
• Hidden costs: While Notion might seem fairly affordable or even free initially, the cost of necessary third-party apps to make it work as a CRM can add up, leading to a large monthly bill. Even with enough budget, Notion lacks strong CRM-specific integrations, which can hinder your sales team’s usage of the tool.
• Limited visibility into team activity: With Notion, you have a limited understanding of team activity and performance. Do you know how many emails your sales reps send daily? How deals move through the pipeline? How long they stay in a certain stage of the pipeline? No, you don’t. Additionally, with data collected and entered manually, the reports generated by Notion CRM can be unreliable. This can mislead your sales team coaching and negatively impact future sales performance.
• Limited mobility: The Notion mobile app lacks some desktop features, making it less accessible on the go than dedicated CRM systems. This is particularly painful for sales teams that go on field trips to meet up with clients and work outside the office.

Additionally, it's not always existing problems that drive businesses away from using Notion as a CRM. Often, small businesses plan for future scalability.

As the business grows, Notion's performance can lag with larger databases or complex setups, making it challenging to process large volumes of data.

Moreover, using Notion as a CRM involves juggling numerous tabs, tables, and spreadsheets. As your customer base expands, managing all this data becomes a hassle. Quickly and efficiently navigating the database to link data with specific deals for informed decision-making becomes challenging. This scalability issue is a major concern for businesses planning for growth.

All the aforementioned challenges push businesses to explore more specialized CRM solutions that can meet their growing needs. With many Notion competitors offering better alternatives than Notion, companies can find CRMs that integrate easily, support their business, and manage sales and customer data effectively.

Top 7 Notion CRM alternatives

As CRM experts, we understand how overwhelming it can be for a business to choose a CRM system. That's why we've done the legwork for you and compiled a shortlist of nine Notion CRM alternatives worthy of your attention.

In selecting these alternatives, we focused on key functionalities to ensure they meet your CRM needs and provide the features Notion lacks. We also considered ease of use, pricing structure, and more.

Speaking of prices, we’ll compare the costs of these Notion competitors to the Notion Plus, Notion Business, and Notion Enterprise plans.

Most of the alternatives to Notion CRM listed here will be pricier than the basic Notion subscription plan, which is free. However, it's important to note that the free version of Notion lacks the necessary functionality for tracking deals within a sales team, rendering it impractical as a CRM solution. Hence, it’s not included in our comparison.

NetHunt CRM

NetHunt CRM is a powerful alternative to Notion CRM that integrates directly with your Gmail inbox, transforming the email client into a fully functional CRM system.

NetHunt CRM entered the CRM software market back in 2015 and has been consistently recognized as a highly functional, reliable, and effective CRM solution since. This is reflected in the numerous positive reviews on independent third-party review platforms, badges and awards. A user favorite, NetHunt CRM stands out in the CRM software market with high customer ratings of 4.6 on G2 and 4.8 on Capterra. Some of the traits users comment on particularly often include the constant improvement of the system, the quality of the customer support, and the flexibility of the system.

NetHunt CRM is a Cloud Google Partner and can boast top-notch security of the system. Since 2019, it annually passes the stringent Google Security Assessment.

NetHunt CRM is a cloud-based system designed for flexibility and robust performance. It offers seamless integration with Gmail and other Google Workspace apps, allowing users to manage their operations efficiently within their email platform.

On top of that, NetHunt CRM is a stellar Notion CRM alternative for outbound sales. It’s an omnichannel CRM solution that allows you to manage outbound sales end-to-end, organizing, optimizing, and streamlining every process throughout the journey.

Here are some of the most notable features of this Notion CRM alternative:

• Advanced contact management functionality that allows creating custom record layouts and offers a 360-degree view of customer records
• Sales pipeline management functionality to visualize the sales process and manage deals effectively
• Collaborative tools to enable work within and across teams, including @mentions, shared database, and task management functionality
• Email marketing functionality (email campaigns and drip email campaigns, mass sending, email tracking, custom SMTP, templates, and analytics) that removes the need for third-party email marketing management tools
• Robust sales automation functionality to automate all parts of the sales process from lead capture to moving deals down the pipeline to notifying users of the sales pipeline updates
• Seamless integration with Gmail that makes all the CRM functionality accessible from the Gmail inbox
• Native two-way integration with LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Intercom for omnichannel lead generation
• Thousands of other third-party apps that can be connected to NetHunt CRM via the Zapier integration
• Reporting functionality that allows to create different reports, including sales pipeline report, team activity report, and sales forecast
• Mobile app supported on iPadOS, iOS, and Android

Best for: Thanks to the vast arsenal of features NetHunt CRM offers, the system works not only for sales teams, but also for customer support, customer success, and marketing teams. It truly bridges the gap between different departments within your company, ensuring everyone is working efficiently toward achieving the shared goals.

Moreover, due to this Notion CRM competitor’s high level of customization, the system fits the needs of businesses of all sizes — from small businesses to large entities — across different industries in the B2B realm like SaaS, agencies, real estate businesses, construction, and more.

💰 NetHunt CRM offers a variety of pricing plans tailored to different business needs, all starting with a 14-day free trial that doesn't require credit card information:

• Basic: $24 per user per month, billed annually
• Basic Plus: $34 per user per month, billed annually
• Business: $48 per user per month, billed annually
• Business Plus : $68 per user per month, billed annually
• Advanced: $96 per user per month, billed annually

Check pricing

Advantages of NetHunt CRM:

• Flexible and customizable, the system fits the needs of any business and scales with its growth
• Centralizes communication from different channels in one place
• Offers a wide range of native integrations like those with Google Workspace, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Intercom, Instagram, etc
• Easy to use thanks to intuitive user interface
• Highly effective customer support team
• Short learning curve, allowing to use the system from the get-go
• Enhanced team productivity and increased data cleanliness and completeness thanks to sales automation functionality
• Cost-effective thanks to exhaustive marketing functionality that eliminates the need for third-party email marketing tools
• Bridges the gap between different teams thanks to collaborative functionality, effectively helping to boost sales
• Secure and reliable alternative to Notion CRM

Disadvantages of NetHunt CRM:

• Desktop version of the solution is more advanced than the NetHunt CRM mobile app
• Reporting functionality is limited to basic reports
• More advanced functionality is only available on Business Plan and above subscription plans

monday CRM

monday.com CRM is a flexible CRM platform that aims to optimize sales workflows and boost team collaboration. It features an intuitive, visually appealing interface that helps businesses organize their sales pipelines, monitor customer engagements, and automate routine tasks. An alternative to Notion CRM, the platform includes customizable workflows, automated alerts, and seamless integration with popular tools such as Gmail, Slack, and Zoom.

Additionally, monday.com CRM provides comprehensive reporting and analytics tools, enabling businesses to gain valuable insights into their sales performance and make data-driven decisions.

Key features of this Notion CRM alternative:

• AI-powered email composition and rephrasing, content generation and summarizing, task generation, and formula building
• Email sync and tracking for Gmail and Outlook, mass emailing
• Customizable dashboards
• Sales pipeline management
• Advanced lead management functionality, including lead collection from different sources and automated lead scoring based on custom criteria
• Contact management functionality
• Basic project management functionality
• Sales operations functionality for managing new sales hires
• Sales reporting functionality
• Basic sales automation features, e.g. automated lead distribution and notifications
• Mobile app

Best for: Startups and middle-sized businesses across different industries.

💰 monday.com CRM offers four pricing plans:

• Basic: $12 per seat/month, includes unlimited customizable pipelines, contacts, boards, and one dashboard.
• Standard: $17 per seat/month, includes advanced account management, 2-way email integration, AI email generator, quotes, invoices, and five dashboards.
• Pro: $28 per seat/month, includes sales forecasting, mass emails, sales analytics, and ten dashboards.
• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing, includes lead scoring, team goals, advanced analytics, and enterprise-grade security.

All plans are billed annually and come with a free trial option.

Advantages of monday CRM:

• Flexible CRM system that can be customized to fit specific business needs
• Offers a variety of support options
• User-friendly platform with an intuitive user interface
• Streamlines various business processes with AI
• Automates parts of the sales process like lead distribution and notifications
• Allows to manage deal from pre-sales to post-sales
• Allows to plan and track sales hiring process

Disadvantages of monday CRM:

• Limited number of automations per month, which might hinder your operations if you deal with a large volume of deals monthly
• The file management system only supports certain file formats
• Number of contacts is limited to 10k per board
• CRM and Workflow aren’t a part of the same interface, so you need to switch back and forth between the two
• Limited number of third-party integrations
• Some parts of the CRM only offer limited customization
• Steep learning curve

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is one of the leading names in the CRM software market, trusted by over 216,000 customers across 135 countries. Its leader status is supported by the G2 Awards badge this vendor regularly receives.

This Notion competitor’s popularity stems from being a free solution for basic features, with more advanced functionalities available for a fee. This makes it accessible and attractive for many businesses, particularly startups and businesses with one-person teams.

Key features of the free version of HubSpot CRM, a Notion CRM alternative:

• Contact and lead management functionality with automated sales activities logging
• Sales pipeline management functionality
• Contact and company insights to populate your records with data from a database of over 20 million businesses
• Email template builders and email insights to identify the best-performing sales content
• AI email writer
• Live chat software
• Dashboards and reporting functionality to track sales activity, productivity, and individual performance of sales team members
• Meeting scheduling functionality
• Document sharing
• Sales quotes generator

Best for: Individuals and startups with small teams that want to deploy a CRM solution but don’t have the budget for it; large enterprises that require a wide range of different advanced features for various teams across the company centralized in one platform.

💰The basic functionality of HubSpot for Sales is free. However, if you want more features or more users, you will have to pay:

• Sales Hub Starter: $15/user/month paid annually
• Sales Hub Professional: $90/user/month paid annually
• Sales Hub Enterprise: $150/user/month paid annually

Advantages of HubSpot CRM:

• Free system
• An CRM that can be turned into an all-in-one platform for marketing, sales, service, content, and operations
• Extremely scalable
• Offers a wide range of different integrations
• Allows for effective team management and performance tracking

Disadvantages of HubSpot CRM:

• More advanced features like sales automation are only accessible to paid users
• Subscription plans for businesses and enterprises are pricey
• Has a steep learning curve and might take a long time to set up
• The multitude of features might be overwhelming and redundant for startups and small businesses that don’t need all that functionality just yet
• Limited number of contacts and email templates
• Limited customization

Salesforce

Salesforce is another mogul of the CRM software world. Founded in 1999, it’s been around for long enough to see the rise and fall of hundreds of other solutions for sales, marketing, and customer experience management. Over the years in the market, the vendor has been constantly improving their product, adding new features and perfecting the existing ones. As a result, businesses of today get a chance to access a powerful, multifunctional tool with pretty much every and any feature imaginable.

While it’s not a CRM similar to Notion and not even a direct Notion CRM alternative — because it’s more of an enterprise solution not well-suited for smaller teams — it’s good to have Salesforce CRM on the list of the best alternatives to Notion CRM so that you have all the top CRM software options considered and weighed.

Key features of this Notion CRM alternative:

• Sales Cloud to manage leads, opportunities, and sales performance
• Service Cloud to enhance customer support with case management and service automation
• Marketing Cloud to create and track marketing campaigns across various channels
• Commerce Cloud to build and manage e-commerce solutions
• Analytics Cloud to gain insights through robust analytics and AI-driven predictions
• Einstein AI to leverage AI for predictive analytics and automation
• AppExchange to access a vast marketplace of third-party apps and integrations
• Mobile CRM to manage CRM tasks on-the-go with mobile access
• Collaboration tools like Chatter and other tools for team collaboration and communication

Best for: Enterprise companies, large ecommerce businesses.

💰 Salesforce is a huge deal in the world of CRM software, which comes with a huge bill. Despite there being a separate, more affordable pricing plan for small teams, the functionality offered for Sales Suite users is very limited:

• Starter Suite: $25/user/month - Basic CRM for small teams.
• Pro Suite: $75/user/month - Complete CRM for any size team.
• Enterprise: $150/user/month - Advanced CRM with customizations.
• Unlimited: $300/user/month - Unlimited CRM power and support.
• Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month

Advantages of Salesforce:

• A comprehensive solution that provides tools for sales, customer service, marketing, and more
• Highly customizable to fit specific business needs
• Offers a high degree of scalability
• Integrates seamlessly with almost every application and system
• Offers robust analytics and AI-driven insights
• Enhances productivity through advanced automation of routine tasks
• Has a large community to turn to for help alongside reliable customer support
• A secure system that provides robust data security and compliance features

Disadvantages of Salesforce:

• Salesforce can be expensive, especially for small businesses, with additional costs for add-ons and advanced features
• The platform has a steep learning curve, requiring significant time and resources to implement and master
• While highly customizable, extensive customization can be complex and may require professional services
• Some users find the interface less intuitive compared to other CRM solutions
• The wide range of features can be overwhelming and may include unnecessary tools for some businesses

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM system designed to help businesses manage their sales processes efficiently. Known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface, Pipedrive offers features like customizable pipelines, activity reminders, and detailed reporting. It allows teams to track deals and customer interactions seamlessly, automate repetitive tasks, and gain valuable insights through its robust analytics tools. Pipedrive's integration with various third-party applications and its mobile access make it a versatile choice for businesses seeking an alternative to Notion CRM.

Key features of this Notion CRM alternative:

• Contact management functionality
• Lead management functionality
• Sales pipeline management functionality
• Workflow and marketing automation
• Reporting and forecasting
• Emailing functionality (mass emailing, email scheduling, email tracking, and email sync)
• Smart Docs to sign documents, autofill documents with CRM data, track document opens and clicks in real-time
• AI-powered sales assistant and emailing tools
• Reporting functionality
• Project management functionality

Best for: Pipedrive is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that need a sales-focused CRM to manage and streamline their sales processes. It's particularly beneficial for sales teams looking for an intuitive and user-friendly interface to track deals, automate tasks, and gain insights through robust analytics.

💰 Pipedrive offers four different subscription plans depending on the business size and the functionality it needs. There’s a 14-day free trial period that doesn’t require credit card credentials.

Advantages of Pipedrive:

• Essential: $14 per user/month (billed annually) — basic sales and CRM tools, lead management, and integrations.
• Advanced: $29 per user/month (billed annually) — email sync, automation, meeting scheduling, and live chat support.
• Professional: $49 per user/month (billed annually) — AI-powered tools, contract management, advanced reporting, and team management.
• Power: $64 per user/month (billed annually) — project planning, enhanced permissions, 24/7 support, and phone support.
• Enterprise: $99 per user/month (billed annually) — all features with enhanced security, unlimited reports, and customizations.

Disadvantages of Pipedrive:

• A lot of more advanced and useful features are only available for Professional subscription plan users and above
• The essential plan has limited reporting capabilities
• While flexible, some advanced customization options are lacking

folk CRM

A relatively new solution, folk CRM is an ideal alternative to Notion CRM for those who value a sleek, modern interface. It offers comprehensive contact management and customizable pipeline views, allowing users to track deals efficiently. With 1-click enrichment, users can quickly update contact information, while email and calendar sync ensure seamless interactions. Folk CRM also includes personalized messaging, automated follow-ups, and integration with over 6000 tools via Zapier and Make, making it a robust and user-friendly CRM solution for managing client relationships and team collaboration.

folk CRM also prioritizes efficiency and quick CRM implementation, offering ready-made workspace templates to set the workspace for your specific use case up faster.

Although a young solution that doesn’t have that much functionality available yet, folk CRM is a promising new player in the CRM software market. The vendor actively works on the development of core features, regularly releasing new functionality.

Key features of this Notion CRM alternative:

• Contact management functionality
• Pipeline management functionality
• folkX Chrome extension for prospecting on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn
• 1-click record enrichment through the Apollo integration
• Conversation templates on LinkedIn and Gmail
• AI-generated email variables
• Email sequences, mass emailing, and email analytics
• Collaborative functionality, including Smart fields, tags, shared groups

Best for: Agencies of all sizes.

💰folk CRM offers three pricing tiers, the difference between which lies in the number of emails, enrichments, email domains, magic fields, and email members available per month:

• Standard: $20/member/month billed annually
• Premium: $40/member/month billed annually
• Custom: From $60/member/month billed annually

Advantages of folk CRM:

• Offers customizable pipeline views
• Increases team productivity with sales automation
• Streamlines prospecting
• Simplifies lead capture and data enrichment
• Helps to personalize communication with AI-generated email variables
• Simplifies collaborative work across departments
• Sleek and modern, simple design

Disadvantages of folk CRM:

• Lack of crucial CRM features like sales reporting
• Limited customization of the system
• Limited number of integrations
• Data migration can be cumbersome
• Little to no automation functionality
• No roles and permissions
• The number of actions for different features, e.g. 1-click data enrichment, is capped

Airtable CRM

Airtable is a flexible and user-friendly platform that combines the functionality of a spreadsheet with the power of a database, making it a great alternative to Notion CRM. If you're not ready to switch to a dedicated CRM solution and are looking for a CRM like Notion, Airtable can serve as an excellent option with its customizable templates and intuitive interface.

It allows users to manage contacts, track sales pipelines, and collaborate with team members effectively.

With features like rich field types, automation, and integrations with other tools, Airtable offers a comprehensive solution for managing customer relationships without the complexity of traditional CRM systems.

Key features of this Notion CRM alternative:

• Integrations with popular tools like Slack, Trello, Google Calendar
• Project management functionality
• Basic contact and deal management functionality
• Grid, Calendar, Kanban, and Gallery views
• Data management functionality
• Reporting functionality

Best for: Startups, small businesses with one-member teams, individuals.

💰 Just like Notion CRM, Airtable CRM offers a free plan for individuals and very small teams just getting started. For those who need more seats or capabilities, the prices are:

• Team: $20/user/month
• Business: $45/user/month

Advantages of Airtable CRM:

• Small learning curve since Airtable CRM is similar to Notion
• Offers customization and flexibility
• Ability to visualize data in different ways
• Can be used by other departments because of its versatility
• Affordable solution

Disadvantages of Airtable CRM:

• Limiting if you have very complex CRM needs
• Only offers basic reporting and analytics
• Lots of switching between the tabs as you can’t manage different processes from one tab
• No sales automation
• Doesn’t offer a systematic approach to tracking client interactions
• Doesn’t sync communication and interactions with CRM records, meaning those will stay in the manager’s inbox after they leave
• Poor collaborative abilities

The Best Notion CRM Alternatives: A Side-by-Side Comparison

Even with just the short list of the top Notion CRM alternatives in front of you, it can be overwhelming to try and wrap your head around the functionality each option offers, their pros and cons, etc. To make the choice easier, we created a side-by-side comparison table to visualize the selection of systems, give you a chance to compare them and pick the one that works best for your business.

The Bottom Line

In this article, we explored some top alternatives to Notion CRM, highlighting their unique features, pricing structures, and suitability for different business needs.

Exploring these alternatives is crucial to finding the best CRM fit for your business. By considering dedicated CRM systems, you can ensure a more seamless and efficient management of your customer relationships and sales processes.

If you're looking for a powerful, Gmail-integrated CRM, consider trying NetHunt CRM. Its robust features and ease of use make it an excellent choice for growing businesses. Explore NetHunt CRM here.

FAQs

Looking for a better alternative than Pipedrive? Here are seven ideas.

Pipedrive has simple design and effective sales CRM features. But it might not suit everyone. Some companies find that Pipedrive can't customize enough for their unique processes. Some report slow support.

If these issues resonate with you, it’s worth exploring other CRM systems, especially Pipedrive competitors.

We're covering the best Pipedrive alternatives in this article.

They fit different business sizes and industry needs. Each CRM system has strengths and potential drawbacks. You'll surely find the one that fits your company best. Let's go!

Based on our findings, here's an overview of the best Pipedrive alternatives:

• NetHunt CRM — Best overall choice
• Monday CRM — Best up-and-coming
• Salesmate — Great accounting integration
• Nutshell CRM — Ease of use
• Streak CRM — Great Gmail integration
• HubSpot CRM — Scalability
• Zoho CRM — Affordable pricing

Why is the business looking for Pipedrive alternatives?

Many sales teams rely on Pipedrive CRM. But, as the market offers better options, its limitations are becoming clearer. Businesses feel constrained by Pipedrive's features. Some of the most common limitations we've heard are:

Lack of flexibility. Pipedrive only has a set of predefined CRM objects. If they don't align with your business model, adapting the CRM to your needs might be a challenge. Also, only the costliest plans let you create required fields and customise them according to your needs.

Limited automation features. Pipedrive offers sales automation features, but they may not be as robust as some companies need. If your company wants to automate a complex process, you might want to look for a Pipedrive competitor.

Pricing. Pipedrive's pricing is quite straightforward if you compare it with some other solutions on the market. We're looking at you, big enterprise CRMs. Still, this CRM has some essential 'modules' for which you'll need to pay extra money.

1. NetHunt CRM — The ultimate Pipedrive alternative

NetHunt CRM is a versatile Pipedrive competitor that natively integrates with your Gmail inbox.

Since 2015, NetHunt CRM has gained a loyal following and steady popularity. It has earned this recognition through numerous awards, recommendations, and positive feedback. Additionally, it consistently passes the Google Security Assessment every year.

With impressive ratings of 4.7 on G2 and 4.8 on Capterra, NetHunt CRM has cemented itself as a solid industry participant.

NetHunt CRM is a robust and adaptable cloud-based CRM. It offers great email service integration capabilities and seamlessly fits into your email environment. This helps you organize processes efficiently,  automate, and expand your business operations —all without having to switch between tabs.

NetHunt CRM works great for sales, customer support, customer success, and marketing teams. The system's versatility allows you to tailor it to meet business requirements. It has a wide array of functionality:

• Advanced contact management to organize and categorize contacts
• Management and visualization of multiple sales pipelines
• Team collaboration tools, including tasks, mentions, and shared databases
• Comprehensive email marketing tools such as mass emailing, tracking, custom SMTP, templates, and analytics
• Integrations for lead generation with LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, and Intercom
• Zapier integration for connecting NetHunt CRM with preferred tools
• Sales automation features for lead capture, task allocation, and alerts
• Drip campaigns for lead nurturing
• Reporting tools for generating various reports
• Compatibility with other Google services, including Contacts, Data Studio, Calendar, Drive, and Chat

NetHunt CRM takes pride in both its dedicated development and customer success teams, which continually work to enhance the platform's functionality. The management team is receptive to feedback and ready to explore new features that could improve the product, encouraging users to reach out with any requests or suggestions. Here are a couple more things on why you should choose NetHunt CRM.

Advantages of NetHunt CRM:

• Offers a comprehensive CRM system that integrates well with your email inbox
• Features extensive sales automation tools, including automated lead capture and data management
• Provides robust email marketing tools, including mass emailing and tracking capabilities
• Advanced contact management with features like duplicate prevention
• Allows for the creation and management of multiple sales pipelines directly within your email provider
• Highly customizable to suit any organizational need
• User-friendly with an intuitive interface
• Quick and easy to set up with a shallow learning curve
• Supported by a responsive and helpful customer success team

Limitations of NetHunt CRM:

• The mobile app's functionality is less comprehensive than its desktop counterpart
• Some more sophisticated features are exclusive to Business and Advanced plan subscribers
• Basic level of reporting functionality

2. Monday CRM

Don't be surprised if you’ve seen Monday CRM pop up recently. This CRM suite has been making waves in the industry these past few months, and there’s a good reason for that. Monday.com stands out as an innovative alternative to Pipedrive CRM, thanks to its ability to integrate your company's sales operations and resources into a cohesive ecosystem. This ecosystem is known as Monday Work OS.

Monday.com has quickly made its mark with a comprehensive suite of features.

These include an efficient system for managing leads, detailed tracking of customer interactions, and the ability to monitor team activities closely. Additionally, it offers comprehensive analytics and reporting tools. You can automate your sales processes and streamline workflows with Monday. It also features powerful project management capabilities.

The platform is accessible on the go with a convenient mobile app. It also enhances marketing efforts with advanced email marketing tools and lead-scoring functionality which makes it one of the best alternatives to Pipedrive.

Pros of Monday CRM:

• Easy to use and easy to implement
• Intuitive user interface
• Offers a high degree of customization, including customizable dashboards
• Performance tracking capabilities are a step above the usual
• Great workflow automation functionality

Cons of Monday CRM:

• The file management system can’t handle some file formats
• Dashboard customization options might not suit all businesses
• Lacks some basic contact management features like duplicate management

Visit Monday CRM’s website →

3. Salesmate

A CRM similar to Pipedrive, Salesmate helps automate business processes with features for every department in a company. Salesmate also features multiple integrations with other tools from your tech stack.

By the way, we've also written an article about the differences between Salesmate and Pipedrive — so take a look!

Pros of Salesmate:

• 15-day free trial
• Affordable pricing
• Several native integrations with third-party apps
• Zapier integration
• Quickbook integration helps keep up with accounting

Cons of Salesmate:

• Reports are sometimes difficult to interpret
• Daily send limit for email campaigns
• No mobile app is available

Visit Salesmate’s website →

4. Nutshell CRM

Nutshell CRM is acclaimed for its straightforward but potent interface. This quality is precious for companies focusing on efficiency and an optimal user experience. Being an important alternative to Pipedrive CRM, the platform perfectly balances sales and marketing needs, offering various features. This equilibrium is particularly advantageous for SMBs, where collaboration between sales and marketing is crucial for generating in, converting, and retaining customers.

Nutshell also features robust email marketing capabilities. Its tools help foster leads, engage customers, and decrease churn rates.

Pros of Nutshell CRM:

• Easy to navigate; intuitive interface
• Has a short learning curve
• Budget-friendly CRM with a limited Gmail integration
• Advanced email marketing functionality, including bulk emailing, sequences, segmentation, and tracking
• Fast and professional support from the customer service department
• Free 14-day trial
• Sales automation

Cons of Nutshell CRM:

• Lacks native integrations
• Not as customizable as competitors
• No bulk contact deletion
• Limited mobile app functionality
• Can't create new records from emails

Visit Nutshell CRM’s website →

5. Streak CRM

Streak is the second CRM like Pipedrive on this list that boasts full-scale integration with Gmail. Streak can handle various business processes like sales, deal flow, partnerships, and hiring. Although not the best option for lightweight CRM solutions, it’s a top competitor.

Pros of Streak CRM

• Offers a free version
• Native Gmail integration
• Amazing email marketing functionality
• Smooth learning curve
• Works on mobile
• Integrates with Zapier

Cons of Streak CRM:

• Doesn't allow you to import data directly
• Mail merge is limited to 400 emails per day
• One sales pipeline per project limit
• Doesn't offer automation
• Doesn’t offer integrations with LinkedIn and WhatsApp
• Missing lead generation features
• No lead nurturing features

Visit the Streak CRM website →

6. HubSpot CRM

A CRM list is only truly complete with HubSpot on it. It is not just a Pipedrive competitor. This CRM system is a  titan of the industry; an excellent solution for businesses that have outgrown Pipedrive scale-wise and need a CRM that can support hundreds of users in the same workspace.

Compared to most alternatives to Pipedrive CRM, a neat benefit of HubSpot is that it has a free — albeit very limited — version. This tier is an excellent opportunity to get used to this CRM suite without having to make a paid commitment first. However, it’s important to note that smaller-scale businesses might find HubSpot to be “too big” for their needs and processes. It's much like the next entry on this list.

Pros of Hubspot CRM:

• A basic free plan is available
• Lots of integrations with third-party tools and apps
• Robust sales automation functionality
• Email marketing functionality like tracking, templates, and bulk emailing
• Canned snippets
• Contact management functionality
• Reporting functionality

Cons of Hubspot CRM:

• The free version is very limited in functionality
• Customisation is rather limited
• Creating contacts inside deals is fidgety according to some user reviews
• Takes rather long to learn how to use the CRM

Visit the HubSpot website →

7. Zoho CRM

Since the beginning of their journey back in 1996, Zoho CRM has built a goliath of a CRM suite. But why take our word for it when enterprise businesses worldwide already use this CRM suite for their day-to-day operations Just because a lot of companies use something doesn’t mean it’s the best alternative for people looking to jump ship from Pipedrive.

Zoho CRM is an extensive CRM system, and that size comes with a lot of hassle. Being slower, more confusing, and more overpowering than any other CRM on this list, there are better choices for SMBs. Zoho CRM was built with enterprises in mind and requires a whole team of people whose only job is ensuring nothing breaks down.

If you’re a business with 50+ users sharing an environment, Zoho might be a good fit. Otherwise — you might want to skip this entry.

Pros of Zoho:

• Amazing customer support available 24/7
• Some features are AI-driven
• A selection of features so vast you might not use all of them
• Scales well with the growth of your business, from a small team all the way to 500+ users
• Robust reporting functionality
• Surprisingly affordable for an enterprise-level CRM
• Integrations with third-party tools from your tech stack

Сons of Zoho:

• Customization is lagging behind the times
• Level of integration with some essential tools is more limited than competitors
• Some users report the interface being confusing
• A steep learning curve
• You will experience an unprecedented amount of lag if many users are making changes to data at the same time
• AI features are only available to advanced tiers
• The selection of features is so vast you might get overwhelmed by them

Visit Zoho CRM’s website →

The best Pipedrive alternatives: A side-by-side comparison

We've covered seven Pipedrive CRM alternatives in detail; now let's see how these CRM systems compare with each other in their pros and cons.

FAQs

The bottom line

There you have it! The list of the best Pipedrive alternatives. We’ve done our best to include solutions suited to big and small enterprises.

However, keep in mind that to choose a CRM system you'll need careful planning and consideration. Be sure to give the systems that interest you a shot. Start the free trial, give it a go for a week or two, and decide whether or not it’s something you’d want to move forward with.

Here are the eight best CRMs to use instead of Streak

Looking for Streak CRM alternatives? You’re not alone.

Many businesses are searching for more affordable and feature-rich CRM options after Streak CRM removed its cheaper and free plans and made its new lowest plan $49/user/month.

Choosing a new CRM can be a tough challenge, especially if you’ve been doing things in your old CRM for ages. That’s why many may want to get a CRM similar to Streak so that it’s simpler to get used to a new CRM.

This article explores the top 8 Streak CRM alternatives. We’ll do our best to help you find a CRM that matches your business’s demands and budget.

Why is the business looking for Streak CRM alternatives?

There are many reasons why companies might want to leave their old CRM behind and move to Streak competitors. Here are a couple of the most common reasons.

Pricing. Recently, Streak CRM removed the cheaper and free plans. The new cheapest plan is now a whopping $49/user/month. This made the CRM borderline unaffordable to smaller businesses and underpowered for more complex ones.

No LinkedIn integration. Streak doesn’t offer a native integration with LinkedIn in any capacity. That’s a bummer for salespeople who generate leads (and do much more) through the platform. There are, of course, workarounds, like using Zapier to integrate Streak CRM with LinkedIn. However, learning how to use another tool just to enjoy an integrated CRM experience sounds like a red flag to us.

No advanced sales automation. Streak CRM only provides basic sales automation features. It is not possible to make it so that the system assigns tasks to users automatically. Many companies may want to switch to a CRM similar to Streak with a more advanced sales and business automation toolbox.

No flexibility. If you compare it to other Gmail-integrated CRMs in the market, like NetHunt CRM, Streak centers around stages and pipelines. This CRM expects all your processes to “flow” in a certain way — from one end of the pipeline to the other.

Top 8 Streak CRM alternatives

1. NetHunt CRM — robust Gmail CRM and the ultimate Streak alternative

NetHunt CRM is a versatile Streak alternative. Like Streak, this cloud-based CRM also natively integrates with your Gmail inbox.

Since 2015, NetHunt CRM has gained a loyal following and steady popularity. It has earned this recognition through numerous awards, recommendations, and positive feedback. Additionally, it consistently passes the Google Security Assessment every year.

NetHunt CRM has impressive ratings of 4.7 on G2 and 4.8 on Capterra, both independent B2B software review platforms.

There are many reasons why you should choose NetHunt CRM. It’s robust and adaptable. It offers great email service integration capabilities and seamlessly fits into your email environment. This helps you organize processes efficiently, automate, and expand your business operations — all without having to switch between tabs.

This Streak competitor works great for sales, customer support, customer success, and marketing teams. The system's versatility allows you to tailor it to meet business requirements.

NetHunt CRM can do everything Streak does, plus it offers more advanced CRM features for a better price:

• Advanced contact management
• Management and visualization of multiple sales pipelines
• Team collaboration tools, including tasks, mentions, and shared databases
• Comprehensive email marketing tools such as mass emailing, tracking, custom SMTP, templates, and analytics
• Integrations for lead generation with LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, and Intercom
• Zapier integration for connecting NetHunt CRM with other tools
• Advanced sales automation features for lead capture, task allocation, and alerts
• Drip campaigns for lead nurturing
• Reporting tools for generating various reports
• Easier compatibility with other Google services, including Contacts, Data Studio, Calendar, Drive, and Chat

NetHunt CRM takes pride in both its dedicated development and customer success teams, which continually work to enhance the platform's functionality.

The team values user feedback and constantly encourages clients to contact them with any requests or suggestions for improving the product.

Advantages of NetHunt CRM:

• A comprehensive CRM system that integrates well with your Gmail inbox
• Extensive sales automation tools, including automated lead capture and data management
• Robust email marketing tools, including mass emailing and tracking capabilities
• Advanced contact management with features like duplicate prevention
• Multiple sales pipelines to help you understand how to sell more
• Highly customizable to suit any organizational need
• User-friendly with an intuitive interface
• Quick and easy to set up
• A responsive and helpful customer success team

Limitations of NetHunt CRM:

• The mobile app's functionality is less comprehensive than its desktop counterpart
• Some advanced features are exclusive to Business and Advanced plan subscribers
• Basic level of reporting functionality

2. monday.com CRM

monday.com CRM stands out as an innovative CRM platform. It's one of the main alternatives to Streak CRM thanks to its ability to integrate your company's sales operations and resources into a cohesive ecosystem, known as Monday Work OS.

monday.com has a comprehensive suite of features. These include an efficient system for managing leads, detailed tracking of customer interactions, and the ability to monitor team activities closely. Additionally, it offers comprehensive analytics and reporting tools. You can automate your sales processes and streamline workflows with monday.com. It also features powerful project management capabilities.

The platform is accessible on the go with a convenient mobile app. It also enhances marketing efforts with advanced email marketing tools and lead-scoring functionality, which makes it one of the best alternatives to Streak.

Pros of monday.com CRM:

• Easy to use and easy to implement
• Intuitive user interface
• Offers a high degree of customization, including customizable dashboards
• Performance tracking capabilities are a step above the usual
• Great workflow automation functionality

Cons of monday.com CRM:

• The file management system can’t handle some file formats
• Dashboard customization options might not suit all businesses
• Lacks some basic contact management features like duplicate management

Visit monday.com website →

3. HubSpot CRM

A CRM list is only truly complete with HubSpot on it.

It is not just a Streak competitor. This CRM system is a titan of the industry. It’s also an excellent solution for businesses that have outgrown Streak scale-wise and need a CRM that can support hundreds of users in the same workspace.

Another neat benefit of HubSpot is that, unlike a CRM like Streak, it has a free, although limited, version. This tier is an excellent opportunity to get used to this CRM suite without having to make a paid commitment first.

However, it’s important to note that smaller-scale businesses might find HubSpot to be “too big” for their needs and processes.

Pros of Hubspot CRM:

• A basic free plan is available
• Lots of integrations with third-party tools and apps
• Robust sales automation functionality
• Email marketing tools like tracking, templates, and bulk emailing
• Contact management functionality
• Advanced reporting features

Cons of Hubspot CRM:

• The free version is limited
• Customization could be better
• Creating contacts inside deals is not an easy task, according to some user reviews
• Takes long time to learn how to use

Visit the HubSpot website →

4. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM launched in 1996. Large businesses worldwide already use this CRM suite for their day-to-day operations. The Zoho CRM team built it with enterprises in mind and requires a whole team of people whose only job is ensuring nothing breaks down.

That’s also the deal with Zoho CRM. Just because a lot of companies use something doesn’t mean it’s the best alternative for people looking to jump ship from Streak.

Zoho is an extensive CRM system unlike other alternatives to Streak CRM. It comes with a lot of hassle. It’s slower, more confusing, and more overpowering than any other CRM on this list. It’s definitely an option, but there are better choices for SMBs, like NetHunt CRM.

If you’re a business with 50+ users sharing an environment, Zoho might be a good fit. Otherwise — you might want to swipe left on this CRM.

Pros of Zoho:

• Amazing customer support available 24/7
• AI-driven features
• A selection of features so vast (a pro) you might not use all of them (a con)
• Scales well with the growth of your business, from a small team all the way to 500+ users
• Robust reporting functionality
• Surprisingly affordable for an enterprise-level CRM
• Integrations with third-party tools from your tech stack

Сons of Zoho:

• Customization is lagging behind the times
• Level of integration with some essential tools is more limited than competitors
• Some users report the interface being confusing
• A steep learning curve
• You will experience an unprecedented amount of lag if many users are making changes to data at the same time
• AI features are only available to advanced tiers
• The selection of features is so vast you might get overwhelmed by them

Visit Zoho CRM’s website →

5. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is an alternative to Streak CRM that stands out in the industry as a notably user-centric and powerful platform.

It’s useful for companies with complex sales processes because it maps out the sales journey well, unlike a CRM like Streak. Such clarity is especially useful for business models that involve subscription services and ongoing revenue streams.

Though Pipedrive may not directly offer some standard features like email marketing, it compensates with extensive integration options. This helps connect seamlessly with marketing, customer support, or project management applications. All in all, you’ll have a customized solution that aligns with the specific demands of your business.

Pros of Pipedrive

• Affordable
• Offers a free trial
• Several third-party integrations
• User-friendly and intuitive interface
• Short learning curve

Cons of Pipedrive

• Only has sales-based functionality
• Lack of integration with email providers
• Lacking workflow automation functionality
• Customer support responses are sometimes slow, according to reviews

6. Keap CRM

Previously known as Infusionsoft, Keap CRM is a great choice for small business owners that provides them with tools to manage their businesses.

Keap CRM offers many features rated higher on independent platforms, which makes it a better alternative than Streak CRM. This Streak competitor also comes with features that entrepreneurs will find helpful, such as order management.

Keap CRM is rated 4.2 on G2.

Pros of Keap CRM

• A suite of features for founders and entrepreneurs
• Easy-to-use automation capabilities
• User-friendly setup
• Great customer support

Cons of Keap CRM

• Slows down as you add large volumes of customer data
• Ballooning costs due to requiring add-ons for some essential features

Visit Keap's website →

7. Nutshell CRM

Users love Nutshell CRM for its ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and a straightforward interface.

It’s easy to get started with this CRM, and the whole process takes just a few minutes.

The number one reason people switch from Streak CRM to Nutshell is the fact that Nutshell is significantly more straightforward to set up and start using. Additionally, the integrations Nutshell CRM offers are more robust than those offered by Streak.

Nutshell CRM is rated 4.2 on G2.

Pros of Nutshell CRM

• Easy to navigate; intuitive interface
• Has a short learning curve
• Budget-friendly CRM option
• Advanced email marketing functionality, including bulk emailing, sequences, segmentation, and tracking
• Fast and professional support from the customer service department
• Free 14-day trial
• Sales automation

Cons of Nutshell CRM

• Lacks native integrations
• Not as customizable as competitors
• No bulk contact deletion
• Limited mobile app functionality
• Can’t create new records from emails

Visit Nutshell's website →

8. Salesmate

After Freshworks acquired it in 2022, the Salesmate team took all the latest and greatest CRM trends on board and created an alternative to Streak CRM that offers robust features.

With this CRM, you can automate business processes with features for every department in a business. Salesmate also has multiple integrations with other tools from your tech stack.

Pros of Salesmate:

• 15-day free trial
• Affordable pricing
• Several native integrations with third-party apps
• Zapier integration
• Quickbook integration helps keep up with accounting

Cons of Salesmate:

• Reports are sometimes difficult to interpret
• Daily send limit for email campaigns
• No mobile app is available

Visit Salesmate’s website →

The best Streak CRM alternatives: A side-by-side comparison

FAQs

The bottom line

There are many CRMs you can get if you’re tired of Streak, that’s for sure. Just in this article, we’ve covered the top 8 Streak CRM alternatives.

But we just need to say that NetHunt CRM stands out among other CRMs with its seamless Gmail integration, robust sales automation, and advanced contact management.

NetHunt CRM is perfect for sales, customer support, and marketing teams. It’s got extensive features, excellent customer support, and flexible pricing.

Ready to move from Streak and transform your CRM experience?

Visit NetHunt CRM’s website and start your free trial today!

Here are seven CRM systems to consider for your company when looking for a CRM like Copper

Copper CRM has been a long-standing part of the Google Workspace CRM market. However, many customers, possibly including yourself, are unsatisfied with using this popular CRM.

Here are the best Copper CRM alternatives to consider when looking to switch to a better-fitting CRM for your business.

Based on our review, our top picks for CRM similar to Copper are:

• NetHunt CRM — Best overall pick
• Nutshell CRM — Ease of use and customer support
• Streak CRM — Gmail integration
• Keap CRM — Features for solopreneurs and entrepreneurs
• SugarCRM — Flexible deployment options
• Pipedrive — Best pricing
• Insightly CRM — Best integrations

Why is the business looking for Copper CRM alternatives?

User imit. The thing that holds Copper CRM users back the most is the user limit. Basic plan subscribers only have a maximum of three users in the software. This is staggering since the CRM is billed per user in the first place. No other popular CRM or CRM on this list enforces similar user limits on their customers.

Another is that Copper CRM’s automations work through a rule-based system rather than a visualized flow. This might seem like a minor issue, but our personal experience with Pipedrive has taught us that these types of workflows take too much time; they’re unintuitive.

The automation functionality of Copper CRM also leaves more to desire across the board. Users will find themselves quite limited in the processes they could automate with the help of this tool.

Additionally, Copper CRM’s Gmail integration is significantly lacking in depth. This is especially true when you compare it to other CRMs with Gmail integrations, such as NetHunt CRM.

If you’re looking for a high degree of integrability, you’re also out of luck. Copper CRM doesn’t feature native integrations with tools crucial to the success of modern-day business’s sales strategy. These tools are LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Instead, Copper CRM can connect to these tools only through third-party applications such as Zapier.

Some users also complain that Copper CRM feels “clunky” and “buggy” at times.

Best 7 Alternatives to Copper CRM

Here they are, the best of the best for when it comes to Copper competitors. Not that you have to look far to find a better solution, but here we go! If you need some additional general advice on how to choose a CRM system, we have a handy guide for that as well.

NetHunt CRM — the ultimate Copper CRM alternative

Introduced in 2015, NetHunt CRM rapidly gained favor among users, earning accolades, recognition, and a plethora of positive online feedback.

NetHunt CRM holds an impressive 4.7 rating on G2 and a 4.8 rating on Capterra. It is one of the top-rated CRM systems available on these review platforms.

The secret to NetHunt CRM's success lies in its robustness. You can customize the system however you want and it offers unmatched integrations. NetHunt streamlines your business processes, allowing automation and expansion without constant tab switching.

The key reason users switch to NetHunt CRM from Copper CRM is that it offers built-in email marketing capabilities. This is something that Copper only achieves through integration.

Additionally, this Copper competitor allows its users to tailor their environment around their business needs. Copper only offers limited customization options to its users.

Pros of NetHunt CRM

• Extensive sales automation functionality, including lead capture, data entry, email auto-linking, and notifications
• Email marketing functionality, including bulk, tracking, templates, and drips
• Advanced contact management functionality like the duplicate prevention feature
• Possibility for dreation and management of multiple sales pipelines
• Integrations with Google Workspace, LinkedIn, Google Contacts, Data Studio, Intercom, and Facebook Messenger
• Highly customizable — change anything from the number and names of your folders to every field in the customer record
• Easy to navigate and user friendly
• Has a short learning curve
• An amazing, highly responsive customer success team

Cons of NetHunt CRM

• The mobile app is limited compared to the desktop version
• Some advanced features are only available for Business and Advanced subscribers
• Currently offers only lots of integrations with third-party apps and platforms
• Basic reporting functionality

Learn more about NetHunt CRM and start a free trial (no credit card required!) here.

Nutshell CRM

Since its debut in 2010, Nutshell has catered to thousands of businesses globally. The company's product is a leading CRM for its ease of use and cost-effectiveness and has captured G2’s attention every quarter since Fall 2020.

Nutshell stands out as an alternative to Copper CRM renowned for its potent yet straightforward interface. The setup process is swift, taking just a few minutes. It also avoids any complex and cumbersome workflows, simplifying customer relationship management.

The number one reason people switch from Copper CRM to Nutshell is the fact that Nutshell is significantly more straightforward to set up and start using. Additionally, the integrations Nutshell CRM offers are more robust than those offered by Copper.

Nutshell CRM is rated 4.2 on G2.

Pros of Nutshell CRM

• Easy to navigate; intuitive interface
• Has a short learning curve
• Budget-friendly CRM option
• Advanced email marketing functionality, including bulk emailing, sequences, segmentation, and tracking
• Fast and professional support from the customer service department
• Free 14-day trial
• Sales automation

Cons of Nutshell CRM

• Lacks native integrations
• Not as customizable as competitors
• No bulk contact deletion
• Limited mobile app functionality
• Can’t create new records from emails

Nutshell CRM pricing

Nutshell offers a 14-day free trial.

• Starter: $20 per user per month, billed annually
• Pro: $42 per user per month, billed annually

Learn more about Nutshell CRM here.

Streak CRM

You might’ve heard about Streak in and around the Gmail CRM sphere.  It’s one of the few natively integrated Gmail CRM systems on the market and a big time Copper competitor. However, does that make it the best Copper CRM alternative?

Streak’s lead management and Pipeline management functionality are better than Copper CRM’s to a high enough degree to consider switching. Users also say that the quality of Streak’s support offers is greater than that of Copper CRM.

Pros of Streak CRM

• Has a free version
• Great email marketing functionality such as mail merge, scheduling, tracking, canned responses, and thread splitter
• Easy to use
• Integration with Google Workspace and Zapier
• Works on both mobile and desktop
• Basic sales reporting functionality
• Creation of task reminders

Cons of Streak CRM

• Doesn’t allow you to import data directly from a different CRM
• For Google accounts, mail merge is limited to 400 emails per day
• You’re limited to a single sales pipeline per project
• Doesn’t offer sales or email automation
• Inbox may feel slower and crowded due to Streak’s clashing colors

Streak CRM pricing

If you want to access the advanced CRM features of this Gmail CRM, you’ll have to pay for either the Pro or Enterprise subscription plans.

• Pro Plan: $49 per user per month annualy. A full-fledged plan for businesses of any size.
• Pro+ Plan: $69 per user per month annualy. Advanced features for businesses that need advanced CRM tools.
• Enterprise Plan: $129 per user per month annualy. For businesses seeking high-level customisation and data validation.

Learn more about Streak CRM here and its best alternatives here.

Want to implement a Google CRM? We've got an impressive list of tried and tested CRM systems.

Keap CRM

Since 2001, Keap CRM has been living the dream of giving entrepreneurs great software to manage their businesses. When it comes to this mission, Keap has definitely performed better than some of its competition.

Keap CRM is also an alternative to Copper CRM that offers email marketing functionality rated higher than that of its competitor. This CRM also comes packed with features that entrepreneurs will find helpful, such as order management.

Keap CRM is rated 4.2 on G2.

Pros of Keap CRM

• A suite of features for founders and entrepreneurs
• Easy-to-use automation capabilities
• User-friendly setup
• Great customer support

Cons of Keap CRM

• Slows down as large volumes of customer data are added
• Ballooning costs due to requiring add-ons for some essential features
• Errors, workarounds, and glitches due to outdated code can be a major headache

Keap CRM Pricing

• Pro: $159 per user per month
• Max: $229 per user per month
• Ultimate: $229 per user per month

Learn more about Keap here.

SugarCRM

SugarCRM aims to equip businesses with a seamless customer journey from marketing to sales, to customer service. As shown by its 3.9 rating on G2, they’re succeeding. But is it a better alternative than Copper?

Compared with Copper, SugarCRM offers significantly more customization. This CRM suite also handles scaling better, which is essential if your business plans to grow.

Pros of SugarCRM

• Robust customization and configuration options
• In-depth reporting and analytics capabilities
• Flexible deployment options (cloud-based or on-premise)
• Great sales pipeline management

Cons of SugarCRM

• Steep learning curve
• Overwhelming amount of UI elements
• High pricing for higher tiers

SugarCRM pricing

• Essentials: $49 per user per month
• Advanced: $85 per user per month
• Premier: $135 per user per month

Learn more about SugarCRM here.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive stands out in the CRM industry as a notably user-centric and powerful platform, and as one of the main Copper CRM alternatives

Pipedrive primarily serves as a sales management tool. It’s useful for companies with an intricate sales process. It shines in mapping out the sales journey, offering clear visibility from the first interaction to deal closure. This clarity is especially useful for business models that involve subscription services and ongoing revenue streams.

Though Pipedrive may not directly offer some standard features like email marketing, it compensates with extensive integration options. This helps connect seamlessly with marketing, customer support, or project management applications. All in all, you’ll have a customized solution that aligns with the specific demands of your business.

The main reason people switch from Copper CRM to Pipedrive is quite simple — Pipedrive doesn’t have an annoying user limit. The ability to use whichever plan you want, with however many team members you have, is temptation enough.

Additionally, Pipedrive comes at a better price point than Copper CRM.

Pros of Pipedrive

• Affordable
• Offers a free trial
• Several third-party integrations
• User-friendly and intuitive interface
• Short learning curve

Cons of Pipedrive

• Only has sales-based functionality
• Lack of integration with email providers
• Lacking workflow automation functionality
• Customer support responses are sometimes slow, according to reviews

Pipedrive CRM pricing

Pipedrive is among the more affordable solutions. There's a 14-day free trial that doesn't require you to enter your card details.

• Essential: $12.50 per user, per month, billed annually
• Advanced: $24.90 per user, per month, billed annually
• Professional: $49.90 per user, per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $99 per user, per month, billed annually

Learn more about Pipedrive here.

Insightly CRM

Insightly is amongst the most popular CRM software for SMBs, with over 1.5 million customers worldwide. It's best suited for enterprise-level companies rather than SMBs based on its feature set.

Nonetheless, Insightly does offer a free plan for up to two users, meaning some small businesses can still benefit from this tool.

People often useInsightly as a Copper CRM alternative because it offers almost double the integrations. This is important, as bringing your tech stack together leads to a more seamless workflow for your team members, as well as better service for customers.

Insightly CRM is rated 4.2 on G2.

Pros of Insightly CRM

• Powerful integrations available
• Organised pipeline management
• Robust contact management
• Lead capture and enrichment functionality
• Automated workflows

Cons of Insightly CRM

• Customisation is complicated and limited
• The UX/ UI might come off as outdated
• Lacks email marketing functionality
• Rather pricey

Insightly CRM Pricing

You can try Insightly CRM for free with Insightly's no-frill plan for two users.

• Plus: $29 per user, per month, billed annually
• Professional: $49 per user, per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $99 per user, per month, billed annually

Learn more about Insightly here.

The Best Copper Alternatives: A Side-by-Side Comparison

We've overviewed the seven best alternatives to Copper CRM in detail. Let's now look at the main things about them.

FAQs

The bottom line

There they are! The best alternatives to Copper CRM. It’s best to opt in for a free trial of a CRM like Copper that interest you most and decide whether you want to switch to it based how comfortable this CRM is to use.

With that in mind, why not start the first free trial just now with NetHunt CRM?

Need an Airtable CRM alternative? Find the best Airtable CRM alternatives, their features, prices, pros, and cons in our guide!

Need more functionality than your Airtable CRM can offer? Know that you need a better alternative than Airtable but don’t know where to start? Can’t decide which Airtable CRM alternatives are worthy of your attention?

In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the top solutions that can boost your business regardless of the size of your company, the industry you operate in, and the teams you want to work in the platform.

Read this guide to find the seven best Airtable competitors, the functionality they offer, their prices, pros, and cons!

Why is the business looking for Airtable CRM alternatives?

Airtable is a versatile cloud-based platform that combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the complexity of a database.

While Airtable isn’t specifically designed for sales and contact management, it can be rather effectively adapted to function as a sales CRM system. To do that, businesses can customize the system themselves or utilize Airtable's templates—either official ones or those created by the Airtable community.

But here’s the catch: while Airtable does offer flexibility and customization, it requires a lot of manual setup and maintenance to achieve the functionality similar to those dedicated Airtable CRM alternatives provide.

Here are some reasons why businesses might seek alternatives to Airtable CRM:

• Low sales productivity due to basic level of automation: Airtable's automation capabilities are basic compared to dedicated Airtable competitors. Businesses might find it challenging to set up complex workflows, automated follow-ups, and advanced triggers that are easily configurable in specialized CRM tools.
• Missed sales opportunities due to scattered data: While Airtable CRM does let you keep data from different sources in a single place, it might be difficult to navigate the database and quickly pull up the details you need.
• Low data quality: Airtable CRM offers limited customization, meaning you can’t always collect all the data your business needs to operate smoothly. Besides, lack of specialized contact management features like data duplicate detection and required fields often lead to incomplete, duplicate data.
• High cumulative cost: Even though Airtable offers affordable pricing plans, it doesn’t offer many built-in integrations needed to run sales and marketing processes. To enable adequate work of the sales and marketing departments, you need to invest in additional tools and integrate it with the system for extra pay.
• Steep learning curve and low CRM adoption rates: Since Airtable requires a lot of manual work and extra maintenance efforts to perform as CRM software, employees might find it challenging to learn how to operate the system and refuse to update it regularly.
• Security concerns and operational inefficiencies in larger teams: Managing detailed user roles and permissions can be less granular in Airtable compared to Airtable CRM alternatives. Besides, if members of your team leave the company, you risk losing the data associated with their seats.
• Lack of visibility into the sales process: Airtable lacks the in-depth analytics and customizable reporting features found in dedicated Airtable CRM alternatives. This can make it difficult for businesses to gain deep insights into sales performance, customer behavior, and overall CRM metrics. This also stalls effective sales team coaching as managers don’t have insights into the activities sales reps engage in on a daily basis.
• Lack of specialized support: Airtable's support, while good, may not be as comprehensive or specialized as the support offered by dedicated CRM vendors who focus solely on sales and customer relationship management solutions.

For businesses with straightforward CRM needs or those that prioritize customization and simplicity, Airtable can be an effective solution. However, for companies requiring comprehensive CRM capabilities, a dedicated alternative to Airtable CRM might be more efficient and scalable.

Top 7 Airtable CRM alternatives

We chose the best Airtable CRM alternatives that offer the important features Airtable lacks, are easy to use, and are cost-effective.

NetHunt CRM

NetHunt CRM offers a robust alternative to Airtable CRM, seamlessly integrating with your Gmail to convert it into a comprehensive CRM platform.

Launched in 2015, NetHunt CRM has gained a reputation for being an efficient CRM solution with lots of positive user reviews. In their reviews on G2 (4.6/5 rating) and Capterra (4.8/5 rating), NetHunt CRM users often highlight its regular updates, excellent customer support, and adaptable nature.

One of NetHunt CRM’s standout traits is how reliable this Airtable competitor is. The system maintains rigorous security protocols, consistently passing the Google Security Assessment every year since 2019 to present days.

Another trust mark that makes NetHunt CRM a better alternative than Airtable is its Cloud Google Partner status.

An interesting thing about NetHunt CRM that places this system on the list of the best Airtable CRM alternatives is its omnichannel outbound sales capabilities. Placed at the heart of Gmail, this CRM system is natively integrated with all the key sales tools — VoIP telephony services, messenger apps, social media platforms like LinkedIn, and Intercom. This allows you to collect leads from various sources, manage sales engagement processes from the CRM interface, and close deals more efficiently.

Some other features of NetHunt CRM that make it a stellar alternative to Airtable CRM are:

• Sophisticated contact management options
• Tools for managing sales pipelines
• Teamwork features that enhance team coordination and productivity, including @mentions, a shared database, and functionality for task management
• Built-in email marketing capabilities
• A full suite of sales automation tools
• Direct links with major platforms like LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Intercom, with additional integrations available via Zapier
• Detailed reporting tools that enable users to generate various types of reports, from sales activity to forecasts
• Mobile application

Best for: NetHunt CRM is versatile, benefiting not only sales teams but also departments like customer support, success, and marketing, ensuring efficient collaboration towards common goals. The system's customizability makes it suitable for businesses of any size, across diverse industries.

💰 Pricing for NetHunt CRM starts with a 14-day free trial that does not require a credit card:

Check pricing

Advantages of using NetHunt CRM include:

• Flexibility and scalability for any business size
• Centralization of communication from various channels
• Extensive native integrations with Google Workspace and social media platforms
• Intuitive user interface for ease of use
• Exceptional customer support
• Quick adaptation for new users with plenty of support during the onboarding period
• Sales automation to enhance productivity and data accuracy
• Cost-effective by reducing the need for additional marketing tools
• Promotes collaboration and increases sales effectiveness through integrated tools

Challenges with NetHunt CRM:

• The mobile application offers fewer features than the desktop version
• Built-in reports don’t go into too much detail
• More advanced features are only available on higher plans

Salesforce

In case you’re looking for Airtable CRM alternatives because your business has grown out of Airtable and is projected to reach an enterprise status, you might want to look into enterprise-level CRM solutions like Salesforce.

Even though it’s difficult to call Salesforce a CRM similar to Airtable—the system is simply incomparable to Airtable—it’s good to have it on the list of the best alternatives to Airtable CRM for those interested in all-encompassing solutions.

Key features of this Airtable CRM alternative:

• Sales Cloud for tracking leads, opportunities, and sales metrics
• Service Cloud to boost customer experience through effective case management and automated services
• Marketing Cloud for designing and monitoring marketing campaigns on different platforms
• Commerce Cloud for developing and overseeing e-commerce operations
• Analytics Cloud for deriving insights using advanced analytics and AI-powered forecasts
• Einstein AI to apply artificial intelligence for predictive analysis and task automation
• AppExchange that provides a large selection of third-party applications and extensions
• Mobile CRM application
• Tools for collaborative work

Best for: Big enterprises, ecommerce businesses.

💰 Salesforce is a prominent player in CRM software, but it comes at a significant cost:

• Starter Suite: $25/user/month
• Pro Suite: $75/user/month
• Enterprise: $150/user/month
• Unlimited: $300/user/month
• Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month

Advantages of Salesforce:

• Provides a wide range of tools for sales, customer service, and marketing
• Highly adjustable to adapt to the specific needs of the organization
• Integrates smoothly with many other systems and applications needed for business operations
• Offers numerous AI-driven features of unmatched quality
• Effectively automates sales from the most basic tasks to the entire sales process
• Ensures strong data security and compliance

Disadvantages of Salesforce:

• High costs
• Requires lots of time and resources to learn and use effectively
• Expert assistance can be needed to set up and customize the system

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a well-known alternative to Airtable CRM that allows its users to manage and optimize sales processes from start to finish.

It provides users with solid sales automation functionality, streamlining repetitive tasks and enhancing sales teams’ productivity. Some of the standout features of this alternative to Airtable CRM include document management functionality, AI-powered tools, and tools for effective project management.

Key features of this Airtable CRM alternative:

• Contact management
• Lead management
• Sales pipeline management
• Sales automation
• Sales reporting, including robust sales forecasts
• Features for email outreach, including AI-powered tools
• Document management
• Advanced project management functionality

Best for: Small to medium-sized enterprises that focus on sales and business development. Pipedrive is a perfect Airtable CRM alternative for companies that need advanced sales automation and require access to granular sales analytics.

💰 You can choose between different subscription plans:

• Essential: $14 per user/month (billed annually) — Offers basic functionality for sales management and limited CRM integrations
• Advanced: $29 per user/month (billed annually)
• Professional: $49 per user/month (billed annually)
• Power: $64 per user/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise: $99 per user/month (billed annually)

Advantages of Pipedrive:

• Customizable to align with specific business operations
• User-friendly interface that eases the adoption process
• Provides immense time savings thanks to automation of routine tasks
• Offers detailed insights into the work of the sales department
• Boosts team efficiency with AI
• Offers a range of built-in and surface-level integrations with different applications
• Allows efficient work of outside sales teams with a well-developed mobile app

Disadvantages of Pipedrive:

• Higher-tier plans are required to access many of the more powerful and desirable features
• While generally flexible, some of the more complex customization options aren’t available
• User permissions aren’t available at the more affordable subscription plans

monday CRM

monday.com CRM is a versatile CRM platform designed to enhance sales processes and team collaboration. With its clean, visual interface, it simplifies the organization of sales pipelines, tracking of customer interactions, and automates repetitive tasks. As a viable alternative to Airtable CRM, monday.com CRM offers tailored workflows, automatic notifications, and integrates smoothly with well-known applications like Gmail, Slack, and Zoom.

Key features of this Airtable CRM alternative:

• Email synchronization and tracking across Gmail and Outlook, as well as bulk email capabilities
• Basic sales automation, such as auto-distributing leads and sending alerts
• Custom dashboards and reporting tools
• Contact management
• AI-enhanced email tools
• Sales pipeline management
• Functionality for sales team operations
• Basic project management tools
• Sophisticated lead management tools
• A mobile application

Best for: Startups and mid-sized companies operating across different markets.

💰monday.com appeals to different businesses with different needs as it comes in four pricing tiers:

• Basic: $12 per seat/month
• Standard: $17 per seat/month
• Pro: $28 per seat/month
• Enterprise: Prices are available upon discussing with monday.com’s sales reps

Advantages of monday CRM:

• Highly customizable to meet specific business requirements
• Supports a range of help options
• Intuitive and easy-to-use interface
• Employs AI to streamline various business operations
• Automates certain sales activities, such as distributing leads and sending updates
• Manages transactions from initial contact through to after-sales
• Assists in organizing and monitoring the sales recruitment process

Disadvantages of monday CRM:

• Supports only specific file types in its file management system
• Each board can hold up to 10,000 contacts
• Switching between the CRM and workflow interfaces can be time-consuming
• The number of automation runs per month is limited
• Limited third-party integrations
• A lengthy learning period

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a prominent player in the CRM software arena, which serves over 216,000 clients in 135 countries. From year to year, HubSpot gets recognized by third-party review platforms like G2, awards, and independent experts as the best CRM for a variety of needs.

As an alternative to Airtable CRM, HubSpot is highly regarded for its no-cost entry point for basic services, with more sophisticated capabilities available through subscription.

Key features of the free version of HubSpot CRM, a Airtable CRM alternative:

• Contact and lead management
• Sales pipeline management
• A database of 20 million businesses for seamless data enrichment
• Email templates and performance insights to optimize sales communications
• AI-powered features
• Live chat functionalities and meeting scheduling tools
• Comprehensive dashboards and reports
• Document management capabilities

Best for: Solo entrepreneurs and small startups looking for a cost-free CRM solution.

💰 You can get started with HubSpot for free but if you want more advanced features or require more seats for your teams, consider paid plans:

• Sales Hub Starter: $15/user/month paid annually
• Sales Hub Professional: $90/user/month paid annually
• Sales Hub Enterprise: $150/user/month paid annually

Advantages of HubSpot CRM:

• Free access to basic features
• Transformable into a comprehensive platform for marketing, sales, customer service, content management, and operations
• Highly scalable to match business growth
• Extensive integration options with other software
• Enables effective team management and performance tracking

Disadvantages of HubSpot CRM:

• Advanced features such as sales automation are reserved for paying customers
• Premium subscription plans can be costly
• Complex and time-consuming setup
• Too many features for startups and small businesses at initial stages
• Restrictions on the number of contacts and email templates available
• Limited options for customization

folk CRM

folk CRM is an emerging solution that stands as a sleek, cutting-edge alternative to Airtable CRM, appealing particularly to those who prefer a modern user interface over old-fashioned Airtable competitors.

Despite being a new player in the market, it can already boast an admirable set of features on offer. Some of the most noteworthy traits of this CRM like Airtable include built-in functionalities for efficient sales engagement.

This Airtable CRM alternative also provides extensive contact management and adaptable pipeline views that enhance deal tracking.

Key features of this Airtable CRM alternative:

• Contact management
• Tools for collaborative work
• Sales pipeline management
• The folkX Chrome extension for social media prospecting, including platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn
• 1-click data enrichment through Apollo
• AI-driven suggestions for email personalization
• Email campaign management
• Integrations with third-party apps via Zapier

Best for: Digital and offline agencies.

💰 folk CRM comes in three different pricing options, with the main difference between them reserved to the number of emails, enrichments, email domains, magic fields, and email members available per month:

• Standard: $20/member/month billed annually
• Premium: $40/member/month billed annually
• Custom: From $60/member/month billed annually

Advantages of folk CRM:

• Bridges the gap between sales and marketing
• Custom pipeline views for better sales tracking
• Boosts team efficiency through sales automation features
• Enhances lead capture and data enrichment processes
• Facilitates targeted communication using AI-driven email customization

Disadvantages of folk CRM:

• Still developing essential CRM functionalities, such as sales reporting
• Customization options within the system are somewhat limited
• Offers fewer integrations compared to other CRM systems
• Data migration processes can be complex
• Lacks user role and permission settings
• Restrictions on the number of allowable actions for features like 1-click enrichment

Notion CRM

Notion serves as an intriguing alternative to Airtable CRM, particularly for those seeking a flexible, cost-effective tool rather than a dedicated CRM system.

Originally designed as an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, project management, and database management, Notion can be transformed into a CRM platform using a variety of templates. These templates range from official ones provided by Notion to innovative designs shared by community creators, all of which enable users to tailor their CRM experience at a relatively low cost.

Key features of this Airtable CRM alternative:

• Tables to manage and organize data
• Customizable templates for basic CRM activities
• Project management functionality
• To-do lists and task assignments
• Documentation management
• Notes, shared files, and mentions for collaborative work
• Custom views like Kanban boards, calendars, or lists
• User permissions to control who can view and edit parts of the CRM
• Mobile application

Best for: Startups, small businesses with one-member teams, individuals.

💰 Just like Airtable CRM, Notion CRM has a cost-free plan for solopreneurs and one-member teams. However, if you want to add more people to your CRM, you will need to invest in a paid plan:

• Team: $8/user/month billed annually
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Advantages of Notion CRM:

• Small learning curve since Notion CRM is similar to Airtable
• Offers extensive customization options
• Combines note-taking, task management, databases, and document storage in one platform, making it easier to manage all aspects of customer relationships and projects without switching between apps
• Can be a more affordable option compared to dedicated CRM systems
• Provides flexibility to access CRM data from anywhere

Disadvantages of Notion CRM:

• Lack of specific CRM functionalities
• Limited, not as seamless as those offered by other Airtable competitors, integrations
• Can sometimes be slow, especially with larger databases or when used extensively
• Deep customization options can pose a steep learning curve for new users
• For businesses with stringent data security and compliance requirements, Notion might not meet all necessary standards that dedicated CRM systems provide

The Best Airtable CRM Alternatives: A Side-by-Side Comparison

To choose the right alternative to Airtable CRM, you need to compare and contrast all the options available to you. Here’s a table of the seven best Airtable CRM alternatives to help:

FAQs

The Bottom Line

Investing in a CRM solution early, even when your business operations are manageable within the constraints of an Airtable CRM, is a strategic move.

Airtable CRM alternatives can help you better manage your sales, marketing, and customer support processes regardless of the size of your business and the industry you work in.

A powerful CRM that doesn’t just accommodate business growth but aids it is NetHunt CRM. Its outbound sales features, advanced automation functionality and top-notch customization potential make NetHunt CRM a great choice for businesses of all sizes across different industries. Explore NetHunt CRM here!

Discover the top 10 Gmail CRM systems that transform your inbox into a powerful customer management tool.

Choosing the best Gmail CRM is more than just a technical decision. It's a strategic move that will impact how you manage leads, track deals, forecast revenue, and scale your operations. What can we say — the choice is important. It’s essential to approach it with care and consideration.

A CRM system that integrates with Gmail can (for sure!) help you sell more. Just look at the results NetHunt CRM’s clients achieved with this Gmail-integrated CRM:

• Recom increased its customer base x5 within 2 years.
• Powerglide saves 60 hours of work a week.
• Web-systems solutions achieved a 10x increase in lead generation efficiency.

Give a try to a fully-fledged Gmail CRM

We've made a list of top CRMs that integrate with Gmail to make it easier for you to decide. To do that, we’ve tested them all to give you an honest verdict. So, what are the best Gmail CRM systems out there? Let’s dive into the list and find out!

The 10 best Gmail CRM for your business

This table compares 10 Gmail CRM options – the level of CRM Gmail integration, key features along with their pros and cons, and pricing.

NetHunt CRM — the Best CRM For Gmail

NetHunt CRM offers the best CRM integration with Gmail. The platform lives inside your Gmail inbox.

Launched back in 2015, NetHunt CRM has quickly become a user-favourite, recognised by awards, badges, and bundles of positive online reviews. It also successfully passes the Google Security Assessment every year.

NetHunt CRM boasts a 4.7 rating on G2 and a 4.8 rating on Capterra.

In fact, NetHunt CRM is currently the best CRM with Gmail integration on these platforms.

NetHunt CRM’s popularity is down to its power and customisation potential. NetHunt offers the level of integration with Gmail you can’t get in any other CRM that works with Gmail, built inside and living in your inbox. NetHunt helps your business organise, automate, and grow without you having to switch tabs regularly. Everything you need is right there.

Unlike some other solutions, NetHunt CRM doesn’t simply focus on helping the sales team. It’s an excellent tool for Customer Support, Customer Success, and Marketing. You can bend the system to fit your exact business needs, taking advantage of many different features…

• Contact management functionality to store and segment contacts
• Multiple sales pipeline management and visualisation
• Collaborative functionality such as tasks, mentions, and shared databases
• Email marketing functionality like bulk emailing, email tracking, custom SMTP, email templates, and reporting
• Integrations with LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger and Intercom for lead generation
• Zapier integration to connect NetHunt CRM with tools that you love
• Sales automation functionality such as automated lead capture, automated task assignment and distribution, and notifications
• Drip campaigns to nurture leads automatically
• Reporting functionality to create different types of reports
• Integration with other Google services like Google Contacts, Data studio, Calendar, Google Drive, and Chat

Pros of NetHunt CRM

✅ A fully-fledged CRM system that integrates with Gmail seamlessly
✅ Extensive sales automation functionality, including lead capture, data entry, email auto-linking, and notifications
✅ Email marketing functionality, including bulk, tracking, templates, and drips
✅ Advanced contact management functionality like duplicate prevention feature
✅ Creation and management of multiple sales pipelines from within Gmail
✅ Integrations with Google Workspace, LinkedIn, Google Contacts, Data Studio, Intercom, and Facebook Messenger
✅ Highly customisable - change anything from the number and names of your folders to every field in the customer record
✅ Easy to navigate and user-friendly
✅ Easy and quick to implement; a short learning curve
✅ Has an amazing, highly-responsive customer success team

Cons of NetHunt CRM

❌ Limited functionality of the mobile app compared to the desktop version
❌ Some advanced features are only available for Business and Advanced subscribers
❌ Currently offers only seven integrations with third-party apps and platforms
❌ Basic reporting functionality

Level of Gmail integration

If you’re looking for a CRM that doesn’t just offer a shy, little sidebar in your inbox, NetHunt CRM should be your first choice. It’s a CRM fully integrated with Gmail, meaning all of the system’s features are accessible from your Gmail inbox, located either above or under the main Gmail menu.

For example, if you receive an email from a potential customer or partner, you don’t have to go anywhere to create a contact in the CRM. You can simply click the NetHunt icon and instantly add the contact as a new record to the database.

All the emails from this contact will be auto-linked to their profile, and you’ll see the entire history of your communication, including emails, documents, notes, and tags in the sidebar as soon as you install this Gmail CRM's Chrome extension.

Extra email tools such as NetHunt CRM’s email templates and email tracking are built-in to your Gmail email composition form.

Advanced NetHunt CRM features such as sales automation functionality are accessible right from your Gmail inbox. You can build and set off elaborate automated workflows to take the hard work out of working hard.

NetHunt CRM Pricing

• Basic: $24 per user per month, billed annually
• Basic Plus: $34 per user per month, billed annually
• Business: $48 per user per month, billed annually
• Business Plus : $68 per user per month, billed annually
• Advanced: $96 per user per month, billed annually

Check pricing

How to download NetHunt CRM for Gmail

Head over to NetHunt’s website and sign up for the 14-day free trial of the system. Then download the Chrome extension from the Chrome Webstore and place the CRM at the heart of your Gmail inbox.

Streak — Full Gmail integration

Streak one of the few CRMs that fully integrates with Gmail currently available on the market. It organises your work, aids collaboration with the team, and prioritises email communications.

Teams can use Streak to take care of a wide range of business processes, from sales and deal flow; to partnerships and hiring. There are 11 ready-made project templates for you to get started with. However, you don’t have to limit yourself to just those templates. It’s easy to customise this CRM to help your exact business with specific tasks and processes.

This CRM platform packs a punch...

• Sales pipeline management helps customise your workflow by using the search, filter, group, and sort functions
• Contact management functionality
• Email marketing functionality including mail merge, email scheduling, view tracking, canned responses, and thread splitter
• Task management functionality
• Smart input types that support all formats such as numbers, text, lists, checkboxes, tags, formulas, and contacts
• Full G-Suite integration

Pros of Streak CRM

✅ Free version
✅ Fully integrated with Gmail
✅ Great email marketing functionality such as mail merge, scheduling, tracking, canned responses, and thread splitter
✅ Easy to use
✅ Works on both mobile and desktop
✅ Integration with G-Suite and Zapier
✅ Basic sales reporting functionality
✅ Creation of tasks reminders

Cons of Streak CRM

❌ Doesn’t allow you to import data directly from a different CRM
❌ For Google accounts, mail merge is limited to 400 emails per day
❌ You’re limited to a single sales pipeline per project
❌ Doesn’t offer sales or email automation
❌ Inbox may feel slower and crowded due to Streak’s clashing colours in the design

Streak is a CRM very well integrated with Gmail. Users can do many different things without leaving their Gmail inbox. With Streak installed on a computer or mobile device, you can directly access information about your pipelines, contacts, and tasks in your inbox.

You can view the sender’s CRM profile alongside an entire interaction history in a Streak sidebar whenever you get an email.

Streak CRM pricing

A limited-functionality version of Streak is available for free.

If you want to access the advanced features of this Gmail CRM integration, you’ll have to pay for either the Pro or Enterprise subscription plans.

• Pro Plan: $49 per user per month annualy. A full-fledged plan for businesses of any size.
• Pro+ Plan: $69 per user per month annualy. Advanced features for businesses that need advanced CRM tools.
• Enterprise Plan: $129 per user per month annualy. For businesses seeking high-level customisation and data validation.

Where to download Streak CRM

If you want to give a try to this CRM integration with Gmail, you can download the Streak extension for Chrome here.

Copper — Gmail sidebar integration

Built with Google Material Design, Copper CRM is a Gmail CRM designed to mimic the look and feel of Google products. Most core features are located outside your Gmail inbox, but everything inside this CRM platform resembles Google design; it’s easy to navigate.

Despite not being fully integrated with Gmail, Copper is one of the best Gmail sidebar CRMs available on the market. Google itself uses and recommends Copper to billions of users.

The Copper CRM Gmail sidebar makes it easy to keep tabs on each contact in your inbox, providing access to the history of the entire relationship between them and you. Every single email you or your reps have exchanged with the contact, all the calls they’ve scheduled and hosted, files, and notes are all stored in one place.

Although only limited functionality of Copper is accessible from within Gmail, this CRM integration with Gmail is still a powerful one. It aids sales productivity through lead and contact management, visualised sales pipeline management, and task management.

The key features of Copper CRM include…

• Lead management functionality, including lead capture and lead scoring
• Sales automation functionality
• Workflow automation
• Sales pipeline management functionality
• Built-in sales analytics
• Email marketing functionality, including email tracking, bulk emails, and templates
• Task management functionality
• High levels of customisation with custom fields, views, activities, and alerts
• Collaborative functionality

Copper CRM is a good choice for teams from anywhere in the world. This Gmail CRM offers users a chance to manage customer relationships in their preferred language - English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, or Italian.

Pros of Copper CRM

✅ Several third-party integrations
✅ Offers sales automation functionality
✅ Highly customisable
✅ Third-party tested and compliant with data privacy laws
✅ Easy to navigate
✅ Superb collaborative functionality

Cons of Copper CRM

❌ Doesn’t let you send email campaigns using HTML email templates
❌ May take a while to save updates
❌ Bulk emails limited to 200 recipients at a time
❌ Basic users are limited to 2500 contacts
❌ Email marketing functionality is only available to Professional and Business subscribers

Level of Gmail integration

The only way in which Copper modifies your Gmail inbox is by adding the Copper panel to the right side of the page. The sidebar functionality is limited compared to the features accessible from the CRM platform itself.

Still, it can help create new contacts in a few clicks, and all Gmail activity is automatically synchronised to Copper through their native Gmail integration. Whenever you click on an email in your inbox, the system automatically pre-creates a new record in the CRM and enriches it with all the data pulled from the email.

If the sender is already a contact in your database, you can use the sidebar to see the entire history of your relationship from the moment they’re added to the system.

Copper CRM pricing

Copper offers a 14-day free trial period; you can sign up for it without a credit card.

• Basic: $25 per user per month when paid annually
• Professional: $59 per user per month, billed annually
• Business: $119 per user per month, billed annually

Where to download Copper CRM

To get started with Copper, sign up for the system on the Copper website, then download and install the browser extension from the Chrome Webstore by following this link.

Hubspot CRM — Gmail sidebar integration

Hubspot is a big name in the CRM world. Millions of users worldwide enjoy this product and use it to grow their business by managing their sales, marketing, and relationships with leads and customers. HubSpot offers Gmail integration, but it is limited.

Hubspot’s Chrome extension places an uber-light version of HubSpot’s portal in your Gmail account. It doesn’t let you access more advanced features without leaving the comfort of your inbox.

HubSpot Gmail CRM integration is designed for essential email marketing and sales optimisation, which is reflected in the key functionality of the Hubspot CRM Gmail integration…

• Customisable email templates
• Automated email outreach
• Simplified meeting scheduling
• Sales pipeline management

Hubspot and its Gmail integration are so popular among the target audience because it’s free. As long as you have a Hubspot account, you can use it at no cost.

Pros of HubSpot CRM

✅ Free version
✅ Several integrations with various third-party tools and apps
✅ Sales automation functionality
✅ Email marketing functionality like tracking, templates, and bulk emailing
✅ Canned snippets
✅ Contact management functionality
✅ Very advanced reporting functionality

Cons of Hubspot CRM

❌ Free version offers limited functionality
❌ Limited level of customisation
❌ Creating contacts inside each deal takes a long time
❌ A relatively long learning curve
❌ Only offers a surface-level integration with Gmail

Level of Gmail integration

Hubspot’s Gmail integration doesn’t change the appearance or capabilities of your Gmail inbox too drastically. Install the extension and log in to your Hubspot account — you’ll see a little Hubspot icon at the top of the page to access some additional tools. Easy.

You can configure the Hubspot extension to automatically log every email you send or receive. The system automatically creates new records in the database for every further contact that lands in your inbox. If you don’t want that to happen, you can turn this setting off or manually list all the addresses or domains you don’t wish to log or track.

If Hubspot already recognises the contact, you can access a quick rundown of all your information about them in the Hubspot portal from the sidebar. This includes About, Deals, Tasks, Timeline, and Tickets associated with the contact.

On top of that, all the tools you’ve set up in your Hubspot portal are available to you in the compose new email field: Templates, sequences, documents, snippets, and all that good stuff. You can check the ‘log’ or ‘track’ boxes in the same tool panel if you want the email you’re composing to be logged or tracked.

The other basic HubSpot features are only available through the HubSpot web app.

HubSpot CRM pricing

There’s a free version of the CRM. If you want to access advanced add-on packages such as Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, or Service Hub, you need to pay The prices start at $45 per month for two users, billed annually.

Where to download HubSpot CRM

If you think Hubspot is the right kind of CRM that works with Gmail for your business, feel free to create an account through the Hubspot portal, sign in to your Hubspot account, and download the extension. You can do it here.

Zoho CRM — Gmail sidebar integration

Founded in 1996, Zoho is one of the most well-known names in the CRM game.

But it’s not old, it’s vintage.

The majority of functionality this Gmail CRM offers is up to date with industry standards and exceeds them. Tech review platforms like Capterra and G2 regularly name Zoho as one of the top performers in the market. They know what they’re doing.

Zoho CRM developers have worked hard to develop a wide selection of different sales, marketing, and customer support functionality. You could say Zoho offers more features than a small or medium business would ever realistically need.

When pondering Zoho CRM as the go-to CRM for your business, it’s worth checking the specific features you’re most interested in work well.

Pros of Zoho CRM

✅ Great customer support available via email, 24/7 assigned rep chat, and live chat
✅ A vast selection of features
✅ Affordable
✅ Scalable
✅ Great reporting
✅ Several integrations with third-party apps and platforms
✅ A free version is available

Cons of Zoho CRM

❌ Low flexibility in customisation
❌ Level of integration is limited
❌ Confusing user interface
❌ A steep learning curve

Level of Gmail integration

The level of Gmail integration Zoho CRM provides is limited.

Zoho is only present in your Gmail inbox as a sidebar, and it doesn’t let you do too much from within the Gmail account. All you can do with the Zoho CRM Gmail extension is create new leads and contacts from Gmail and see the contact CRM context when you open an email.

Zoho CRM pricing

There’s a free version of Zoho CRM with limited functionality. For advanced features, you need to invest in paid subscription plans. They’re pretty affordable!

• Standard: $12 per user per month, billed annually.
• Enterprise: $35 per user per month, billed annually.

Where to download Zoho CRM

Download the Zoho CRM Gmail extension from the Google Workspace Marketplace.

Pipedrive — Gmail sidebar integration

Pipedrive competes with well-known CRM like Salesforce CRM, Hubspot CRM, and Zoho CRM. Having been in the market for a while, this platform has established itself as one of the most user-friendly and robust platforms.

Above anything else, Pipedrive is a sales management tool. It lacks some critical marketing features, including email marketing functionality. This also explains the shallow Gmail integration. Pipedrive only offers a shallow Gmail sidebar integration, but bear with us; this is a  popular CRM platform that could help your business.

The Pipedrive Gmail CRM extension works as a planner and to-do list for its users. It displays all the tasks and activities scheduled for the day when the user logs into the system.

Pros of Pipedrive CRM

✅ Contact management
✅ Task management
✅ An affordable CRM solution
✅ Free trial
✅ Gmail extension works in any browser
✅ Several third-party integrations
✅ User-friendly, intuitive interface

Cons of Pipedrive CRM

❌ Lack of email marketing functionality
❌ Limited Gmail integration features
❌ Workflow automation could be better
❌ Slow customer service responses

Level of Gmail integration

Pipedrive offers a Gmail add-on, placing a Pipedrive sidebar application in your Gmail inbox. The range of CRM processes and tasks you can do from within Gmail is limited to scheduling sales activities, making notes, and quickly adding contacts from Gmail to Pipedrive.

There’s no automatic record creation from incoming emails, but you can manually create new contacts in the CRM. Once a connection already exists in your Pipedrive database, all the subsequent emails from them get automatically linked to the record.

With the Pipedrive CRM Gmail extension, users can access the whole history of relationships with any correspondent in an open email communication thread. That’s full context about the customer or lead you’re dealing with, including all the notes, deals, and activity associated with the contact in question.

You can also add deals, activities, and notes from Gmail via the Pipedrive sidebar.

Pipedrive CRM pricing

Pipedrive is among the more affordable solutions that offer a Gmail CRM integration. There’s a 14-day free trial for you to look around the solution and try out all the core and advanced features it provides. There’s no need to give Pipedrive your credit card details either.

• Essential: $12.50 per user per month, billed annually
• Advanced: $24.90 per user per month, billed annually
• Professional: $49.90 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually

Where to download Pipedrive CRM

Head over to Pipedrive’s website and sign up for the free trial, then download the Gmail extension for your browser here.

Insightly — Gmail sidebar integration

Insightly is a unified customer relationship, sales, and marketing management system for organisations from any industry. It’s amongst the most popular CRM software for Google users, with over 1.5 million worldwide. Insightly is the best Gmail CRM suited for large enterprises, rather than small or medium-sized businesses. We can conclude from the functionality and pricing plans the platform offers.

Nonetheless, Insightly offers a plan that is free for two users. That means early-stage startups can find Insightly helpful too.

Although not fully integrated with Gmail, the Insightly sidebar application is powerful enough to score this CRM system on the list of the best Gmail CRM systems. It’s great for contact management, lead generation, and task management.

Pros of Insightly CRM

✅ Powerful Gmail sidebar integration
✅ Free for two users
✅ Sales pipeline management
✅ Contact management
✅ Lead capture and enrichment

Cons of Insightly CRM

❌ Customisation is a bit complicated
❌ The UX/ UI of the platform is outdated
❌ On the pricier side
❌ Lacks email marketing functionality

Level of Gmail integration

The Gmail CRM power of Insightly is stored within a Gmail sidebar that’s added to your Gmail account upon downloading a browser extension. Once you log in to your Insightly CRM, you’ll find a pretty impressive light version of the tool within your Gmail inbox.

You can search different records within your Insightly database from the sidebar inside your Gmail inbox and access their complete profiles.

There’s also a Tasks tab in the sidebar, where you can see open or imminent tasks. You can also create new tasks right out of Gmail. Hovering your pointer over the functions in Insightly’s sidebar, you’ll be able to access all the necessary information related to that task.

You can create contacts in the CRM directly from incoming emails by clicking the Create Contact button in the sidebar. Insightly CRM automatically pulls all the relevant information about the contact and enriches their newly-created record. You can then use the Insightly sidebar to create an Opportunity or Project associated with that record. Everything relevant is linked to that contact in the database.

With the Insightly Gmail add-on, you can link incoming and outgoing emails to any contact or deal in the database.

Insightly CRM Pricing

You can try Insightly CRM for free with Insightly's original, no-frills plan for two users.

• Plus $29 per user per month, billed annually
• Professional $49 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise — $99 per user per month, billed annually

Where to download Insightly CRM

Sign up on Insightly’s website and download the Insightly Gmail CRM extension from the Chrome Webstore.

Salesmate — Gmail sidebar integration

Launched back in 2016, Salesmate has established a strong market presence. Since then, it has quickly developed into a well-known, feature-packed Gmail CRM solution.

Salesmate devs have hopped on all the latest CRM trends and created a CRM system that offers a wide range of features. This platform helps manage and automate business processes with features for every department in a business. Salesmate integrates with several third-party apps.

One of the most prominent Salesmate integrations is its integration with Gmail, turning the system into a Gmail CRM.

Pros of Salesmate

✅ 2-way sync between Salesmate and Gmail
✅ Email marketing functionality; bulk emailing, tracking, and templates
✅ Contact management
✅ Email marketing automation
✅ Affordable
✅ 15-day free trial
✅ Several native integrations with third-party apps
✅ Zapier integration
✅ Quickbook integration helps keep up with accounting from Gmail

Cons of Salesmate

❌ Gmail CRM extension can slow the loading speed of your inbox
❌ Sales reports are sometimes hard to read
❌ Daily send-limit for emails
❌ No mobile app available

Level of Gmail integration

The Salesmate Gmail extension adds a Salesmate sidebar to your Gmail inbox.

As soon as you log in, you’ll see the Activity widget of Salesmate CRM full of filtered views and favourites. If your list of views is too long to navigate by scrolling, use the search bar to find the view you’re interested in. The Sort icon allows you to sort all the activities by different criteria. By clicking the hamburger menu, you can change the active view in the sidebar to Contacts, Companies, or Deals.

The Quick Action button at the top-right of the Salesmate sidebar helps users add new contacts, companies, activities, deals, and more to Salesmate CRM from Gmail.

Clicking on any email in your Gmail inbox, if the contact is present in your Salesmate database, all the contact information such as details, insights, timeline, related, and apps will be displayed on the preview screen. You can edit or update fields.

If the contact isn’t saved in the system, Salesmate Gmail CRM integration will give you a chance to create a new record from the email. The system will automatically capture some details.

You can compose emails to records in your CRM or enroll them to sequences from the Gmail Salesmate sidebar. The system allows you to automatically log emails sent and received, track emails, and use email templates stored in your Salesmate account.

If you'd like to learn more about Salesmate, check out our newest article about how this CRM compares to Pipedrive.

Salesmate CRM pricing

Salesmate offers a 15-day free trial of both their plans.

• Starter: $12 per user per month, billed annually.
• Growth: $24 per user per month, billed annually.

Where to download Salesmate CRM

Go to Salesmate’s website to set up an account, then install the Salesmate Gmail CRM extension from the Chrome Webstore.

Nutshell — Gmail sidebar integration

Launched back in 2010, Nutshell currently serves thousands of businesses worldwide and has been frequently named a top CRM for both user-friendliness and affordability. It’s also been on the G2’s radar for every quarter since Fall 2020.

Nutshell is a CRM solution best known for its powerful but simple interface. It takes no longer than a couple of minutes to set up, and there are no slowdowns or complicated workflows to wrap your head around. Nutshell is easy.

Nutshell CRM finds a perfect balance between sales and marketing tools, offering extensive functionality for both departments. It’s particularly well-known for its advanced email marketing features.

Pros of Nutshell CRM

✅ Easy to navigate; intuitive interface
✅ Has a short learning curve
✅ Budget-friendly Gmail CRM option
✅ Advanced email marketing functionality, including bulk emailing, sequences, segmentation, and tracking
✅ Fast and professional support from the customer service department
✅ Free 14-day trial
✅ Sales automation

Cons of Nutshell CRM

❌ Lacks native integrations
❌ Not as customisable as competitors
❌ No bulk contact deletion
❌ Limited mobile app functionality
❌ Can’t create new records from emails

Level of Gmail integration

Nutshell isn’t fully integrated with Gmail, but the Nutshell Gmail sidebar might be enough for startups and small businesses. With the extension, whenever you click on an email from someone who’s already in your database, the Nutshell Gmail sidebar visualises CRM data about them. You can also edit records out of your Gmail inbox.

You can view upcoming tasks and activities for the contact and even create a new task saved in your CRM right from Gmail. The sidebar makes it easy to view any open or won leads associated with your contact as well as recent timeline items. Finally, you can choose to share or hide email threads or individual emails with Nutshell.

Nutshell CRM pricing

Nutshell offers a 14-day free trial.

• Starter: $20 per user per month, billed annually.
• Pro: $42 per user per month, billed annually.

Where to download Nutshell CRM

Head to Nutshell’s website, then download the extension from the Chrome Webstore.

Capsule CRM — Gmail sidebar integration

Capsule CRM has only recently entered the CRM software market and has already scored itself a spot amongst the best CRM for Gmail.

It’s simple, affordable, and versatile. It’s perfect for startups and small businesses that are just getting started with CRM and who need to invest in a solution that would let them bend it around their specific needs. Capsule CRM is highly-customisable.

Moreover, it has a wide range of different integrations that can make the CRM more marketing or sales-centric.

And, of course, it’s integrated with Gmail.

Pros of Capsule CRM

✅ Simple, mobile-friendly interface
✅ Available in the Gmail app
✅ Dedicated customer support team
✅ Pro subscribers can access integrations such as Zapier, Mailchimp, and Zendesk
✅ Affordable
✅ 30-day free trial
✅ Highly customisable, flexible CRM system

Cons of Capsule CRM

❌ Free version is capped at 250 contacts
❌ Free version doesn’t offer any integrations
❌Can’t add data tags in bulk

Level of Gmail integration

While not fully integrated with Gmail, the Capsule CRM Gmail sidebar gets the job done. It stores and tracks email conversations with leads and customers without you having to leave the inbox.

You can also use the Gmail add-on to add new contacts, tasks, cases, and opportunities into your Capsule CRM database. Whenever a new email pops into your inbox, you can add the sender either as a new person or a new organisation.

Capsule CRM pricing

There’s a 30-day free trial period with no credit card required.

• Professional: $12 per user per month, billed annually.
• Teams: $24 per user per month, billed annually.
• Enterprise: $36 per user per month, billed annually.

Where to download Capsule CRM

Head over to the Capsule's website, create an account, and then download the extension from the Chrome Webstore.

What is a Gmail CRM?

Gmail CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a tool or extension integrated with Gmail that helps users manage and track their customer interactions, leads, and sales processes directly from their email inbox. It streamlines communication by organizing contacts, automating follow-ups, and providing insights into customer behavior, making it easier to maintain and grow relationships without leaving the Gmail interface.

With the best CRM for Gmail, users can...

• Send and receive emails in CRM
• Create new sales opportunities from incoming and outgoing emails
• Link emails to CRM records
• See whether they receive emails from existing or potential customers

The most well-integrated solutions extend their functionality further, letting you build sales pipelines and reports, automate the sales process, and set up drip campaigns from your Gmail inbox itself.

Further reading: What is a CRM? The complete guide

Benefits of a Gmail CRM: Do you really need a CRM that integrates with Gmail?

There are a bunch of benefits associated with a CRM that integrates with Gmail...

• CRM with Gmail integration allows users to manage their conversations with leads and customers directly from CRM. This makes email management more efficient
• Sales and customer support teams have a better shot at managing relationships with leads, partners, and customers. CRM software that integrates with Gmail centralises communication from different channels
• CRM integrated with Gmail spares sales team time from monotonous work. Data is updated automatically, drastically increasing the productivity and effectiveness of employees
• It reduces response times as sales reps can promptly reply to messages or send follow-ups from a single platform
• The best CRM for Gmail reduces the risk of errors and missing information. No details fall through the cracks; all email correspondence is automatically saved
• Integrate CRM with Gmail enables easier collaboration between teams, allowing it to share Gmail information right through the CRM system

Must-have features of Gmail CRM software

To make your search for the best Gmail CRM for your business more efficient, it’s essential to create a list of must-have (and nice-to-have) features you’re most interested in getting.

• The level of the CRM Gmail integration. Is a sidebar and manual data update enough for you? Or would you like to use a tool that lives inside every Google Workspace app? Would you like to have access to CRM records from Calendar events or send pipeline updates to Google Chats?
• Email marketing features. Send mass email campaigns from Gmail to the whole audience or just a segment thereof. Then, track your emails to know exactly when they’re opened, whether the links are clicked, and whether attachments are downloaded. It can help you prioritise follow-ups and gauge your email campaign's success.
• Email templates. Save time and maintain consistency by creating and using pre-written email templates stored in your CRM software that integrates with Gmail. It's handy for repetitive emails like welcome messages, follow-ups, and meeting requests.
• Automated lead capture and contact management. Automatically capture leads and customer data from emails and web forms. It saves time and ensures that no potential leads fall through the cracks. Then, manage all your contacts in one place, including their contact details, email history, notes, and tags. A CRM with Gmail integration that offers this functionality makes it easier to personalise your communication and improve customer relationships.
• Integration with other apps. A CRM that integrates with Gmail is excellent, but your business likely has more solutions in your tool stack — you need to find a Gmail CRM that integrates with them. Seek a system that offers integrations with Google apps, Slack, LinkedIn, Zapier, and more.
• Analytics and reports. Gain insights into your team's email performance and effectiveness with analytics and reports. A CRM for Gmail that offers reporting functionality will help you make data-driven decisions and improve your email strategy over time.

Get a Gmail CRM today — it could just change your business!

How to prevent feelings of isolation & alienation in team members working from home.

With the push to return to office, there is still a large amount of businesses that remain working remotely. The question is how do we keep our teams motivated and productive while individuals face isolation while working in this manner?

The post-pandemic workforce now has three methods of models of working - office-based, remote, and hybrid which consists of both office and remote working. Each method has its own pros and cons and in addition, many people are suited to thriving while working under the different models.

Despite this, the remote model can still feel isolating to staff as there is no real-time banter and ways to connect with other staff members apart from the occasional video calls and discussions relating to projects that the company is working on.

In this article, we look at ways to help staff members connect with each other, and in turn, boost team morale and collaboration that aid in the productivity of the workforce.

Emphasize communication

Remote teams rely on technology to function, and with the advancements in technology that is no problem at all. However, despite relying on technology solely, it is important for company leaders to emphasize the importance of human interaction even more. Otherwise, staff ends up feeling alienated, and unable to effectively reach out when they need to.

Importance of achieving results

Achieving goals and objectives is the bread and butter of businesses. This is how they function and acquire income to operate. This is why setting clear goals for individual team members is important. Emphasize how each person’s objectives are important to the success of the team as a whole.

Setting out KPI

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the goals required for each member. By communicating this to team members, everyone will know exactly what is expected of them. Have a meeting with your team and discuss it with them, and follow this up by providing a hard copy of the expected results, so they can measure their own progress as well. Review the KPIs every so often, so that team members will know whether they are on track.

Clear communication

Have team meetings relatively often so that members can check in provide progress updates and communicate any issues. By having a constant line of communication open, the team will be more inclined to reach out first when they face any setbacks and issues with reaching their results.

Tools that promote productivity

Finding tools that work well in tandem with your team is a trial-and-error process at first, but once you have the tools that work, curate a master list of tools that all employees should acquire once they are onboarded.

List of tools that will help the team

• Online cloud: This storage space can be used to keep documents, project trackers, and different kinds of tools. It needs to be easy for staff to access them from wherever they are based.
• Chat tools: This will provide a means to communicate with each other in real-time , without having to experience delays due to timezones and other extenuating circumstances. Be sure to also include tools that facilitate video conferencing — the face to face communication can make a world of difference.
• Project management tools: This can include tools that help staff with their day-to-day work. This can include project management software, tools to track the progress of campaigns, and CRM software.

Provision of tools

Many of these tools cost, and require company profiles to work at their best. This would mean that you need to create company profiles for the various software and tools, and then provide company-linked accounts to your staff. This way you can oversee progress and team members won’t have to pay out of pocket for software and tools.

Learning and development

Your staff comes in with the necessary skills and experience required to do their jobs sufficiently. But as time goes on, job requirements change and improvements are required. Having a learning and development structure in your company allows your team to keep abreast with industry trends and provides them with the means to provide exceptional results.

This also aids career and succession planning, which helps map out staff's future plans, and how the company's growth will be facilitated by individual growth.

Feedback and support

This goes hand-in-hand with providing clear communication to staff members. In addition to providing KPIs, you need to update teams with progress on the projects and campaigns that are being worked on. You can also give team members individual feedback on their progress and fine-tune it so that optimal results are achieved.

What to do when an employee is falling behind

In the event that a team member is not quite hitting the mark on their KPIs, you need to be able to conduct a video call with them one-on-one to discuss what is causing the disruptions. Allow them to provide reasons as to why they are struggling, and follow up by providing insight and advice to get them back on track. Work together to find actionable solutions and allow them to give options on how they can perform better moving forward. This way there is accountability and efforts being made by the staff with guidance and assistance from team leaders.

Motivating your teams

One of the best forms of motivation is to ignite some healthy competition between staff members. To do this without creating animosity, you can highlight some of the exceptional wins made by team members or have ‘employee of the month’ incentives. This will push them to go the extra mile with their work.

Emphasize work-life balance

Coined during the pandemic’s work-from-home era, a healthy work-life balance ensures that your staff are working efficiently while also prioritizing their mental health. Make sure staff take their breaks during the day, switch off when not working, and keep work life separate from home life.

Team building

Team-building activities are still very doable despite the team not physically working in the same space. There are several companies that provide team-building services for remote teams, and there are ways you can come up with your own activities to strengthen team relationships. That’s not all, try to make time for teams to hop on a call together get to know each other better in general, and have fun with each other.

Conclusion

Working remotely can be an isolating experience. When you work in an environment like this, it is important to find ways to improve collaboration between team members. Not only will it foster relationships between staff members, but it will also emphasize the importance of teamwork even if they are physically oceans apart.

Explore handpicked, proven sales tools designed to turbocharge revenue growth in your sales activities.

In the fast-paced world of sales, leveraging the right tools can be the difference between meeting your revenue goals and surpassing them. This is why sales professionals are always on the lookout for the best sales software that meets the dynamic nature of the industry.

Choosing the right sales tools can be daunting given the vast options available. At NetHunt, we’re here to support you through these decisions. Drawing from our extensive experience, we’ve compiled a list of top sales tools, categorized to support every stage of your sales process from start to finish.

This article is your comprehensive guide to the best sales tools available this year. From sales CRM systems to outreach and sales engagement platforms, these tools are equipped to give your sales team a competitive edge.

Let’s dive in!

What are the sales software tools and why businesses need them

B2B sales tools are applications specialised to handle the sales processes of B2B companies. These tools could be used for a variety of things, such as task tracking, sales performance monitoring, and data analytics. If you’re a business that sells to other businesses, equipping yourself with B2B sales tools is a matter of staying competitive in today's market.

The primary benefit of sales software tools is automation. This reduces the time spent on repetitive tasks, allowing sales teams to focus on strategic planning and relationship building with potential clients. Tools like CRM systems automate processes such as lead capture, nurture, and outreach. This ensures thorough follow-through on every potential deal, and leaves little room for human-error.

Moreover, sales software helps businesses with:

1) Finding new sales opportunities, like identifying and gathering leads from various sources, quailying them, ensuring that sales teams focus on high-potential prospects, engaging with leads, etc.

2) Saving time and reaching a wider audience, like sending personalized email campaigns to a large number of prospects simultaneously, monitoring social media interactions to identify potential leads, Automate posting and engagement on social media platforms to reach a broader audience, etc.

3) Workflow automation, such as data entry, follow-ups, and scheduling meetings, sending notifications and reminders.

To sum up, sales software tools are essential for modern businesses looking to optimise their sales processes, enhance efficiency, and improve collaboration. These tools enable sales teams to close a greater number of deals more effectively and consistently.

Top 50 tools for sales representatives

Here they are, the top 50 tools for sales reps, neatly organized into categories. Each tool has been selected for its ability to enhance productivity, streamline processes, and boost sales performance. Without further ado, let’s dive into the list.

Sales Automation

NetHunt is a sales automation tool that lives inside Gmail. NetHunt turns your favourite email service into a powerful and fully-customisable CRM system. The platform has a visually intuitive interface and a short learning curve.

Workflows are automated and the bulk email feature allows users to send mass, pre-templated, segmented marketing campaigns straight out of a Gmail inbox. It is an intuitive, flexible system with native integrations to LinkedIn, Intercom, and Sales Navigator for maximum lead generation and enrichment featurability.

• Set up drip campaigns and email sequences to nurture leads
• Capture webform leads and pop them in your CRM enriched with data
• Automatically link email conversations to client profiles
• Have an algorithm move a lead to the next stage based on the lead’s response
• Set alerts for noteworthy events with leads and customers
• Automate data entry from emails, LinkedIn, Intercom conversations or Facebook chats.

Sender is a robust marketing automation solution designed to ignite your email and SMS marketing. It has a powerful automation workflow builder for setting up automated lead nurturing, follow-up, and engagement campaigns.

Its simple and intuitive UI allows you to run omnichannel campaigns across email and SMS. There are a lot of useful features like a built-in popup builder, a drag-and-drop email builder with ready-to-use templates, smart segmentation capabilities, behavioral automation, and much more.

Sender is probably the most affordable marketing automation tool in the market; therefore, it won’t cost you a lot of money, but it’ll definitely help you grow your business rapidly.

• Omnichannel campaign creation and automation across email and SMS channels.
• Automate pre-defined sequences, welcome emails, and drip campaigns.
• Segment your email list based on behavior, online activity, and other parameters for deep personalization.
• Automation builder to automate lead nurturing based on pre-defined triggers, activity, engagement, or behavior.
• Integrates with all major CRM, marketing, and eCommerce solutions.
  

Novocall is a holistic call management software that automates your sales call processes. With a suite of call management features such as callback automation, outbound calling, call tracking, and call scheduling, the software aims to improve customer engagement and reduce lead response times.

Better Proposals helps you automate the way you create, send and manage business proposals. Create beautiful proposals that convert within 15 minutes and let your customers sign and pay them immediately from the proposal. Choose from 100+ proposal templates for different industries and over 40 integrations with popular CRMs and other sales tools.

Sales.Rocks is an all-in-one sales automation platform based on a huge business database to provide SDRs and AEs with a 360° view of their target and existing accounts to ensure higher CvR and ROI.

• Email Warmer to avoid the spam folder, increase your email reputation & deliverability;
• Prospecting using filtering system to narrow down your ICP with 50 different data points;
• Multi-channel automated outreach via Drip Campaign (LinkedIn & Email);
• Hyper-Personalized outreach to ensure reply rates of up to 45%.

This is a  tool for automating email marketing campaigns. This tool pretty much has everything you need to boost your email campaign performance, such as building and segmenting contact lists, sending professional targeted emails, even tracking and analyzing customer behavior. What’s more, drag-and-drop features and drop-down menus make it easier for even new users with minimal training to build an effective campaign.

Process Street is a workflow documentation software. The intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it simple for anyone to start documenting their sales processes in minutes. This process documentation gives greater control and visibility to team members, improving consistency and accountability.

Use Process Street’s Approvals feature to assign, reject and approve documentation and tasks automatically, within seconds.

• Set up automatic task reminders using Process Street’s Dynamic Due Dates feature.
• Use Process Street’s Conditional Logic feature to automatically adapt your workflows to your unique circumstance.
• Communicate with other applications at the click of a button from within a Process Street workflow.

Account-Based Sales and Marketing

Nowadays, companies are trying to win larger deals on accounts of their ideal customer profile. This is where Demandbase helps salespeople by finding lookalike accounts to your best existing customers, nurture leads, reactivate, retarget, and upsell. Demandbase’s ABM Analytics helps users to understand which marketing campaigns work best to reach target accounts and provides insight into which accounts have the highest engagement and opportunity for growth.

The software goes beyond the accounts and lets you target specific relevant people. Knowing your target persona, Influ2 allows you to run ads with personalised messages relevant to the person’s job function or area of expertise. Track all the intent signals on a person-to-person basis, prioritise the most effective messages for particular accounts, and identify sales-ready targets by behavioural scoring.

Terminus offers detailed first- and third-party data to create a segmented list of accounts and start running tailored campaigns. Terminus let you run campaigns where your audience spends time - on social media, the web, or their inbox. Website personalisation, account-based chat, LinkedIn stream, custom email signatures - everything is possible within the tool.

Using Datanyze, the sales team can evaluate the software environment of the prospect to create personalised engagement through the right channels. To find your target accounts, Datanyze has more than 200 data points on 35M global companies. With the help of data enrichment functionality, salespeople can qualify leads faster and convert them at a higher rate.

Lead Generation

Intercom is an all-in-one tool for customer communication that allows users to chat with leads, engage them, and convert into paying customers. Besides, with intercom, you may send push notifications, in-app messages, and send targeted emails sequences. Run A/B tests and see which messages perform better to engage your prospects.

Apart from the live chat and chatbot, Intercom can be used as a platform to create the knowledge base for your product.

To mention, Intercom is integrated with some CRM systems, NetHunt in particular, so all the communication in Intercom chats can be linked to the CRM user records. That’s a perfect solution for conversational customer experience.

Crunchbase is the leading destination for company insights from early-stage startups to the Fortune 1000. It is the platform where you can discover innovative companies, connect with the people behind them, and pursue new opportunities. There are over 55 million professionals —including entrepreneurs, investors, market researchers, and salespeople.

LeadGen App is a form-builder that easily creates user-friendly online forms to receive more responses in lead generation campaigns.It enables creating enticing Multi-step forms, also called multi-page or wizards that are a great way to generate leads and collect customer data. Multi-step forms can be used for many different goals: Winning new leads, qualifying leads, running surveys, collecting applications and more.

Acquire helps you target your ideal prospects, automates the lead generation, and converts visits into sales. On top of that, it allows you to set up the right web chat messages to fire off at the right time by utilizing sales chatbots to increase the chances of getting qualified leads while your team is offline.

Poptin is a user-friendly tool that helps eCommerce websites, enterprises, and digital agencies convert more visitors into email subscribers, leads, and customers. It enables users to create engaging pop ups and embedded forms even without prior coding experience. Its feature-packed popup builder includes exit-intent technology, premade templates, smart triggers, targeting rules, A/B testing, and analytics.

Finteza is an advanced analytics solution that provides a detailed analysis of all your marketing data you need in one place to run your business from A to Z. The tool allows you to measure traffic quality in real-time, build and analyze conversion funnels, A/B testing, create detailed and intuitive audience reports, and launch your advertising campaigns. With Finteza, you can easily save your advertising budget, increase conversion rates, create effective ads in your location, and control advertising returns. Finteza is better suited for business owners, marketing specialists, enterprises, UX specialists, webmasters, and content managers.

ProProfs Survey Maker is a must-have lead generation tool that helps you understand the behaviour of your potential customers. By editing and sharing the readymade survey templates, you can monitor the purchase intent of your online consumers.

Use ProProfs Survey Maker to:

• Access twenty versatile question types
• Personalize your survey with brand logos
• Share surveys through email, social media, website, link sharing, and more
• Research your target audience & generate reports

Qualaroo provides a complete CRO and lead generation structure under one roof, making it a one-stop solution for all your marketing strategies. Deploy personalized surveys to understand your visitors and, at the same time, embed lead forms in them to capture leads.

It offers a variety of features to create and analyze surveys, such as pre-built templates, question branching, advanced targeting options, multi-channel deployment, multi-lingual support, AI-based sentiment analysis for data mining, and more.

CallHippo is a virtual phone system provider. It enables the users to make and receive calls via laptop or any mobile device. It supports more than 85 integrations like zendesk, zapier, shopify and many more, making it easy to connect with other  business tools. It has got features like power dialer, global connect, call tracking, call analytics which makes it one of the helpful tools for your sales team.

Email Finders

Hunter is a tool that helps to find email addresses behind any domain in seconds along with scoring. The has the filters to search for generic or personal emails. Every email address has public sources you can check along with the last discovery dates.

ContactOut finds personal email and phone numbers on top of LinkedIn profiles. It works as a Chrome extension. Using ContactOut, you have access to the dashboard with all your saved leads in one place, allowing you to organize them in dedicated folders and share them with teammates.

FindThatLead helps to find business emails of new leads at any given company using just their first names, last names and website names. It uses advanced algorithms to quickly verify an email. It also helps you build a targeted campaign and send it to your leads with performance analytics.

Simply input your search criteria and their email extractor will provide a list of names with corporate emails, position, LinkedIn profile URL, company name, industry, website and much more.

Sales Intelligence Tools

Zoominfo maximizes productivity of B2B salespeople by finding new information on company's contacts. It captures leads that visit your website, build segmented audiences to run outreach campaigns. The tool offers a combination of professionals' and company's data. Overall, it helps to identify the most targeted accounts that match your Ideal Customer Profile.

Leadfeeder identifies the companies that visit your website, how they got there, their behavior, and their purchasing intent. It also shows the industry breakdown which helps companies to adjust their company and make sure they target proper audience. Leadfeeder also helps to determine the best person to contact from a visiting company.

Clearbit catches the visitors of your website and transforms anonymous website sessions into actionable data and potential leads. Clearbit shows individuals and companies that visit your rand website with attributes like company size, industry, and employee details along with job changes.

Sales Engagement

Apollo.io is a comprehensive sales engagement platform that enhances your outreach strategy by providing detailed insights into your prospective clients. It offers tools for finding and verifying email addresses, building targeted contact lists, and conducting multi-channel sales campaigns that include emails, calls, and social selling. The platform also integrates with several CRMs, streamlining your sales process and improving efficiency.

Outreach is the market-leading sales engagement platform, helping you track, pace, analyze and automate your email and voice messages to your customers. Outreach helps to create sequences with a series of touch points to drive higher engagement with prospects and customers.

SalesLoft is a sales engagement tool that onboards customers, drives them through adoption and automates renewals. SalesLoft tracks engagement and website interactions, syncing activity with the appropriate CRM contact and account records. With SalesLoft you can identify at-risk customers, trigger actions to connect and schedule calls with customers who need extra support. The tool helps to improve retention and drive strategic growth.

Mailshake is a sales engagement and automation tool that aims at building sales outreach sequences with email, phone, and social media. Personalise cold emails at scale, automate follow ups, integrate phone dialer, engage with prospects via social media and check aggregated analytics in a single dashboard.

Yesware is an easy-to-use service that plugs into your email client, syncs with CRM, and provides in-depth analytics on how to best engage prospects at every stage of the sales pipeline.

Used standalone, or in combination with CRM systems, VanillaSoft empowers sales reps to respond to new leads within seconds, interact with leads more consistently, across more channels, and generate more qualified sales opportunities. VanillaSoft’s lead prioritization engine serves up the next best lead automatically based on your ideal profile, intent data, and cadence schedule. VanillaSoft’s cadence serves up the right lead at the right time, resulting in substantial gains in speed-to-lead, persistency, productivity, and revenue-per-rep.

Groove is a sales engagement platform that improves productivity by automating time consuming tasks such as email logging, outbound call logging, activity capture, and meeting scheduling without data latency or sync errors. They offer a 120-day free trial. Whoa!

Bloobirds is a sales engagement + playbook platform that guides SDRs and closing reps to convert more prospects into customers. It partners your existing CRM. Bloobirds sits on top of it to make it more functional for the sales team.

It eliminates admin tasks, makes selling more intuitive and makes sure reps follow best plays with the in-app playbook's help. Bloobirds helps sales teams flow through their pipeline, it also collects crucial data and creates competitive insights.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Hubspot is a good choice for growing teams, who want to save time on logging and maintaining customer data. Pipeline management, full context of customer communication on the left hand sidebar, leads and deals - these and more are possible to manage within the tool. Hubspot has a forever-free plan with limited functionality. Alongside CRM, it offers accompanying free products as website forms, email signature, live chat, meeting scheduler. Marketers can benefit from landing pages builder, ad management, reporting, etc.

Insightly is a simple CRM solution for small businesses. Insightly is, first and foremost, built as a tool for managing leads and their journey through the sales funnel. Insightly’s other strengths include its potential as a project management resource and its comprehensive marketing dashboard that offers full insight into the successes and failings of marketing campaigns.

Pipedrive is designed for salespeople to stay laser-focused on the right deals. The tool helps to prioritize deals, track performance and forecast revenue. Pipedrive lacks, however, some marketing features. While using Pipedrive, you have a customised reports to get insights into your sales and business processes. You may access the system from the mobile and integrate it with other sales tools that you use daily. They state they are used by over 90,000 companies.  

Here's how Pipedrive compares to Salesmate, another great tool for sales.

Zoho is a fully-customizable CRM solution for growing teams and enterprises. It’s a simple, yet effective CRM system that empowers salespeople with management of the sales cycle, from lead generation to after-sales activities. It integrates with landline telephony, live chat, email, and social media to connect with the customers wherever they are. They have also developed a Home-Office toolkit that makes the work from home easier.

Freshsales offers a lightweight CRM solution for SMBs that want to simplify their sales process. As expected from the CRM system, it has the functionality of contacts and deals management, lead scoring, sales pipeline visualization, and sales reporting. Sales reps can also benefit from contract-renewal alerts, deduplication functionality, and alerts for deals that require attention. The software is available in more than 30 languages.

Contract Management

The tool that helps companies connect and automate how they prepare, sign, act on, and manage agreements. DocuSign offers eSignature which allows salespeople to send contracts and other documents and get them back signed the same day. It makes this back and forth collaboration easier. It satisfies legal requirements for storage.

HelloSign is an affordable and easy-to-use eSignature tool. It helps to eliminate any paper-based contracts and makes the documents get signed fast. You can easily customise signature request by adding your brand logo and personalized message. It provides the non-editable audit trail with the proof of document access, review, and signature.

PandaDoc is an all-in-one document automation software to streamline the process to creation, approval, and eSign proposals, quotes, and contracts. It provides custom-designed themes, templates, and embedded rich media into the proposals, quotes, and contracts.

Adobe Sign is a document platform with the e-signing solution that turns an existing signing process into 100% digital workflow. With Adobe Sign, you can automate signing and approvals across your entire organization. It has both a web version and mobile app.

Sales Educational Resources

It's a media for B2B sales professionals containing articles, podcasts, webinars, as well as the community to discuss the most burning questions happening in the sales world. They have a high level of the content as it is created by the sales professionals who share first-hand experience.

TheSalesBlog posts daily sales tips and tricks written by the sales leader, Anthony Iannarino. It also has other resources like podcasts, e-books, infographics, and newsletters.

JB Sales is a learning hub for sales professionals created by John Barrows. It has a blog, sales podcast with invited sales rockstars and live events like webinars and Q&A sessions to discuss sales topics from lead qualifications to strategies to close more deals faster.

Richard Harris and Scott Leese united to host a series of sales podcasts. It’s a podcast where they share their own life experiences, real-world job experiences, and what they see sales reps and leaders do right, and equally important do wrong so you don't have to. Occasionally, they also share surf stories as well.

It is a blog created by Joanne Black for sales people who want to learn referral selling. In her blog, Joanne Black helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners build their referral networks so they can quickly attract more business, decrease operating costs, and ace out the competition every time.

It goes beyond the basics of using LinkedIn (although we can incorporate best practices from our LinkedIn for Business Professionals Workshop) and focuses on how to strategically use LinkedIn as a part of the sales process. This program includes advanced strategies, tips and tricks that will take your LinkedIn effectiveness to the next level.

Want to suggest a tool worth adding to this extensive list? Drop me a few lines at a.pozniak@nethunt.com and I’ll review it.

Discover the best practices for cold outreach and boost business development

Cold outreach plays a critical role in business development and sales strategy. It involves reaching out to people who are unfamiliar with your business. You do this to introduce your offerings and make a connection. Meanwhile, warm outreach leverages existing lead relationships.

But cold outreach requires you to start from scratch. You need to make a compelling case for your business to prospects who don’t know what you do.

Cold outreach is more than just for lead generation. It's vital for building relationships and understanding market needs. It also helps set your business apart from more passive competitors.

We will go over cold outreach in great detail in this article.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

What is cold outreach?

Cold outreach is the process of reaching out to potential customers or clients who have had no prior contact with your business. Warm outreach requires an existing relationship or connection. With cold outreach, you’ll need to introduce yourself and your offering.

The importance of cold outreach in business

Cold outreach can build relationships. It can also grow your customer base and drive revenue. By contacting potential customers, you can show your business's value. This lays the foundation for long, fruitful relationships.

Not only does cold outreach help generate leads, but it l enables you to gather valuable insights about your target market. By talking to prospects, you can learn about their needs, pain points, and aspirations. This helps you tailor your offerings to serve them better.

Furthermore, cold outreach can be a great way to stay ahead of thecompetition. By reaching out to potential customers, you can position your business as customer-centric. This can help you stand out from competitors while they’re waiting for leads to come to them.

Pros and cons of using cold outreach

In case you ever need a refresher as to the positives and negatives of implementing a cold outreach strategy, here it is! We’ve boiled down the most important parts into this table. Take a look.

Different cold outreach channels

Email outreach

Email is the most widely used digital cold outreach channel. It helps reach a large audience, personalize your messages, and track engagement metrics.

Some best practices for cold email outreach are: When sending cold outreach emails, personalize the subject line to grab the recipient's attention. Keep the body of the email concise and focused on the value your product or service offers, test different email templates, monitor open rates, click rates, and reply rates; then usethe data to optimize your campaigns.

When crafting cold outreach emails, it's essential to consider the timing of your message. Studies have shown that certain days and times are more effective for sending cold emails.

For example, sending emails on Tuesday mornings tends to get more opens, but Thursdayafternoons are known for better replies. Planning the timing of your email outreachcan increase your chances of capturing attention and getting a positive response.

Implementing a CRM system with robust email integration significantlys boost email cold outreach capabilities. For examples, the first stages of outreach can be fully automated with NetHunt CRM’s native workflows.

It’s a great time saver, allowing your team to focus on other revenue-generating activities and only tune into the cold outreach process when it needs human attention.

Social media outreach

Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook provide excellent opportunities for cold outreach. Start by identifying individuals or companies who fit your ideal customer profile, then engage with their content. Once you've established a connection, send a personalized message to introduce yourself and your product.

Because social media is casual, adapt your message to fit the platform but make sure to convey your value proposition well.

Using social media opens up a world for networking and relationship-building. By engaging with your target audience's posts, sharing valuable insights, and joining relevant discussions, you can become a thought leader in your industry, increasing your credibility. It also piques the interest of potential customers and theymay be more receptive to warm outreach as a result.

If your CRM integrates with social media channels, the process of cold social media outreach becomes easier.

With NetHunt CRM’s LinkedIn integration, for example, you can:

With NetHunt CRM’s LinkedIn integration, you can:

• Add new contacts and companies from LinkedIn to CRM in a few clicks
• Automatically store all the information from LinkedIn profile in a CRM record: first name, last name, job title, company, contact details and the rest
• See LinkedIn profiles and companies you’ve already added to the CRM
• On LinkedIn, find the previous interactions and tasks related to person's profile and company (if they've been previously added to CRM)
• Find which social media source added contacts and companies came from
• Message people on LinkedIn right from the CRM
• Automate different LinkedIn actions like sending messages and requesting connections

Cold calls

Despite the rise of digital communication, cold calling remains a powerful tool in cold outreach; callingprospects allows for instant, real-time conversations. They can build rapport and address queries or objections right away.

When making phone calls, be well-prepared and concise; ensure you have a script or talking points to guide the conversation and be respectful of the recipient's time by providing value during the call.

Also, you can…

• Add personal touches to phone outreach to greatly boost chances of success
• Take time to research your prospect beforehand
• Understand pain points and goals
• Tailor your conversation to their specific needs
• Show a real interest in their business
• Offer valuable insights or solutions to connect with them and increase the likelihood of them becoming a customer

Five principles of effective cold outreach

Build a targeted prospect list

Before launching your cold outreach campaign, it's essential to curate a targeted prospect list. This list should have people or companies that match your ideal customer profile. Here’s a step-by-step approach to building this list:

1. Research your target market. Study its demographics, industries, and challenges. For instance, if your product is productivity software, you might focus on professionals. Possibly those in roles that require high levels of organization and time management likeproject managers or executive assistants.
2. Gain insights into the specific issues potential clients encounter. This knowledge allows you to tailor outreach efforts to meet these needs directly. This makes messages more relevant and appealing.
3. Employ a variety of resources to compile your list. This can include industry databases and sites like LinkedIn and social media. Use advanced search filters to refine your search. They help you pinpoint prospects with the right job titles or company affiliations.
4. Divide and conquer (segment and personalize) Split your list based on criteria like industry, job title, or specific challenges. This lets you craft personalized outreach messages more likely to resonate with each group.

Craft a compelling message

To ensure your cold outreach efforts are effective, focus on crafting a message that captures your prospects' attention and ignites their interest.

Here's how to make your message more impactful:

• Address pain points. Start by identifying and addressing the specific challenges your prospects face. Highlight how your product or service provides a unique solution that can alleviate these issues.
• Use storytelling. Incorporate a storytelling element to forge an emotional connection. Share a brief, relatable story showing how your solution has helped others succeed. This approach helps humanize your message and makes it more engaging.
• Keep it concise. Time is precious for everyone, especially busy professionals. Ensure your message is clear and to the point, with a compelling call to action that encourages them to act. Using bullet points or short lists can help make the information more digestible.
• Personalize your approach. Demonstrate that you've done your homework by personalizing your message with details about the prospect’s company or recent achievements. This shows genuine interest and helps establish a connection.
• Include social proof. Boost your message's credibility by including testimonials or examples of satisfied customers. This social proof reassures prospects about the value of your offering and helps persuade them to engage further.

By following these guidelines, you can enhance your cold outreach strategy and increase your chances of receiving a positive response.

Personalize your outreach

Personalization is the key to successful cold outreach. Take the time to understand your prospects' needs, pains, and goals. Tailor your messages to speak directly to them by implementing several specific techniques:

• Use their names in emails or messages.
• Mention their industry or recent achievements.
• Show that you have done your research to make your approach more relevant and personalized.

But effective personalization extends beyond mere name-dropping. It involves crafting a message that resonates with the individual on a deeper level. Here’s how you can achieve this:

• Understand their challenges and show a real grasp of the problems they face.
• Offer tailored solutions that address their specific issues

By using this approach, you build trust and credibility from the start, making prospects more likely to engage. Remember, people are more likely to respond to outreach. It should feel like a real conversation than generic sales pitches.

Time your outreach

Timing plays a crucial role in the success of your cold outreach campaigns. Avoid reaching out to prospects during busy periods, such as holidays or times when they are likely to be preoccupied. Research the best times to reach your target audience, the  schedule your outreach for those times. Sending follow-up messages at key times increases response rates and it  keeps your offering top of mind.

Also, consider a prospect’s time zones. Make sure outreach arrives in their inbox when they are most likely to engage.

Follow up

Consistent follow-up is essential to maximize the impact of your cold outreach. Many prospects may not respond to your initial message, but that doesn't mean they're not interested.

Follow up with gentle reminders; add more information ortry a different approach to reconnect with them. Persistence and professionalism are key when following up, just keep it respectful and helpful.

When following up, add personalized touches based on your past interactions with the prospect. Mention their earlier message or address their concerns to show that you value their time and input.

Adapt your follow-up to each prospect's situation. You should show a commitment to real relationships, not just thesale.

How to measure the success of your cold outreach

Measuring the success of your cold outreach is crucial for several reasons.

It helps you see what's working and what isn't, and youou can measure the effectiveness of different outreach strategies, then use this to spend resources better. You can focus on tactics that give the best results.

You need to understand the ROI of  outreach campaigns. Financial data is necessary to justify the methods and the investment in strategies. In a fast-changing market, you must quickly adjust your outreach based on feedback about performance. Metrics enable you to pivot or iterate as needed to keep up with changes in the market or audience behavior.

Key performance indicators for cold outreach

NetHunt CRM, the best CRM for cold outreach

NetHunt CRM is great for streamlining outbound sales and improving cold outreach. It's an indispensable tool for organizations focused on engaging prospects and improving workflows.

At NetHunt CRM, we use NetHunt CRM to prove its effectiveness in real sales.

Organized outreach workflows

NetHunt CRM has everything you need to build organized and efficient outreach workflows. These workflows boost your team's productivity and outreach capabilities.

• Use segmented email campaigns to tailor outreach by dividing prospects by detailed criteria like industry, role, or needs. This ensures messages are relevant and engaging.
• Set up automated email sequences to respond to prospect actions. This saves time and keeps momentum in sales.
• Prioritize leads with scoring models. Do it based on their engagement level and likelihood to convert. This way, your team focuses where it's most effective.

Tracking and organizing team efforts

Use analytic features to manage and track your team's outreach. They keep your sales pipeline clear and coordinated.

You can adapt pipelines to match your sales process. This gives clear visibility into each stage of your outreach efforts. Tags help sort leads and Viewsallow for quick access to information; bothenhancing lead data management.

Additionally, real-time collaboration is crucial for ensuring smooth internal processes. Tools that help teams collaborate and share make sure everyone stays on the same page, maintaininga smooth workflow across your sales team.

By using NetHunt CRM, you give your salespeople the tools they need to succeed and carry out precise and effective outreach. Our detailed articles cover creating organized workflows and tracking team efforts. They provide further insights and best practices. Our own experiences and our customers’ successes directly inform the articles.

FAQs

Closing words

In short, cold outreach is vital.

It expands your business reach and fosters new customer relationships. By reaching out strategically, you can show your business's value. You can adjust your offerings to fit the needs of your target market to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.

Tools like NetHunt CRM can greatly help these efforts. They organize workflows, personalize communication, and track campaign effectiveness. This ensures that your outreach not only reaches but resonates with potential customers.

Embrace cold outreach. It's a proactive way to drive growth and sustainability in your business.

Which should you choose? Outbound sales or inbound? Learn in the article.

In the ever-changing world of sales, it's important to stay ahead of the curve. Inbound sales and outbound sales are different beats, but each has its own unique advantages. Each can be highly effective if you use it correctly.

In this article, we'll explore the differences between outbound and inbound sales, the best channels to utilize for each, and how to measure their individual success.

What is inbound sales?

Inbound sales is a sales strategy where leads come to you of their own volition. It’s all about drawing customers in by providing them with valuable information and resources.

One way to do inbound sales is to create quality content that resonates with your target audience; think blog posts, videos, and ebooks. By establishing yourself as an industry expert, you attract potential customers who are actively seeking solutions to their problems.

Once an inbound prospect engages with your content, it's crucial to continue nurturing the relationship. You can do this through:

• Email marketing campaigns
• Personalized communication
• One-on-one consultations and product demos
• Webinars

… And more!

The goal is to guide the prospect through their buying journey, ensuring they have all the information they need to make an informed decision.

To this end, understanding the buyer's journey is crucial. The journey typically consists of three stages:

• Awareness — The buyer identifies a problem or need
• Consideration — The buyer evaluates different solutions available to them
• Decision — The buyer selects a product or service that best meets their requirements

As a salesperson utilizing inbound sales techniques, it's essential to tailor your approach to each stage of the buyer's journey. By providing relevant content and support at the right time, you can effectively move prospects through the sales funnel and ultimately convert them into satisfied customers.

Best channels for inbound sales in 2024

Consumer behavior, like technology, is always evolving.—it's important to stay up-to-date with the best channels for inbound sales.

In 2024, some of the most effective channels include:

• Blog: Producing valuable content that addresses your target audience's pain points and positions your brand as a trusted authority.
• SEO: Optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for potential customers to find you.
• SMM: Building a strong presence on social media platforms and engaging with your target audience to foster relationships and amplify your brand message.
• Newsletters: Creating personalized email campaigns to nurture leads and guide them through the sales funnel.

Inbound marketing channels currently on the rise are through social media content, webinars, and YouTube videos.

Metrics to measure the success of inbound sales

Do the following to measure the success of your inbound sales strategy:

• Website traffic: Monitor the number of website visitors to gauge the effectiveness of your content and optimization efforts.
• Conversion rate: Measure the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
• Lead scoring: Evaluate the quality of leads generated through inbound sales activities to ensure they align with your ideal customer profile.
• Customer acquisition cost: Calculate how much it costs your business to acquire a new customer through inbound sales efforts.

Inbound sales positives:

• Attract leads who are already interested in the product or service
• Higher conversion rates
• Generally less costly than outbound techniques
• Leads come with a certain level of trust and knowledge about the product, enabling a smoother sales process
• Digital and content-driven strategies can reach a wide audience without increasing costs
• Inbound strategies provide a wealth of data for optimizing sales tactics and improving customer engagement.

Inbound sales negatives:

• Building an effective inbound sales funnel can take time and might not generate immediate sales
• Depends on the quality and relevance of content
• High competition for keywords and changes in search engine algorithms can affect visibility
• Needs a range of skills from content creation to SEO and analytics, requiring more specialized staff
• Since customers initiate contact, businesses have less control over when a lead enters the sales funnel

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales involves taking a more proactive approach by reaching out to potential customers directly such as via cold calls. It can also involve sending direct mail or email campaigns or it can involve attending industry events to connect with prospects. The key is to initiate contact and present your product or service to potential buyers, even though they might not be actively seeking a solution.

To that end, outbound sales need thorough research to find the right prospects and match your message to their needs. Successful outbound sales professionals understand the importance of building rapport, addressing objections, and demonstrating the value of their offering.

A key aspect of outbound sales is using several channels to engage customers, such as social media platforms like LinkedIn. Personalized emails capture the attention of prospects. By using several strategies, outbound sales experts can reach and convert more leads.

Persistence is often the name of the game—sales professionals must follow up consistently with leads. They should nurture relationships over time and stay top of mind with potential customers. Outbound sales teams show dedication by being proactive and persistent. They must solve customer problems and provide viable solutions.

Best channels for outbound sales in 2024

While inbound sales have gained popularity in recent years, outbound sales still hold their own. In 2024, some of the most effective channels for outbound sales include:

1. Cold calls: Although it may seem old-fashioned, targeted cold calling still yields positive results when done strategically.
2. Email campaigns: Craft personalized email campaigns to capture the attention of potential customers.
3. Direct mail: Stand out from the digital noise by sending physical mail to grab the attention of your target audience.
4. Industry events: Networking at industry conferences and trade shows provides an opportunity to connect with potential customers face-to-face.

Which metrics measure the success of outbound sales

Just like inbound sales, tracking the success of outbound sales activities is essential. Here are some metrics to consider:

• Call-to-conversion ratio: Measure the percentage of outbound calls that result in a successful conversion.
• Email open and response rates: Monitor how often your outbound email campaigns are opened and how many recipients respond to your message.
• Meeting conversion rate: Track the percentage of initial meetings or demos that lead to a sale.
• Customer lifetime value: Determine the average value a customer brings to your business over their lifetime to assess the effectiveness of your outbound sales efforts.

Outbound sales positives:

• Allows businesses to actively reach out to potential customers, offering more control over the sales process.
• Direct contact with prospects can lead to immediate feedback and quicker sales cycles.
• Sales teams can specifically target demographics that fit their ideal customer profile.
• With proactive outreach, companies can potentially contact a larger number of prospects.
• Outbound efforts areeasily measured (calls made, emails sent, response rates), aiding strategy refinement.

Outbound sales negatives:

• Higher costs due to significant investment in sales teams, tools, and databases for prospecting.
• Cold outreach often leads to lower conversion rates since the leads haven't expressed prior interest.
• Aggressive outbound tactics can sometimes negatively impact how potential customers perceive a brand.
• Outbound sales activities, especially cold calling and emailing, are subject to strict regulations.
• The cost and effort to scale outbound sales efforts can be substantial, as it often involves linear increases in resources.

Key differences between inbound and outbound sales

While both approaches can be successful, there are key differences between inbound and outbound sales:

• Outbound sales require a more proactive approach, reaching out to potential customers directly. In contrast, inbound sales attract potential customers who are actively seeking a solution.
• Inbound sales typically have a lower cost per lead as you're attracting potential customers who are already interested. Outbound sales may have a higher cost per lead due to the resources required for outreach.
• Inbound sales focus on building relationships through valuable content and personalized nurturing. Outbound sales require building rapport quickly during initial contact.

Outbound sales vs. inbound sales

Do I have to choose between inbound sales and outbound?

The short answer to whether you have to choose between inbound and outbound sales is “no”. The long answer is also “no”, but with more explanation. Strap in.

Most businesses end up using a mix of inbound and outbound sales to maximize their sales potential. There’s no rule that says a business can’t reach out to clients while also developing a robust content strategy to bring new clients into the business. In fact, identifying the best sales tools for your specific approach, whether inbound or outbound, can significantly enhance your sales efforts.

Just look at NetHunt for an example:

• We have a great blog filled with heaps of valuable sales content (which you’re reading right now).
• However, we also reach out to prospects via LinkedIn as an important channel in our sales process.

So no, you don’t have to choose one. As a matter of fact, any business looking to thrive in the modern sales environment has to have both.

How to choose which approach to adopt first?

Yes, you should implement both, inbound and outbound sales into your processes. Oftentimes businesses just don’t have the financial resources to start working on both at the same time. Naturally, the question of which to pick first arises.

Here are five key factors that will help you decide which approach you should adopt first:

1. Your budget

Budgeting is a crucial factor. Inbound marketing, like creating content and SEO, needs regular time and resource investments.

Outbound sales methods, like cold calling, direct mail campaigns, and paid advertisements, can also be costly— they probablycost more upfront.

However, it's important to consider the potential return on investment (ROI) for each approach. Inbound sales techniques often have a longer-term payoff. They focus on building brand awareness and generating leads over time. Outbound sales strategies yield quick results. But, they need a big initial investment for new leads.

Budget considerations go beyond the cost of a sales strategy. Other factors to consider include how scalable the approach is.

Also, consider the level of personalization possible and the impact on customer relationships. For instance, outbound sales may produce quick results but they can make customers feel you're too intrusive. This hurts the brand.

2. The learning curve

Consider the education level needed for your product or service. This choice impacts your sales method, whether inbound or outbound. If your offering is complex or unfamiliar to a target audience, inbound sales techniques can be more effective. Inbound strategies allow you to create and share educational content—blog posts, videos, and ebooks. These help educate your potential customers and build trust.

Alternatively, your product or service is simple and easy to understand. In this case, outbound sales techniques may be better. Outbound sales allow you to reach out to potential customers, provide information and address their immediate concerns or questions.

Consider the education aspect of your product or service. It's key to study the market and know what your audience knows. Thorough market research can reveal the educational needs of your customers. It can also help you adjust your sales approach.

3. Your revenue per sale

The average revenue per sale and per customer plays a significant role in the decision-making process. If your product or service commands a higher price point, inbound sales strategies can be more effective in nurturing leads and converting them into customers. Inbound techniques give you the opportunity to build relationships, showcase the value of your offering, and address any objections or barriers to purchase.

If your average revenue per sale is relatively low, outbound sales strategies may be more suitable. Outbound sales can allow you to reach a larger audience in a shorter time period, quickly generate sales, and increase overall revenue. By leveraging targeted advertising campaigns and proactive outreach, you can engage potential customers who are more likely to convert.

4. Your niche

The size of your target audience is another crucial factor to consider when deciding between inbound and outbound sales. Inbound strategies excel at attracting a broader audience and building long-term relationships. By creating valuable content and optimizing it for search engines, you can attract a large volume of potential customers.

Alternatively, if your target audience is smaller and more specific, outbound sales strategies may be more efficient. Outbound sales allow you to directly target potential customers who meet your specific criteria.

5. Your time-to-convert metric

The speed at which your customers make purchasing decisions is a critical aspect that can significantly impact your sales strategy. Understanding customers' buying behavior is key to tailoring your approach effectively.

Inbound sales techniques, characterized by a focus on relationship-building and lead nurturing, are ideal for customers who prefer a more consultative and gradual decision-making process.

On the other hand, if your target audience tends to make swift purchasing decisions, outbound sales strategies can be a game-changer. With this approach, you have the opportunity to take a proactive stance by directly engaging potential customers and initiating immediate sales discussions.

What CRM should you choose for inbound vs. outbound sales?

When looking for a CRM system for digital marketing agency that can support your sales needs, you might find yourself confronted with a variety of options. Here’s a short table summarizing a couple of great options for each sales approach:

Inbound sales vs. outbound sales FAQ

Closing words

Understanding and using both inbound and outbound sales strategies is important. They are key to business success. Inbound sales focuses on attracting and nurturing leads. It does this through valuable content and engagement. This aligns with the modern buyer's preference for research and self-discovery.

Outbound sales involve proactive outreach to potential customers. They offer direct and personal pitches. Each approach has its own strengths and challenges, but when combined, they make a strong sales strategy.

Inbound sales excels in building long-term relationships and establishing trust, while outbound sales are effective at quickly generating leads and directly engaging potential customers.

For businesses looking to harness the full potential of both inbound and outbound sales, choosing the right CRM is pivotal. NetHunt CRM is versatile and powerful. It seamlessly integrates with your existing tools and workflows, supporting both inbound and outbound sales strategies well. NetHunt CRM has strong features for lead management, automation, and analytics. It lets sales teams track and nurture leads from first contact to conversion. It works for any sales approach! Try it now, for free, here.

Find out about the best sales outreach tools of 2024 with this comprehensive article.

Sales outreach is on the rise again. But to build a five-star outreach sequence, you first need to get the right equipment for yourself and your team.

Here are 15 tools to boost your outbound outreach efforts, integrate multiple channels, and more!

What is outreach?

Outreach is the process of connecting with potential customers. The goal is always to promote a product, service, or cause. This strategy uses personalized communications like email, social media, and phone calls to engage prospects.

Good outreach raises awareness and interest. This process also helps build relationships, expand networks, and foster business growth. It does this by reaching out to a targeted audience. To do effective outreach, you need to understand your audience's needs and interests. You must tailor the message accordingly and choose the right channels.

15 best tools for outreach

So, you’ve decided to boost your outreach efforts. Here are 15 tools that can help you increase the productivity of one or more of your outreach-related processes.

Without further ado, let’s get right to the tools.

NetHunt CRM — Best pick overall

NetHunt CRM is both a CRM and sales outreach tool in one. It received a ton of positive feedback since its launch in 2015.

NetHunt CRM is a robust and flexible system. You can customize the tool however you want and it offers unmatched integrations. NetHunt CRM streamlines your business processes, allowing automation and expansion without constant tab switching.

Features

NetHunt CRM’s outreach feature suite includes:

• Data enrichment with the help of Apollo and Hunter
• Email campaign management
• Email open rate tracking and automated follow-ups
• Email campaign personalization with the help of Macros
• Multi-channel sequences that can run through email, LinkedIn, and phone
• Message personalization with the use of macros
• LinkedIn lead generation at the click of a button
• High level of integration with other tools you use in your outreach workflows
• Track opens and clicks

Pricing

NetHunt CRM's pricing starts at $24 per user, per month, and goes up to $96 per user, per month for its most expensive plan.

Review ratings

NetHunt CRM holds an impressive 4.7 rating on G2 and a 4.8 rating on Capterra. They are one of the top-rated CRM systems available on these review platforms.

Limitations

NetHunt CRM’s reporting functionality isn’t as strong as some of the other outreach tools on this list. If you’re looking to collect data across hundreds of points, you might feel underwhelmed. However, the available Looker Studio integration make up for this limitation.

GMass — Gmail mass emailing

GMass is an accessible email marketing tool that operates directly within Gmail. However, GMass struggles to stand out when compared to more comprehensive outreach solutions like NetHunt CRM. It lacks the depth and breadth of functionality that other tools provide.

Features

GMass allows users to:

• Send bulk emails directly from Gmail
• Schedule emails and follow-ups
• Track opens and clicks
• Personalize emails with simple mail merge tags
• Create email lists from Google Sheets

Pricing

GMass pricing starts at $25 a month, which is higher than NetHunt CRM’s basic plan. In comparison to the price, GMass's functionality is lacking.

Limitations

• Not many advanced email outreach and CRM features.
• Few integration options with other business tools.

Outreach.io — AI-powered sales tool

Outreach.io is a leader in the sales outreach market. Its rise to prominence is backed by a powerful platform that optimizes the entire sales process.

Features

Outreach.io's platform has a wide range of features, including:

• Advanced sequence planning means you can integrate emails, calls, social selling, and SMS and engage prospects across multiple channels.
• AI-driven insights optimize the timing and content of outreach efforts.
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting tools. These can help you better understand what’s up with your sales activities and outcomes.
• Ample integrations with popular CRMs, marketing tools, and other software for sales teams.
• Robust customization so your sales team can tailor the platform to its specific processes and strategies.

Pricing

Outreach.io is priced on request. You’d have to contact their sales team to get a quote.

Review Ratings

Outreach.io is rated 4.3 on G2.

Limitations

• The comprehensive nature of Outreach.io means there is a steeper learning curve compared to more basic tools.
• Outreach.io's pricing can be prohibitive. It’s less accessible than simpler, more affordable tools.
• Implementing Outreach.io and integrating it with existing systems can be time-intensive.

Snov.io — Great data enrichment

Snov.io offers tools designed to streamline the lead generation and outreach process. The company positions its product as a more holistic solution, providing features that support email campaigns as well as a broader spectrum of lead acquisition and management tasks.

Features

Snov.io has features that go beyond basic email outreach including:

• Email finder tools that help users identify and collect email addresses from various online sources.
• Email verification service to ensure high deliverability rates through clean email lists.
• Automated email sequences with customization and personalization capabilities.
• Basic CRM functionality to manage leads and track interactions within the platform.
• Integration with popular tools and platforms to enhance workflow and data synchronization.

Pricing

Snov.io has a free plan. The cheapest paid plan starts at $30/mo.

Review Ratings

Snov.io is rated 4.5 on G2.

Limitations

• While Snov.io offers a broad set of features, it may not provide the same level of depth and specialization in certain areas as platforms dedicated solely to those functions.
• Navigating Snov.io’s comprehensive platform might be less intuitive compared to other tools on the list.
• Although Snov.io supports integrations with other software, the depth and ease of these integrations may not match platforms which place more focus on seamless connectivity.

Reply.io — Most feature-rich

Reply.io is a powerful tool for managing multi-channel sales engagement processes. The solution’s comprehensive approach to automating outreach makes it a favorite among businesses aiming to improve their efficiency and response rates.

Features

Reply.io's platform is rich with features designed to enhance sales and marketing efforts, including:

• Automated email outreach and follow-ups with personalized templates.
• Multi-channel sequence creation that allows teams to engage prospects through email, LinkedIn, phone calls, and SMS.
• Built-in CRM functionalities to manage leads and track interactions.
• Advanced analytics and reporting tools to measure and optimize campaign performance.
• Integration with major CRM systems, LinkedIn, and other tools to streamline workflows and data exchange.

Pricing

Reply.io has a free plan, with the cheapest plan starting at $49/month.

Review Ratings

Reply is rated 4.6 on G2.

Limitations

Some users may find the initial setup and creation of multi-channel sequences daunting.

SalesLoft — An automation powerhouse

SalesLoft has swiftly ascended to become a cornerstone in the sales engagement and automation space—acclaimed for its ability to transform and elevate the outreach process.

Features

SalesLoft's outreach capabilities are robust and diverse. Here’s what the platform can do:

• Dynamic email campaign management with advanced personalization and templating options.
• Multi-channel engagement strategies which allow sales teams to connect with prospects via email, phone calls, social media, and SMS within a single platform.
• Real-time analytics and engagement insights provide actionable data to refine and optimize outreach strategies.
• Integration with major CRM platforms, ensuring seamless data synchronization and workflow continuity.
• AI-driven sales coaching and feedback, guiding sales professionals to improve their outreach techniques and strategies.

Pricing

The company does not provide pricing on their website. Contact the sales team for a quote.

Review Ratings

Salesloft is rated 4.5 on G2

Limitations

• There's a steep learning curve involved for sales teams to fully utilize all features effectively.
• For smaller teams or businesses on tight budgets, SalesLoft's pricing structure may be a barrier.

ClickUp — A CRM and Sales tool in one

ClickUp is a project management tool that wants to do more than project management by integrating tools that facilitate efficient sales processes and client engagement.

Unlike platforms exclusively focused on sales outreach, ClickUp provides a holistic environment for all teams. This includes, of course, sales teams that can organize their outreach campaigns in ClickUp.

Features

In the context of sales outreach, ClickUp includes:

• Customizable task and project boards to manage sales pipelines and outreach campaigns.
• Built-in email and communication tools for direct client interaction within the platform.
• Templates for sales processes you can personalize and scale according to your team's needs.
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics for tracking outreach performance, lead progression, and team productivity.
• Integration with CRM systems and other sales tools. It’s possible to build effective data exchange and workflow automation.

ClickUp's adaptability makes it a great option for sales teams looking for a more integrated and flexible approach to sales management and outreach.

Pricing

ClickUp has a free plan, with the cheapest paid plan costing $7 per user, per month.

Review Ratings

ClickUp is rated 4.7 on G2.

Limitations

While ClickUp offers features for you to leverage for sales outreach, it is not a dedicated sales platform. Teams looking for specialized sales engagement functionalities might find them less comprehensive compared to dedicated sales outreach solutions.

Salesblink — Complex sequence builder

SalesBlink focuses on empowering sales teams with features to boost sales campaigns.

This platform is a great choice for sales professionals seeking a comprehensive yet user-friendly solution that automates much of the sales pipeline.

Features

SalesBlink's suite of features were meticulously crafted to support every stage of the sales process, including:

• A robust prospecting tool to identify and gather leads based on industry, role, and other criteria.
• Automated cold email and follow-up sequences, allowing for personalized communication at scale.
• A built-in CRM to manage leads and track interactions throughout the sales cycle.
• Scheduling tools to easily set up meetings with prospects.
• Detailed analytics and reporting for insights into campaign performance and outcomes.

Pricing

Salesblink starts at $25 per user, per month and goes up to $179 per user, per month

Review Ratings

Salesblink is rated 4.5 on G2.

Limitations

• While SalesBlink's focus on sales automation is a strength. it may not serve businesses looking for a more diverse set of tools that spans beyond sales and marketing.
• Although SalesBlink integrates with several popular tools, its ecosystem is not as extensive as some competitors. This could limit seamless workflow integration for businesses using a wide array of platforms.

Woodpecker — A classic

Woodpecker offers a focused solution aimed at improving the cold emailing process for B2B companies. Unlike broader sales or project management platforms, Woodpecker specializes in automating and personalizing email outreach.

Features

Woodpecker's feature set is all about optimizing your email outreach campaigns, including:

• Automated cold email campaigns with personalized follow-ups, ensuring each prospect receives a tailored communication path.
• Email deliverability tools, including spam test scores and domain warm-up suggestions, to maximize inbox placement rates.
• A/B testing capabilities to refine and improve email content based on real performance data.
• Integration with CRM systems and other sales tools, allowing for seamless workflow and data synchronization.
• Real-time tracking and analytics that provide insights into campaign performance, open rates, reply rates, and more.

Pricing

We couldn’t locate Woodpecker’s pricing on its website. Contact the sales team for a quote.

Review Ratings

Woodpecker is rated 4.1 on G2.

Limitations

• Woodpecker's specialization in email outreach is a double-edged sword. While it excels in this area, businesses looking for a more comprehensive sales or marketing platform may find it lacking.
• Woodpecker offers integrations with many CRM systems and sales tools, but the range and depth of these integrations may not match those of fuller platforms.

Mailshake — LinkedIn automation and deliverability tool

Mailshake is a compelling solution for sales engagement and email outreach. It can help you maximize your email campaign efforts. Additionally, MailShake supports the deliverability of emails and collects data points on their performance.

Unlike platforms with a broader focus, Mailshake focuses solely on helping you achieve effective cold email outreach.

Features

Mailshake has features for  effective email campaigns, including:

• Personalized cold email campaigns that can scale, allowing users to send hundreds to thousands of customized messages effortlessly.
• Automated follow-up sequences, ensuring no potential lead slips through the cracks due to lack of communication.
• Built-in phone dialer and social media outreach capabilities, extending outreach beyond email.
• A/B testing for emails to optimize campaign performance based on concrete data.
• Comprehensive analytic dashboard to track opens, clicks, replies, and more, providing clear insights into campaign effectiveness.
• Seamless integrations with CRM tools and other sales platforms to streamline workflows and maintain consistency across sales efforts.

Pricing

Mailshake starts at $25 per user, per month for its cheapest plan, going up to $99 per user, per month for its most expensive plan.

Review Ratings

Mailshake is rated 4.7 on G2.

Limitations

• While Mailshake excels for email outreach, companies looking for a sales engagement platform with broader communication channels might find its capabilities somewhat limited.
• Although Mailshake integrates with various tools, the depth and breadth of these integrations may not fully satisfy businesses with complex or highly specialized sales tech stacks.

Klenty — Sales engagement platform

Klenty offers a sophisticated platform for sales teams aiming to boost their outreach and engagement efforts. Specializing in automating the sales outreach process, Klenty excels in facilitating personalized communication at scale.

Features

Klenty's feature-rich platform caters to the needs of modern sales teams, offering:

• Automated email sequences with advanced personalization options, allowing for messages to be sent to prospects based on their actions and behavior.
• Capability to automate follow-ups and task reminders, ensuring that no opportunity is missed due to oversight.
• Integration with popular CRM systems enables a seamless flow of data. This ensures that sales efforts are aligned with broader business strategies.
• Tools for A/B testing and detailed analytics, providing insights into what strategies work best and allowing teams to refine their outreach efforts for optimal results.
• Multi-channel outreach support, empowering sales teams to engage with prospects through their preferred channels, be it email, phone, or social media.

Pricing

Klenty’s cheapest plan starts at $50 per user, per month, and goes up to $100 per user, per month for their Pro plan.

Review Ratings

Klenty is rated 4.6 on G2.

Limitations

• While Klenty's focus on sales automation is a significant advantage, businesses looking for a broader suite of features may find it lacking.
• Klenty's features are comprehensive; some users, especially those not familiar with sales automation tools, may find them overwhelming.

Overloop — An outbound-dedicated tool

Overloop, formerly known as Prospect.io, has rebranded and expanded its platform to become a key player in the sales automation and CRM spaces.  The platform caters to the needs of sales professionals who seek to automate repetitive tasks without losing the personalized touch in outreach efforts.

Features

Overloop offers a suite of powerful features designed to optimize the sales process, including:

• A comprehensive lead generation tool. You can find and verify email addresses directly within the platform.
• Automated email outreach campaigns with personalization options and follow-up sequences.
• A built-in CRM system to manage contacts, deals, and sales pipelines. All sales activities are centralized and easily accessible, isn’t that nice?
• Detailed analytics and reporting tools. You’ll get insight into campaign performance and help sales teams to refine their strategies for better results.
• Integrations with many other applications.

Pricing

Overloop’s cheapest plan starts at $49 per user, per month and goes up to $125 per user, per month for the most expensive plan.

Review Ratings

Overloop is rated 4.3 on G2.

Limitations

• While Overloop's broad range of features is a strength, some businesses might find the platform less specialized in certain areas compared to tools dedicated solely to CRM or email marketing.
• Although Overloop integrates with many popular tools, the depth of these integrations may vary, potentially requiring additional configuration to achieve seamless workflow automation.

Saleshandy — Straightforward sales tool

The core of Saleshandy's success is its straightforward yet powerful approach to email management and analytics. It provides users with the tools needed to send bulk emails with personalized touches, track recipient engagement, and automate follow-ups based on recipient actions.

Features

Saleshandy's feature set is carefully crafted to support efficient email outreach, including:

• Bulk email sending with mail merge capabilities for personalization.
• Real-time email tracking with insights into opens, clicks, and replies.
• Automated follow-up sequences, ensuring timely engagement based on recipient behavior.
• Email scheduling to send communications at an optimal time.
• Detailed analytics and reporting tools to measure campaign performance and optimize strategies.
• Integration with popular email platforms, enhancing the user experience without the need for switching between tools.

Pricing

Saleshandy starts at $25 per month and goes up to $219 per month.

Review Ratings

Saleshandy is rated 4.6 on G2.

Limitations

• Saleshandy excels in email outreach and productivity. However, organizations looking for a broader set of sales automation tools beyond email may find it limited.
• Some of Saleshandy's more advanced features are reserved for higher-tier plans. This might necessitate a greater investment for users seeking the full range of capabilities.

Lemlist — A blend of creativity and efficiency

Lemlist is an effective tool for email outreach and sales automation space. It has a unique approach to personalized email campaigns. The essence of Lemlist's appeal lies in its ability to blend creativity with efficiency, allowing users to break through the noise of standard email outreach.

Features

Lemlist's standout features include:

• The ability to embed personalized images and videos within emails. You can make each message feel unique and tailored to the recipient.
• Dynamic content insertion that adjusts email content based on recipient interactions, ensuring relevance and timeliness.
• Automated email sequences with conditional follow-up paths, enabling a tailored approach based on recipient behavior.
• A/B testing capabilities to optimize campaign elements for higher engagement and conversion rates.
• Comprehensive campaign analytics that provide detailed insights into performance metrics like opens, clicks, and replies.
• Integration with leading CRM systems and sales tools, facilitating a seamless workflow and ensuring data coherence across platforms.

Pricing

Lemlist starts at $32 per user, per month and goes up to $129 per user, per month

Review Ratings

Lemlist is rated 4.4 on G2.

Limitations

• While Lemlist's focus on deep email personalization is its main strength, organizations in need of broader sales or marketing automation functionalities might find it less comprehensive than some alternatives.
• The innovative features that set Lemlist apart, such as personalized images and videos, may require a learning curve for users to fully master and implement effectively within their campaigns.

Wiza — Laser-focused on LinkedIn

Wiza offers a sleek and efficient solution for extracting and managing LinkedIn leads. What sets Wiza apart is its simplicity and effectiveness in navigating the often complex process of lead generation.

Features

Wiza's key features serve to streamline the lead generation process, including:

• Seamless integration with LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, allowing users to effortlessly convert profiles into a structured list of leads with verified email addresses.
• Advanced lead filtering and sorting capabilities to ensure users can quickly identify and prioritize high-value prospects.
• The ability to export leads directly to CRM platforms or as .CSV files, simplifying the process of integrating new contacts into existing sales workflows.
• Automated email verification to reduce bounce rates and improve the deliverability of outreach campaigns.
• A user-friendly interface that requires minimal training, enabling teams to start generating leads with Wiza right away.

Pricing

Wiza starts at $0 and goes up to $166 per user, per month.

Review Ratings

Wiza is rated 4.5 on G2.

Limitations

• While Wiza excels in LinkedIn lead generation, companies seeking a broader range of lead sources may find its focus somewhat restrictive.
• The functionality and effectiveness of Wiza are closely tied to LinkedIn and Sales Navigator features, which may evolve or change, potentially impacting Wiza's capabilities.

Why do you need outreach tools for sales?

Outreach tools for sales are vital. They automate repetitive tasks, letting sales teams focus on important work. They enable personalization at scale and you can ensure each prospect gets a message that feels unique and personalized. This significantly raises engagement rates. These tools also offer advanced tracking and analytics, giving valuable insights on campaign performance. Outreach tools can also help refine strategies for better targeting and higher conversion.

Also, almost all outreach tools integrate with CRM systems. They improve lead management and prioritize follow-ups. This ensures that efforts focus on the best prospects. Enabling multi-channel campaigns and ensuring data protection laws are followed, they boost efficiency and productivity. The platform also helps sales teams scale their efforts and get better results in a competitive market.

FAQs

Outro

Sales outreach teams need the right tools to improve efficiency, personalization, and effectiveness. NetHunt CRM is the best among the many alternatives. NetHunt CRM streamlines business processes. It helps sales teams engage prospects without tab switching. It has a user-friendly interface and customizable system. Competitive pricing and high review ratings make it a top choice for sales specialists looking to improve outreach.

Discover how NetHunt CRM can transform your sales strategy by starting NetHunt CRM’s 14-day free trial.

Have a read and see for yourself why this sales strategy has been taking over the world.

Want your business to stand out and generate income in today's digital economy? Sales engagement skills are essential, a crucial tool for developing meaningful relationships with both prospects and customers.

In this article, we define sales engagement and compare it to sales enablement. We’ll also go over the steps to build an effective sales engagement model and explain how to set it up.

What is sales engagement?

To put it simply, it's all the interactions between buyers and sellers. From emails, to phone calls, to social media messages and support tickets.

Forrester Research says that the number of interactions grew from 17 in 2019 to 27 now, a 10-point rise.

But what counts as an engagement? Well, anything tracked by touchpoint or time. This includes sales calls, meetings, ebook downloads, and email click-throughs. Such sales interaction shows a buyer's journey, enabling sales teams to see how messaging, content, timing, and more affect the buyer's experience. Then, these findings  are used to make sales better and faster.

Let's look at some sales engagement stats. They'll help us see how important it is to have a CRM system that combines engagement, support, and sales:

• Salesforce found that 78% of B2B buyers expect salespeople to be trusted guides. They should know a lot about the industry. It also discovered that 57% of people stopped buying from a company because a competitor offered a better experience.
• A recent study by Forrester found that over 80% of sales leaders have changed how they do business to meet the changing needs of buyers.

Why is sales engagement important?

Sales engagement is important because it touches on almost every aspect of the sales process. However, implementing sales engagement strategies into your workflows is paramount for success in the modern sales market. Here’s why:

• It builds stronger relationships with potential customers, fostering trust and rapport that are essential for conversions.
• By personalizing the sales approach, businesses can increase conversion rates as solutions are tailored to meet the specific needs and pain points of leads.
• Continuous engagement enhances the customer experience, contributing to retention and repeat business.
• It boosts sales productivity by allowing teams to focus on high-potential leads.
• Regular interactions provide valuable feedback for improvement.
• Effective engagement drives revenue growth through increased sales and referrals.
• It helps sales teams navigate prospects through the sales process more effectively, from awareness to the final sale.

It’s because of these benefits that sales engagement is such a high priority. In fact, 90% of sales leaders plan to invest in technologies and methodologies to help their sellers engage effectively with prospects and customers.

How do you measure sales engagement?

Measuring sales engagement shows the effectiveness of your sales strategy. It can also hint at how effective each individual channel is, be it email or social media, and how it contributes to your overall success.

Analyzing every engagement over these channels can pinpoint what really resonates with prospects. It allows for the fine-tuning of tactics, ensuring your team focuses on what works best, driving conversions and ultimately boosting revenue.

Measuring sales engagement involves tracking metrics such as:

• Email open rates
• Click-through rates
• Response times
• Number of meetings or calls scheduled
• Conversion rates

These metrics can help identify how effectively interactions turn into sales opportunities. They help understand which strategies are working and where adjustments are needed to improve sales outcomes.

With tools such as NetHunt CRM, you can track these ever-important metrics even more easily. The visual pipelines help you identify sales bottlenecks and opportunities at a glance. Additionally, the reports generated by NetHunt CRM can help you evaluate the successful performance of your outreach campaigns, A/B tests, and more!

What are best practices for sales engagement?

Improving your sales strategy involves more than just understanding what works and what doesn’t. It's about blending the industry's best practices with specific data-driven advice to make real improvements. Here's how to weave these practices into your strategy effectively.

Integrate your sales and marketing teams

Achieving harmony between sales and marketing is fundamental to sales engagement success.

One idea to achieve synergy: share a calendar both teams can access. It will ensure their alignment on content and campaign timelines.

Regular joint strategy sessions are also crucial. They provide a forum for both teams to review upcoming plans, share feedback, and make live changes. Also, feedback loops allow direct communication between sales and marketing, enabling fast changes and keeping content relevant and impactful.

Use tech strategically

Leveraging the right technology stack is a gamechanger for sales engagement.

Choose a CRM that doubles as a sales engagement tool, such as NetHunt CRM. Your system should also integrate well with other tools in your stack, reducing friction, boosting information flow.

It's also essential to hold regular training sessions for your team. They need to make the most out of these tools, with a focus on features that drive engagement and sales. Analytics are key here. It gives valuable insights into customer behavior and sales. This data can inform strategic decisions and adjustments.

Don’t forget to personalize

Personalization is the key to transforming generic outreach into meaningful engagement. Start with segmenting your audience using CRM data and tailor your messaging to specific behaviors, needs, and stages in the buying journey. Your email templates should include personalization prompts, encouraging sales reps to add personal touches or relevant information that speaks directly to the recipient.

Here’s a tip: Create a culture of personalization in your sales team to emphasize sales engagement’s impact on conversion rates.

Don’t stop optimizing, ever

Staying ahead of the curve requires a commitment to continuous optimization. You should A/B test different parts of your sales communications such as email subject lines and call scripts. It can show what your audience likes helping you to adjust your approach.

Regular analysis of key engagement metrics, such as email open rates, response times, and conversion rates, helps identify trends and pinpoint areas for improvement. It also fosters an environment where feedback is encouraged and valued,  promoting a culture of constant learning and improvement.

Try out creative engagement tactics

Differentiating your engagement efforts through creativity can help your brand stand out. For this, try non-traditional methods—personalized video messages, interactive content, and custom gifts are some examples.

Using out-of-the-box methods can create memorable experiences for your clients. If done right, they resonate with prospects on a personal level.

Sharing success stories within your team builds a store of ideas, encouraging others to share their own tactics. You can track the effectiveness of these creative approaches using engagement and conversion metrics.

What is a sales engagement platform?

Sales engagement platforms are software designed to make sales engagement faster and better. These solutions give sales teams the tools they need to effectively engage with prospects and customers across multiple channels, such as email, social media, phone calls, and text messages.

If integrated with a CRM, sales engagement platforms can centralize communication; some  even automate routine tasks. This allows sales professionals to focus on more strategic activities.

Key features and capabilities important for a sales engagement platform to have include:

• Multi-channel outreach capabilities.
• Integration with a powerful CRM system.
• Automation of tasks and workflow management.
• Integrations with other key sales and marketing tools, like VoIP dialers. This ensures a unified view of customer interactions and data.
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting functionality. They track engagement metrics, measure performance, and give insights into sales activities.
• Lead scoring functionality that helps your salespeople see how the leads compare to each other.
• Strong measures to protect your and your clients' data security.
• A responsive support team to help you out.

Top five platforms for sales engagement

NetHunt CRM

NetHunt CRM stands out because of its flexibility and efficiency. This CRM and sales engagement platform integrates with Gmail. It turns your inbox into a powerful solution. You can easily organize all your customer data, engage prospects, manage customer interactions and sales processes directly from your inbox.

Reply.io

Reply.io uses AI to automate and personalize sales interaction andstreamline the outreach process. The tool improves sales teams' efficiency by automating repetitive tasks and tailoring communications to individual prospects.

Clearbit

Clearbit specializes in providing real-time data to power your sales and marketing strategies. It offers deep insights into potential customers. This helps tailor engagement efforts better.

SalesLoft

SalesLoft offers a full solution for sales teams. It focuses on email automation, sales coaching, and analytics. SalesLoft improves communication and efficiency, helping teams run better sales campaigns.

Apollo.io

Apollo.io is known for its vast database and targeting. It enables personalized sales and marketing at scale. It provides tools for finding ideal prospects. It also automates outreach and measures performance.

FAQs

Closing words

As we finish this deep dive into sales engagement, remember this: the path to successful sales is always changing; it’s full of opportunities. Adopting a mindset of constant learning is crucial. It means using cutting-edge tech and putting personalized, meaningful engagement first. These are key for attaining and maintaining sales success. Businesses can use these insights and practices. They can do this to beat the changing expectations of their prospects and customers. This will lead to long-term growth and success in the highly competitive digital marketplace.

Another key thing to remember is that sales engagement is easier with the right tools. Implementing the right environment to facilitate your sales efforts and give your representatives the tools they need is sure to take this strategy to the next level.

So why wait? Try NetHunt CRM now — the first two weeks are on the house!

Let's compare the two systems to see which is truly the best for your business needs.

When shopping for a CRM, many businesses choose between Keap and Pipedrive. The choice between these two systems might not be as clear-cut as you’d want—it’s important to make a decision based on the specifics of your business.

First of all, you need to know how these systems compare. It also helps to know whether there’s a third, better choice available to you in the CRM market.

That’s exactly what we’re here to help you with. Without further ado, let’s get into the ultimate Pipedrive vs Keap comparison!

What’s better, Pipedrive or Keap?

Answering this question is rather difficult. Different businesses have different needs, so the choice won't be the same for everyone.

For example, Pipedrive might be great for experienced CRM users. They need deep pipeline management and not much else. Users who are looking for deep automation might feel left a bit on the short side.

Keap, on the other hand, serves as a good choice for a first CRM for small businesses. This is due to its simple and easy-to-navigate user interface, and pricing structures that offer all the core features from the get-go. However, as your business scales, you might feel like you’ve outgrown this CRM rather fast.

On the other hand, NetHunt CRM serves as a perfect choice for small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are looking for top-notch integration and ease of use. This CRM is available right from your inbox. Also, NetHunt CRM has dozens of native integrations with tools you’re likely already using and the team also adds new integrations regularly.

Pipedrive vs. Infusionsoft (Now Keap): User interface

Pipedrive exists within a smooth and minimal interface. It’s quite a pleasant experience to look at, but a good look doesn’t make something easy to navigate.

Although Pipedrive is definitely on the easier side when it comes to learning how to use it, it’s still no walk in the park. The CRM requires customers to invest time and effort to learn it. They must do this before they can use it to improve client relationships. This stands especially true for businesses that haven’t used a CRM system before.

Keap CRM has an interface similar to Pipedrive, albeit with a more modern look. Keap CRM’s interface is also a bit easier to use than Pipedrive, meaning the learning curve is much smoother.

Although Keap’s interface is friendlier than Pipedrive, it’s by no means the best.

(NetHunt CRM UI)

NetHunt CRM’s interface offers a significantly simpler and much more robust interface. For one, users can create as many custom folders as needed, ensuring that your database is sorted the way you want it to be. Additionally, NetHunt CRM natively integrates with Gmail and the full power of a modern CRM system is packed neatly within your inbox.

The best part? It fits right in as if Google themselves made it. Check out the list of Google CRMs, tried and tested by our team.

Pipedrive vs. Keap: Email marketing

Email marketing is a big deal, as it has been ever since the invention of emails. Many salespeople and marketers see email marketing as an essential feature of a modern CRM system.

Pipedrive has a comprehensive email marketing platform that allows you to:

• Craft email workflows with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
• Use CRM information to segment your audience, ensuring messages reach the right people.
• Monitor email engagements, such as open rates, to gain valuable insights.
• Apply filters to refine targeting. These include subscription status, email bounce reasons, and sending date.

Essentially, Pipedrive merges CRM capabilities with email marketing tools to offer a unified solution.

Yet, only those on the Advanced plan or above can access these features. This may force smaller companies to spend more on a subscription.

This situation greatly raises the cost per client. This is because email marketing is essential for businesses of all sizes.

On the other hand, Keap's email marketing automations allow you to:

• Combine email templates with easy-to-setup automation to nurture leads, save time, and create recurring revenue.
• Choose stunning templates from our curated library or create your own customized email design.
• Automatically segment your contacts in Keap's CRM by industry, behavior, and personal information for better targeting.
• View at-a-glance reports to track campaign effectiveness and discover next steps to improve.

You can do all this through Keap’s contact dashboard.

Now, imagine if your email marketing tool didn’t just connect to your email, but became your email — this is exactly what NetHunt CRM offers to its users. Its native Gmail integration makes email marketing seem like a feature of Gmail rather than a side tool for you to use.

Users can:

• Segment a lead database for targeted email outreach.
• Compose and save email templates.
• Utilize macros for easy on-the-fly personalization.
• Send campaigns using Gmail or custom SMTP.
• Track email campaign stats.
• Mass update contacts based on email campaign results.
• Send follow-up email campaigns without extra hassle.
• View email campaign history and track email campaign effectiveness.

Pipedrive vs. Keap: Integrations

Another key factor to consider when choosing a CRM system is how well it connects the other tools in your tech stack. After all, your CRM should be the hub that unites all of your sales activities in a single environment. However, since there are plenty of tools salespeople use in their day-to-day life, let’s focus on the main integrations available on the market.

LinkedIn integration

Pipedrive’s LinkedIn integration is highly limited. It only offers integrations with the LinkedIn webforms feature. For any other LinkedIn functionality, users would have to utilize the integration through Zapier, a third-party service. This, of course, highly limits the integration’s usability.

Pipedrive’s LinkedIn integration might not look as good as you’d want, but it’s still a piece of cake compared to what Keap has (or rather, hasn’t) got to offer .

You read that right, Keap CRM doesn’t natively integrate with anything. The only way to connect this CRM suite to the other apps in your tech stack is to do so through Zapier,  a great tool for joining your stack. But, its abilities are much more limited than a native integration's.

On the other hand, NetHunt CRM has over 14 native integrations with other tools. This includes LinkedIn. With NetHunt CRM’s LinkedIn integration, you can:

• Add customer records to the visualized pipeline.
• Great automated lead nurturing with automated workflows.
• Automatically create and enrich leads at a click of a button.
• Many more features are coming up, with the Outreach Pro add-on due to be released soon.

Google Workspace integration

Pipedrive integrates with Gmail, and their integration allows you to see the context behind a deal when looking at their email in your inbox. This is a great feature as it allows you to have information about your leads on hand when emailing them. There’s no need to switch tabs every time you decide to write an email.

However, this integration is quite limited in the scope. You still need to switch tabs a lot, like to switch communication channels (calling someone after they email you), or record new lead information (getting a new email).

Keap doesn’t offer any built-in integrations. Users must tie their tech stack together through Zapier, a third-party tool.

NetHunt CRM, on the other hand, offers even more than just Gmail integration. It can live inside your inbox, providing full CRM functionality from there. This means you can:

• Launch email campaigns.
• Create fields and folders.
• Create customer cards.
• Create and run automations.
• Call your customers.
• And do anything else you could within the web app.

Social media and messenger integrations

Pipedrive is integrated with a variety of different communication channels, including social media platforms and messenger apps as well. Pipedrive offers a suite of integrations with tools like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. They let you message your prospects with their preferred app, making it an invaluable tool in the sales environment.

We don’t like three-peats, but here we go — Keap doesn’t have any native integrations with any app—you need to use Zapier to integrate tools. Still, Zapier doesn’t have many social media integrations available—you’ll have to use another third party to achieve your desired goals.

On the other hand, NetHunt CRM provides integrations with various social media platforms and messenger apps such as:

• Instagram
• WhatsApp
• Facebook Messenger
• Viber

These integrations allow your salespeople to connect all of their communication channels under one roof, providing a seamless omnichannel communication experience.

Pipedrive vs Keap: Customization

Customizing your CRM is key to successfully implementing a solution for your business. Pipedrive's main purpose is to give users a structured sales pipeline. It is also visually appealing and easy to understand, and you can tailor this pipeline extensively. Compared to another solution reviewed here, it seems somewhat inflexible.

In Pipedrive's Lead database, you can only add fields that Pipedrive has already defined. There's no option to customize or create new fields on your own.

The need to customize a CRM is more prevalent in some industries than others, such as manufacturing. They need to log measurements or orders, recording information outside of Pipedrive which is far from ideal.

Businesses with specialized needs might find that Keap lacks much customization. The Keap Expert Coaching service can alleviate this to a degree, but it’s not a perfect solution.

NetHunt CRM, on the other hand, allows users almost unparalleled customization. This means that you can tailor the CRM system to your specific business needs:

• Create or delete folders.
• Rename folders.
• Add or remove different field types from customer cards.
• Add or remove required fields.
• Create formula fields.
• Apply filters and save limitless views for instantaneous data access.

Pipedrive vs Keap: Automation

The main reason you get a CRM is to make your life easier, right? Automation is a crucial part of that process. With the help of automated workflows, you can eliminate most of the routine tasks associated with the sales process, such as:

• Lead nurturing
• Follow-ups
• Lead status changes
• Task creation

Automation can only take you as far as your CRM suite allows for though. Pipedrive's automation features excel in several areas, and you can generate new tasks, send follow-up emails, modify stages of deals, and much more. Moreover, Pipedrive's workflows have great-looking automation, builder, simplifying understanding each automation's function and its components.

Pipedrive also offers options for internal automation. But, they may not be as detailed as some businesses want.

Keap’s automation capabilities are incredibly similar in functionality to Pipedrive. The environment through which one configures them is a visual pipeline builder. This tool is fairly robust and simple to use. However, the configuration options offered are quite narrow.

NetHunt CRM, on the other hand, makes it super easy to enhance operational efficiency thanks to comprehensive automation features.

Automating tasks boosts your team's productivity, including message personalization, call logging, and document tracking. This helps them close deals faster. NetHunt CRM introduces automation capabilities that include:

• Bulk data uploads from diverse channels like LinkedIn, email, and web forms, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
• Workflows can have many branches, offering flexibility beyond the linear processes in other CRMs.
• Automated email sequences that are triggered by specific activities or milestones, like adding a new contact or updating lead status.
• Adjusting a lead's status automatically based on their engagement with your company.

Also, NetHunt CRM offers many automation triggers and actions, enabling the creation of complex workflows for both internal operations and customer interactions.

All clients on the Business plan or higher can access NetHunt CRM's automation tools.

Pipedrive vs Keap: Customer success quality

You need to feel supported by the CRM vendor you choose and proactive customer success management is essential. It's the difference between you having success with a CRM suite and failing with the CRM.

Pipedrive’s customer support is good. When you start to implement the solution, they’ll be there all the way, helping to implement Pipedrive to your processes. Additionally, they provide lightning-fast replies to any billing issues and bug reports.

However, if you’re trying to get help with anything else, you might be out of luck. Some users report Pipedrive’s support team being slow in responding to smaller customers.

Keap’s customer support response times are much the same as Pipedrive's. They are fast at first, but then they slow down for "less-important" requests, like help with configuration or general support.

However, if you get the Keap Expert Coaching service appointment, they will provide support on time and as scheduled. The Keap customer support team is great and filled with professionals looking to help you; it’s just that getting in touch with them might be a hassle.

Users often praise NetHunt CRM's customer success team. They like its fast responses and high-quality answers. This is also reflected by a whopping 9.3 rating on G2. Our support team is always there to assist you. They will work with you to help you succeed with NetHunt CRM.

Pipedrive vs Keap: Pricing

Pipedrive’s pricing structure is:

Keap’s pricing, on the other hand, is:

NetHunt CRM’s pricing goes as follows:

• Basic: $24 per user per month, billed annually
• Basic Plus: $34 per user per month, billed annually
• Business: $48 per user per month, billed annually
• Business Plus : $68 per user per month, billed annually
• Advanced: $96 per user per month, billed annually

Check pricing

Sure, NetHunt CRM’s pricing might look a bit steeper than Pipedrive’s, but significantly more features are offered.

For example, NetHunt CRM’s Business plan (equivalent to Pipedrive’s Professional plan) offers users:

• Native integration with dozens of tools.
• A large number of automated workflows.
• Email sequences.
• Report generation functionality.
• VoIP integrations.
• LinkedIn integration.
• API Access.
• Custom SMTP.

All the while, Pipedrive’s price equivalent plan offers reporting and e-signature functionalities as benefits of the plan. With email campaigns, lead generation, and countless more features being locked away behind add-ons for you to purchase.

Pipedrive vs Keap: What do users say?

At this point, we think we’ve said enough about our opinions on the systems. It’s time to let the customers and users of these systems speak for themselves. Let’s go over a few reviews customers have left on G2 for the CRM systems we’re comparing in this article.

Pipedrive

Keap

NetHunt CRM

Pipedrive vs Keap vs NetHunt CRM

People often ask …

Closing words

Pipedrive and Keap each have strengths and limitations which applies to you depends on your business's needs and growth. Pipedrive shines with deep pipeline management and it is for seasoned CRM users. Keap is an accessible entry point for small businesses with a user-friendly interface and clear pricing.

However, it's important to see NetHunt CRM as a strong contender. This is especially true for SMBs. NetHunt CRM has a robust set of features and native integrations and can be customized deeply. It is a versatile solution that grows with your business, and you can try it risk-free with a 14-day free trial — start one here.