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7 Best B2B Marketing Tools & Software You Need in 2023
Are you looking for new B2B marketing tools that will help you scale your business and grow revenue? We share some of our favourite B2B tools out there that will help tick those boxes.
B2B marketing isn’t easy. eCommerce at least has the ease of customers being able to directly purchase products on site. For B2B, you’ve got to deal with generating leads, tracking leads, nurturing leads and then proving marketing had any impact on it!
But remember, your goal is to convert people, not businesses, so the fundamentals are still the same.
We found that 37% of marketers struggle to generate high-quality leads. But it need not be the case.
With the right B2B marketing tools in place, you can better track, generate and report on your leads. And you know what that leads to? More revenue on your bottom line.
In this blog, you’ll learn:
⚡️ Pro Tip
The best way for B2B marketers to optimise their marketing efforts is by measuring it with revenue. Read how Ruler can attribute revenue back to your marketing in this short and sweet blog.
B2B marketing tools are software solutions that help businesses market and sell their products or services to other businesses.
Given there are so many marketing challenges in the B2B space, it’s often the case that you might need tools to help you bridge the gap.
Whether it’s automating marketing campaigns, attributing your closed revenue to your leads or managing your social media posts, there’s a B2B marketing tool out there that can solve your problem.
With so many tools out there, how do you know which B2B marketing tool you actually need?
Budgets are tight so while you might find all the tools listed below useful, you might not be able to make a case for them all.
To understand which you need, you need to ask yourself a few key questions:
✏️ Note
Many marketers put emphasis on generating insights that they can use to make data-driven decisions. Read our guide to data-driven marketing to see how it can help you take your marketing to the next level.
As expected, there’s a B2B marketing tool out there for every possible need. To help, we picked one from each major category.
That’s:
So, let’s get stuck into our top 7 marketing tools for B2B marketers.
We mentioned earlier how B2B marketers struggle to generate high-quality leads. But that’s because many B2B marketers don’t tend to track beyond lead volume.
Related: 6 ways to track marketing leads
While you might be able to track your form submissions, your inbound calls or your live chat, you most likely can’t link that new lead to either:
This means you can’t attribute closed revenue back to your lead, and in turn, can’t link it back to your marketing.
But, with attribution, you can. Ruler Analytics is a key marketing attribution tool for B2B marketers looking to evidence their effectiveness and optimise their campaigns.
Related: Here’s everything you need to know about B2B marketing attribution
With Ruler, you can track every lead (including their source and website behaviour), plus you can send all the data you need between the apps you need it in. That means you can log in to Google Analytics and see all of your revenue data accurately attributed to the influencing marketing channels, campaigns and more.
Pricing: Prices for marketing attribution begin at just £199 per month.
🚀 Pro Tip
Book a demo of Ruler Analytics to get started. Not ready for a demo, download this simple guide to why you need Ruler. It’ll walk you through the three core elements of the software.
If you’re using downloadable content to drive new leads and want to send targeted cadences post-download, then you’ll need an email marketing tool.
ActiveCampaign is a fantastic tool for B2B email marketing as it works to support you in your lead generation efforts.
Their motto is that they help customers turn leads into customers into repeat customers. ActiveCampaign offers more than just email marketing though. You can link your website and create new landing pages for lead generation, as well as forms to sit within blogs and key landing pages to drive new conversions.
Pricing: ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial and plans then start at $9 per month.
You’re a bit spoilt for choice when it comes to content marketing and SEO tools with big names like SEMRush and Moz.
However, we’ve elected to highlight Ahrefs as this is the tool our own marketing team uses.
In Ahrefs, you can identify keyword opportunities for new blog content, along with long-tail variations and competitor analysis. It’s the perfect tool for SEO novices and pros, and allows you to maximise your lead generation through organic search.
Pricing: Ahrefs offers a 7-day free trial and plans then start at $99 per month.
Not every marketing team will need marketing automation. But, it’s a great option for bigger budget teams looking for one central tool to manage more facets of their marketing outputs.
HubSpot is a giant in the space offering lead management options alongside content production and distribution. Not only this, but HubSpot has robust options for reporting and contact management, synching up with all your other key marketing tools.
Related: How to track your marketing leads in HubSpot
The issue with HubSpot is that it gets pretty costly, pretty quickly. If you can afford the full package, you’ll have every tool you could ever need to optimise your marketing.
Pricing: You can get a free HubSpot account but its capabilities are very limited. HubSpot has a complicated pricing plan.
⚡️ Pro Tip
Looking for some alternatives to HubSpot that are easier on the bank balance? Check out our complete guide to HubSpot alternatives.
Live chat tools on your website are a great way to generate new leads. We use Intercom and its functionality works well. You can provide popups based on user activity on your website so that you can send tailored content and messages.
Related: Learn how to track live chat conversations and conversions
Even better, you can integrate it with plenty of marketing tools. So, you could generate new leads on Intercom that link directly into campaigns in ActiveCampaign.
Pricing: Free trials are available, but paid plans start at $79 per month.
B2B marketing tools for social media are key tools too if you’re looking for somewhere to plan, schedule and analyse social posts.
Hootsuite is a particularly robust tool for those looking to manage their social media. You can connect with social media users at every stage of their customer journey, plan campaigns centrally with your team and analyse how your social strategy is impacting your bottom line.
Pricing: 30-day free trials are available and paid plans start at $29 per month
Marketing analytics tools are pretty abundant. When it comes to reporting, Google Analytics is classic and hard to beat. But, as we mentioned earlier, it has its limitations. If you have people converting via offline channels, then GA quickly loses visibility of them.
Related: Limitations of Google Analytics
It means you won’t have an accurate revenue stream inputted into your analytics dashboard. However, if you use a tool like Ruler Analytics you can close the gap between your sales and your marketing.
Ruler will track every lead through their full customer journey, including their sources for each session. Then, when leads convert into sales, Ruler can scrape their closed revenue and attribute it accurately in your analytics tools. Or, you can break it down directly in Ruler.
Pricing: Google Analytics is a free tool. Ruler starts at £199 per month for marketing attribution.
Deciding on your suite of marketing tools as a B2B marketer can be tricky. You’re likely already paying for a CRM which may include many functionalities mentioned above. But remember, the best skill any marketer can have is fully understanding their ROI.
That’s exactly what we do here at Ruler. Understand how Ruler attributes your revenue and supports your marketing strategy. Or, get started with Ruler straight away by booking a demo with our team to see the data in action.
