You already know that outbound works great; you just don’t have the tools, right? Well, we’ve got you!
Time pressure, lead volumes, and challenging targets leave no room for inefficient sales work. You need the proper outbound arsenal to close deals. So here it is—the most comprehensive list of outbound sales tools just for you.
Discover what users think about these tools, who they're designed for, and their strengths and weaknesses. This list will help you decide which tools to drop and which are perfect for your needs.
What to Look for in Outbound Sales Tools
Since there are hundreds of sales cloud-based tools on the market, it may be quite a headache to plow through them all. Not to mention checking out every tiny feature, right?
Well, we have a handy list of key characteristics your outbound sales tools should have:
- Ease of use: Yeah, it's table stakes. But you'd be surprised how many tools we've skipped here because they had a steep learning curve. As time pressure in outbound sales is a real deal, the easier the tool, the more time for selling
- Automation features: You buy tools to improve productivity—that's why automation will be handy
- Integrations: We're helping you complete your stack, right? So your tools should integrate well with other tools. It's a time saver and helps you move data wherever you need it
- Analytics: How would you know if your outbound activities work without basic analytics? We don't talk here about sophisticated charts or calculations, but solid, basic stats
Now, off to 20 best outbound tools. We divided them into categories, so it's easier for you to actually track down those that you need.
The 20 Best Outbound Sales Tools to Maximize Your Efforts
In this section, you will find the following categories:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools
- Email Outreach Tools
- Sales Engagement Platforms
- Sales Prospecting Tools
- Sales Enablement Tools
Customer Relationship Management Software
The most important powerhouse a salesperson can have is a CRM. It is the main hub that holds together your outbound sales stack.
No matter if you are:
- Managing large lead lists
- Staying on top of calls and SMS outreach
- Managing relationships with prospects
Everything happens in your CRM.
Compare the best CRMs for outbound sales: Close, Insightly, Pipedrive, and SugarCRM.
1. Close CRM: The Best Tool for Outbound Sales
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Close is the fastest outbound CRM out there. It is super easy to use and crafted to help small and mid-sized businesses get the most out of their outbound B2B sales. Close integrates with hundreds of tools, providing automation and analytics capabilities.
Users love Close for its user-friendly interface and its effectiveness in outbound sales. Best of all, we just released our brand new Close mobile app, which is now available for use!
Key outbound features:
- Power Dialer & Predictive Dialer: The Power Dialer automatically goes through your cold calling list. The Predictive Dialer allows you to call more leads in less time. When a real person answers, the call is automatically directed to an available representative
- Workflows: This feature helps you warm up leads by setting up an outreach order. You can create an email, set an SMS follow-up within the next three days, and schedule a call for the near future. You can also use email templates and schedule calls and SMS messages
- SMS Outreach: Manage all your messages directly from your Close account. You can send personalized messages or do bulk cold outreach
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Benefits of Close as outbound sales software:
- Syncs and auto-logs all your email, calls, and SMS activities without expensive add-ons
- Allows you to do outbound calls to around 200 countries (yeah, with local numbers—higher chances for leads to pick up)
- A brand new Close mobile app helps you manage your outbound campaigns on the go
2. Insightly
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Insightly is an all-in-one kind of tool. A CRM, marketing, and support platform that offers features for outbound sales. In terms of sales, you can do various tasks such as managing contacts, pipelines, and tracking activities.
While some users long for customization options, Insightly is considered a pretty good CRM. Users say that it lets them structure projects and find information easily.
Key outbound features include:
- Automated, customized emails (including templates) that help you send emails to targeted lists
- Scheduled outbound emails
- Workflow automation that minimizes manual work
Benefits of Insightly for outbound sales teams:
- The ability to track and assess prospects as they progress through the sales pipeline
- Use of a mobile app to manage outbound activities while on the move
- Analytics capabilities that give you insights into your outbound performance
3. Pipedrive
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Pipedrive has a user-friendly interface and visual sales pipeline management. It lets you do typical sales things like manage leads, track deals, and prioritize tasks. Email features are available starting at an Advanced plan. One drawback is that, if you want to do outbound calls and SMS, you have to integrate Pipedrive with another tool.
While users like Pipedrive for its holistic view of the sales pipeline, others complain about customer support availability and inflexible automation.
Key outbound features:
- Email builder, segmentation, and analytics that works inside the CRM
- Sales automation tools that reduce manual work.
- SMS, Call, and Call recording are only available through third-party integrations
Benefits of Pipedrive related to outbound activities:
- Automated outbound programs help you build and fill sales funnels
- Analytics lets you track outbound campaign performance
- Group mailing and scheduling lets you reach out to your prospect list at the right time
4. SugarCRM
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SugarCRM is an all-in-one tool that gives you options to do:
- Sales and marketing automation
- Customer service
- On-prem deployment
While it has bells-and-whistles like AI-based forecasting and omnichannel, some users think it has a steep learning curve. Other’s opinion is that SugarCRM lacks features you typically can find in other CRMs on the market.
Key outbound features:
- Drag-and-drop automation of tasks and follow-ups
- Outbound calling and SMS are only available through external add-ons or via the SugarCRM Mobile app
- Multi-channel campaign execution
Benefits of SugarCRM as outbound sales software:
- Integration of call management makes it easy to track and log in outbound calls
- SMS integration (e.g., with Ringover) makes it possible to communicate with leads directly
- Email sequences and automated outreach can save time
Email Outreach Tools
Email outreach tools empower your sales team to get in touch with prospects via email in a segmented and personalized manner.
They are quite crucial in your arsenal. Once you send a bulk email and observe some engagement, you can swiftly improve the next one and adjust the messaging according to lead intent.
Compare the best email outreach tools: Outreach, Yesware, Mailshake, and Reply.io.
5. Outreach
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Outreach is an enterprise-focused sales engagement platform that has outbound features. They offer sequencing, email templates, tracking, and advanced analytics.
While users appreciate email features like stats that give valuable insights, some users say that there is no autonomy to create your own sequences, which makes you do a lot of things manually. What’s more, it’s hard to access the last call/email data, and there is no option to do mass email.
Key outbound features:
- Email sequencing and automation: helps you create campaigns and automated follow-ups
- Email, calls, and social media touchpoint insights are available from the platform
- Making, logging, and tracking B2B sales calls and performance metrics tied to them
Benefits of Outreach related to outbound activities:
- Easy to reach out to hundreds or thousands of leads thanks to sequences
- Advanced analytics and reporting help keep track of the outbound sales activities
- Option to do A/B testing and check which email variant drives better engagement
6. Yesware
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Yesware is a sales email outreach tool that can help your sales team create, track and optimize your outbound email activities. They specialize in emails, offering multi-channel campaigns, email templates, tracking, and analytics.
Although they integrate well with most email clients, the only CRM integration is with Salesforce, which is a limitation. Users like their email sequence feature and think it’s a great addition for any business. Some users said it took some time to figure out some of the functions.
Key outbound features:
- Tracks all your campaigns so you know when a prospect opened your email, clicked on a link, or viewed an attachment
- Calls, LinkedIn messages, and custom touches can be managed in one tool
Benefits of Yesware for outbound activities:
- Easy to check prospect engagement and do a follow-up
- Email templates with custom variables synced with your email clients help you send better emails faster
- Option to share insights, email templates, and track team performance
7. Mailshake
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Mailshake is a simple tool that offers advanced email outreach tools so you can improve your outreach activities. It has email personalization, A/B testing, and automated follow-ups.
Users generally like the tool, its simplicity, and its capabilities. Most complaints are about pricing that could be lower.
Key outbound features:
- Mass email campaigns
- Connects with most email clients
- Analytics is built-in to monitor opens, clicks, and replies for every email you send
Benefits of Mailshake for outbound sales teams:
- Ability to have a lead in more than one sequence simultaneously
- Save time and effort by automating repetitive tasks
- Easy to set up and see stats and insights
8. Reply.io
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Reply.io is a sales engagement platform that offers email outreach and sales automation options. Email sequences, personalization, and AI-driven follow-ups let you scale your outbound outreach.
Users consider it a pretty intuitive tool for large cold email campaigns. Some users think the price could be lower.
Key outbound features:
- Emails, calls, tasks, SMS, WhatsApp, and social outreach
- A/B testing for email steps
- Sequence and email templates
Benefits of Reply.io for outbound sales:
- You can automate, scale, and monitor the performance of your outbound campaigns
- Reply meetings integrate well with Google Calendar
- Native integrations with most CRMs like Close, HubSpot, Salesforce, Copper CRM, etc.
Sales Engagement Platforms
Sales engagement platforms are tools designed to manage interactions with leads and improve your outbound sales processes. They offer a wide range of features so your squad can:
- Engage with prospects
- Keep the productivity up
- Tack outbound sales performance
Compare the best sales engagement tools: SalesLoft, Groove, Xant, and ConnectLeader.
9. Salesloft
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Salesloft is an enterprise tool with hidden pricing plans. With email sequencing, call logging, prospect tracking, and analytics, the tool can serve your team with outbound activities.
Some users think it has a steep learning curve, and calls aren't adequately recorded with the integration. Moreover, email automation has to be purchased as an add-on (while call dialer is built-in—those who don’t need it have to pay anyway.)
Key outbound features:
- Bi-directional CRM sync (from your CRM of choice)
- Reporting & analytics (detailed revenue and engagement data)
- Call recording tool inside
Benefits of Salesloft for outbound activities:
- Offers tools for automating outbound activities like email templates, cadences (timing + frequency, content for each touchpoint), and automated follow-ups
- Tags and dynamic content let you tailor your messages to individual prospects
- You can track key metrics, such as email open rates, response rates, call activity, etc.
10. Groove
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Groove is another sales engagement platform to help you drive efficiency and outbound sales. It offers features such as email automation, cadence management, analytics, and Salesforce integration.
Users like Groove because it’s efficient to book outbound meetings but dislike it for tracking outbound calls. Why? Because it’s limited to the number of dials and emails a user makes.
Key outbound features:
- Email engagement tracking, like open rates, clicks, and replies
- Cadence management—multi-step cadences for outbound campaigns
- Dialer and call logging that’s built-in
Benefits of Groove related to outbound activities:
- You can improve engagement with prospects
- Save time with automated cadences
- Improved productivity with call management and logging
11. InsideSales (Formerly Xant)
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InsideSales (formerly called Xant) is an enterprise sales engagement platform that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with sales automation. Everything to improve prospect engagement and sales performance. It offers features such as guided selling, predictive analytics, conversation analytics, and workflow automation.
Some users aren’t satisfied with the support and constant downtime without any resolution. Others consider email automation with detailed tracking as cool.
Key outbound features:
- Predictive dialer that can help optimize outbound calling
- Sales cadence automation can help automate sequences of touchpoints (calls, emails, and social media interactions)
- Intelligent lead prioritization can help analyze data and prioritize leads based on the likelihood of conversion
Benefits of Xant (InsideSales) related to outbound activities:
- You can optimize lead prioritization
- You can improve engagement through predictive dialing
- AI-driven lead scoring can save some time
12. Koncert
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Koncert (formerly called ConnectLeader) is a sales engagement platform that offers features for outbound sales. The tool looks old-school but provides a sales dialer, lead prioritization, and analytics.
It has a pretty advanced AI dialer and multi-channel sales sequencer. Users are happy with their capability to get SDRs to call a high volume of prospects which results in more meetings booked. Others run into various technical complications that slowed down daily operations.
Key outbound features:
- Intelligent dialing can help you increase calling efficiency
- Sales cadence management can help you automate sequences of touchpoints across calls, emails, and social media
- Reporting that can help you track outbound sales performance
Benefits of Koncert (ConnectLeader) related to outbound activities:
- Better prospect targeting
- Better sales productivity
- More personalized outreach
Sales Prospecting Tools
Those types of tools help you better identify and qualify potential leads for your product. They make it easier to initiate contact with a lead and assess their interest and potential as a customer.
B2B sales prospecting is often the first step in the sales cycle, focused on generating leads and filling the sales pipeline.
Compare the best sales prospecting tools for outbound sales: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, Seamless.ai, and Leadfeeder.
13. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
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LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a powerful tool that can help your team do advanced filtered searches that make it easy to identify and connect with prospects within LinkedIn.
With Sales Navigator, you can search for leads based on various criteria such as industry, job title, company size, and more.
Users think the experience of using the tool is good. It makes it easy to gather all the required information about the people they need to approach. On the other hand, users didn’t like the steep learning curve and high costs.
Key outbound features:
- Advanced search and lead filters that helps you target ideal leads with advanced search and segmentation options
- InMail messaging helps you engage with prospects directly on LinkedIn
- Sales insights and relationship building that can help you get insights, build relationships and track prospect activities
Benefits of LinkedIn Sales Navigator for high-quality sales prospecting:
- Real-time lead updates and notifications for timely engagement
- InMail feature for direct messaging to bypass gatekeepers
- Integration with CRM systems for seamless lead management
14. Apollo
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Apollo.io is an all-in-one sales tool for prospecting and outbound sales. It gives your team options to enrich current lead data, generate leads and engage them.
With Apollo, you can target prospects more accurately, automate outreach and track outbound sales. Users generally like Apollo for its outreach capabilities (both email and LinkedIn) and the time-saving it brings. On the other hand, some users don’t like limited integration capabilities and pricing that’s a bit too high.
Key features for outbound sales:
- Data enrichment can help you target your ideal customer profile and people with high buying intent and update your lead information in your CRM
- Email and multi-channel outreach that helps you with creating more personalized campaigns that include phone calls, social media (like LinkedIn) outreach
- Sales activity tracking can help you measure lead interactions, email open rates, clicks, and call activities
Benefits of Apollo.io for outbound sales:
- Accurate data about leads help you identify and target better prospects and increase your chances of closing the deal
- Advanced search for leads, accounts, and companies based on criteria like industry, location, or job title makes prospecting smoother
- Thanks to tracking and analyzing sales activities within Apollo, you can make more data-informed decisions and improve sales performance
15. Seamless.ai
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Seamless.ai is an AI-powered sales prospecting tool that combines data aggregation with predictive analytics. You can use the tool to find the right leads and their contact details faster.
While some users consider it a cost-effective and reliable solution for outbound sales, there are many opinions that the tool provides inaccurate data and uses shady tactics to keep users subscribed.
Key features for outbound sales:
- AI lead generation can help improve the quality of leads
- Contact discovery can help you find more accurate contact information, like phone numbers, for potential leads from your target audience
- Email automation can help you send outbound personalized campaigns and follow up with prospects that caught your interest
Benefits of Seamless.ai for outbound sales:
- Advanced search capabilities for precise targeting based on job titles, industries, and more
- Data enrichment features to enhance lead profiles with additional details
- Easy to use and cost-effective
16. Leadfeeder (Now Dealfront)
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Leadfeeder (now Dealfront) is a website visitor tracking tool that helps you identify potential leads interested in your product. It integrates with Google Analytics and gives you insights about website visitors so you can prioritize and get in touch with the most promising ones.
It integrates with popular CRMs and helps you fuel your outbound sales activities. Although users see how much time their leads spend on their website (which is helpful), some think the tool has too many errors.
Key features for outbound sales:
- Prospect identification that helps you target outbound sales efforts better
- Lead scoring option that can help you prioritize and focus on the hottest leads
- CRM integrations that let you transfer all the data to your CRM and enrich lead profiles
Benefits of Leadfeeder for outbound sales:
- Better sales performance thanks to more optimized outbound sales focused on key leads
- More personalized outreach and messaging that can better resonate with targeted leads
- Customizable reporting features to track the effectiveness of your outreach campaigns
Sales Enablement Tools
Sales enablement tools are the last type of tools in this article. They help your sales team manage resources and information. As a result, engaging with prospects, optimizing sales processes and closing deals is easier.
Compare the best sales enablement tools for outbound sales: Seismic, Brainshark, Clearslide, and Mediafly.
17. Seismic
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Seismic is a sales enablement tool that offers a wide range of features. Your team can access a centralized content library with sales collateral, presentations, and other relevant materials.
With Seismic, you can easily manage content and ensure that all your sales folks have all the resources they need.
Users like the tool because with it, they move past searching in multiple places to find materials. Instead, they can easily share them with prospects. The issue for others may be outdated documentation that’s hard to find.
Key features for outbound sales:
- Sales content management helps you centralize all things outbound so your team uses one source of truth
- Content personalization helps your team dynamically customize content and deliver more personalized and impactful messages to their prospects
- Sales enablement analytics helps you get insights into content performance and optimize it so you can increase your outbound sales success.
Benefits of Seismic for outbound sales:
- As your sales team can quickly find and deliver the right content, they can get more organized and productive
- Better content quality that has consistent and relevant messaging.
- Your sales team can track content effectiveness and improve selling strategies based on what worked and what didn’t
18. Brainshark
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Brainshark is another sales enablement tool that focuses on improving the delivery of sales content. This platform allows sales reps to create interactive and engaging presentations that can be easily shared with prospects.
With Brainshark, sales professionals can incorporate videos, quizzes, and other interactive elements into their presentations, making it easier to capture and maintain the attention of potential customers.
Some users think Brainshark has a steep learning curve. But in general, users like the tool as it allows for a smooth way to generate training programs, measure a team’s progress, and spot skill gaps.
Key features for outbound sales:
- Sales training and coaching that helps your team get better every day and improve their skills
- Content creation and sharing that helps your sales team better manage resources, keep everything consistent and make more impactful outbound outreach
- Analytics features will help you see what’s the content performance and sales outbound performance
Benefits of Brainshark for outbound sales:
- Better sales effectiveness as your team gets more skilled which can translate to closing more deals
- More consistent messaging and fresh content across all outbound activities
- Analytics lets you identify where your team has knowledge gaps and which content doesn’t work well so you can improve performance across your team
19. ClearSlide
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ClearSlide is a sales enablement solution that offers a wide range of features. They can help your team communicate and collaborate with prospects. This means sharing presentations, hosting online meetings and webinars, and doing live demos.
Users like ClearSlide because of its huge library of sales presentations and the option to know when leads open those presentations. The minus for others was that the tool wasn’t user-friendly when navigating the library.
Key features for outbound sales:
- Content management that helps you build engaging presentations for successful sales pitches
- Communication tools that help you access content, use email templates, and host instant meetings from the web app, email, CRM, or mobile apps
- Customer engagement insights helps you monitor engagement from content, emails, and online and in-person meetings, enabling tailored follow-up
Benefits of ClearSlide for outbound sales:
- Better sales effectiveness as you know when to follow up with prospects and what to prioritize
- Better collaboration and communication with prospects as you can send everything directly via the platform
- More organization and productivity thanks to easy access to relevant content and presentations
20. Mediafly
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Mediafly is a sales enablement platform that focuses on delivering personalized and interactive sales experiences. This tool allows you to create customized sales presentations that address the specific needs and pain points of individual prospects.
Users think the platform is intuitive and makes it a breeze to access and share content with customers (and track it). On the negative side, some people think the tool is a bit too expensive.
Key features for outbound sales:
- Content management helps you manage and organize sales content so your outbound sales team can send relevant materials to prospects
- Interactive presentations that let your team deliver the right pitches to the right target audience
- Content performance tracking: consumption, shares, time on page, and sales interactions so your team can understand what resonates with buyer personas
Benefits of Clearslide for outbound sales:
- Better sales productivity as they know when to follow up and what content they should send over to prospects
- More personalized outreach that lets you synchronize calling time with the time a prospect views your content
- Better content organization so it’s easy to access, upload by the marketing team and share with customers
Combine the Best Tools to Level up Your Outbound Game
That was a long ride, but hopefully, you enjoyed getting to know all those outbound sales tools. If you’re thinking seriously about outbound, grab the right tools to elevate outbound prospecting, lead engagement, and closing deals.
Consider which tools are easy to use, integrate well with existing software, and let you customize workflows.
And remember: your CRM is your central hub for all things outbound. If you’re looking for a solid CRM crafted for startups and small businesses, test out Close for 14 days free.
