Proper lead management is essential. So important, that proper lead management software can boost a sales team's results significantly.
But with the large variety of options available for lead management software, it’s easy to become uncertain about what choice to make.
We’ve compiled a list of the best CRM systems for lead generation and management to help anyone.
Why do you need to manage your leads?
Lead management is a critical process for a growing business. Generating, prospecting, and keeping up with more significant amounts of leads are common business practices.
Well-implemented lead management helps employees focus on tasks that bring your business the highest ROI, significantly reducing the time needed to complete low-ROI tasks.
Giving sales employees more time to focus on communication leads also leads to a higher conversion rate for your business.
What is a lead management CRM?
A growing business needs to be able to operate with large pools of leads at different stages of the sales funnel. Implementing specialist software for lead management can streamline this process for a business.
Usually, CRM software is the chosen tool for lead management. Most CRM systems provide a variety of features for generating, prospecting, and nurturing leads.
Some absolute must-haves for a lead management CRM system are…
- Lead capturing tools
- Email tracking and lead activity tracking
- Lead scoring system for lead qualification
- Automations for lead nurturing and prospecting
- Campaign functionality
- Integrations with existing tools from the tech stack
However, you shouldn't stop there. Modern lead management CRM are much more versatile than just systems for capturing and organising leads. Other functions can be present in a CRM for lead management, like…
- Reporting functionality
- Unconventional tools for lead generation such as business card scanners
- The ability to scrape data from business intelligence providers
However, these tools don't make or break an excellent lead management CRM. The objective marker for deciding on a lead management CRM system is…
- How it integrates with your work processes
- How well it scales with company growth
It’s also important to remember that there is no such thing as a singular best lead management CRM. Different companies work best with different lead management CRMs, depending on their industry, scale, and work processes.
8 best CRM systems for lead management: Pros, cons, and pricing
We have compared these lead management CRM platforms with each other and provided you with their advantages and disadvantages.
If you would like to check any of them out, their prices and links are included below.
We have compared these lead management CRM platforms with each other and provided you with their advantages and disadvantages.
If you would like to check any of them out, their prices and links are included below.
NetHunt CRM
NetHunt CRM is a Google Workspace-integrated CRM system that provides customers with various tools for lead management, workflow automation, campaign management, and report generation.
NetHunt CRM offers a state-of-the-art CRM system's full power and flexibility while perfectly integrating with your Gmail inbox. The numerous integrations that NetHunt CRM provides mean most of your sales and lead management activities can be completed from a single browser tab.
Managing leads using NetHunt CRM is as easy as possible, with tools such as…
- Automatic outreach and follow-up processes
- Custom and required fields to ensure data completeness
- Custom views to navigate the database easily
- A visualised sales pipeline to pay close attention lead journeys through the funnel
- Customer card timelines to see all interactions with a customer
- Customisable lead distribution
- Automatic lead prospecting
- Organised database with custom folders and views
NetHunt CRM’s integrations with LinkedIn, Facebook Chat, Intercom, and more generate large quantities of leads significantly faster.
For instance, thanks to the integration with LinkedIn, you can scrape all the publicly available LinkedIn data in a matter of a couple clicks.
What's interesting, the integrations offer two-way synchronisation. Users can add data in the CRM and see it reflected when to go to the lead's LinkedIn profile.
Having powerful integrations such as these makes NetHunt CRM a formidable lead management CRM amongst customers.
In short, the benefits of using NetHunt CRM are…
✅ A sleek and easy-to-use interface that is integrated with Google Workspace
✅ Various custom filters to help with making data-driven decisions
✅ Robust sales and marketing automation
✅ Integrations with other tools for compatibility with the rest of a business’s tech stack
However, NetHunt CRM falls short in the following areas…
❌ The reporting functionality offered by NetHunt CRM is fairly basic — if you want to put together more complex data reports, you'll have to utilise the integration with Google's Looker Studio.
❌ Some users point out that NetHunt CRM is a slightly more expensive solution than its competitors, not that it makes it any worse as a lead generation CRM
For a complete list of NetHunt CRM's lead generation and management functionality, click here.
If you’d like to check NetHunt CRM out for yourself, you should give an 14-day free trial a shot!
Try NetHunt CRM for lead management now!
💰 NetHunt CRM’s prices start from as low as $24 per user per month.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a popular CRM system, well-suited to accommodate sales teams of different sizes. Providing various functions to sales and marketing teams that assist with completing work processes.
Pipedrive has lead management functionality such as…
- Lead segmentation functionality, allowing you to filter leads
- Contact history to view previous interactions with customers
- Visualised sales pipelines
- Activity reminders to make sure sales reps stay on top of everything.
Some of the most prominent benefits of Pipedrive are…
✅ A mobile CRM app enabling lead management on the fly
✅ Workflow automation
✅ A large number of integrations
✅ Customisable filters for database navigation.
However, there are some downsides of this lead generation CRM system, too. For instance...
❌ Some G2 reviews have noted that Pipedrive's automation is somewhat frustrating.
❌ Pipedrive falls on the pricier side of the lead management CRM spectrum — it might not be affordable for small businesses that are only getting started.
If you want to see this CRM for lead management in action, you can give Pipedrive a try by registering on their website.
💰 Pipedrive CRM costs $24.90 per user per month to use.
HubSpot
No best lead management CRM list would be complete without HubSpot — it's one of the biggest names in the market, and all for a good reason.
Here are some of the most prominent benefits of this lead management CRM...
✅ An accessible solution with user-friendly design
✅ Offers lots of integrations, so you can use HubSpot with the rest of your tech stack
✅ Offers a free plan to use, with a low entry-level price for the product
On top of that, it's worth noting that HubSpot is a huge CRM that meets the needs of different departments within the company. That's possible thanks to the key HubSpot featured integrated under separate "hubs", such as...
- Sales Hub, with sales automations and prospecting tools
- Marketing Hub, packed with SEO tools and email campaign tools
- Customer Support Hub with the necessary tools for you to assist your customers
- CMS Hub with lead generation, content creation, and strategy creation suite
- An Operation Hub, providing automation capabilities and other operational functions
However, these “hubs” each come with their own price tag as add-ons to the base HubSpot CRM. Different businesses will have to pay significantly different prices based on what needs they need to be fulfilled.
Some other downsides of HubSpot are…
❌ Free version offers limited functionality
❌ Limited level of customisation
❌ Creating contacts inside each deal takes a long time
❌ A relatively steep learning curve
HubSpot CRM lead management functionality includes…
- Lead generation tools, allowing for lead capture from multiple sources
- Sales automation tools
- Campaign management tools
- Email personalisation and templates
- Task reminders
- Large variety of filters for navigation through leads.
💰 HubSpot will cost you an average of $50 a month. However, pricing differs from company to company.
Monday CRM
Monday is a sales CRM that attempts to centralise all of the businesses sales related operations and tools within a single place, Monday Work OS.
It also comes with lead management functionality such as…
- Email integration
- Activity management
- Lead scoring tools
- Templates for emails
- Integration of multiple channels for capturing leads
Monday CRM is on our list of the best lead management CRM solutions thanks to the vast benefits this system can boast. Here are the most prominent ones:
✅ Easy-to-use and easy-to-implement software with an intuitive user interface
✅ Offers a high degree of customisation, including customisable dashboards
✅ Has a decent workflow automation
✅ Offers extensive performance tracking capabilities
However, Monday CRM underperforms in some aspects…
❌ Dashboard customisation options might not suit all businesses
❌ The file management system seems to not be able to open certain types of documents
❌ Lacks an undo button when inputting data
❌ There is no automatic duplicate checking available
Besides, some complaints have also pointed out issues with implementation.
💰 Monday CRM prices start at $10 per month.
Insightly
Insightly is the most popular CRM for Office 365 users, offering a unified CRM system for businesses from a multitude of industries.
The pros of Insightly are…
✅ Good scaling
✅ Low barrier of entry
✅ Integration with a large variety of tools such as Quickbooks
✅ It has a decent degree of customisation allowing for flexibility
✅ Offers a mobile application
The cons are…
❌ Insightly seems to be priced on the steeper side compared to other CRMs
❌ Support is lacklustre; smaller clients are made to wait for extended periods of time
❌ Filters lack customisation options
The lead management options offered by Insightly are very basic. However, it integrates easily with other lead management tools available on the market, hence its place on this list of the best CRM for lead management.
💰 Insightly prices start at $29 per user per month. Again, on the pricier side.
Freshworks CRM
Freshworks is a CRM that aims to provide everything needed to provide good quality customer experience.
When it comes to lead management, Freshworks CRM offers all of the needed instruments such as…
- Email integration
- Activity management
- Lead scoring
- Templates for emails
- Integration of multiple channels for capturing leads
The pros of Freshworks CRM are…
✅ Wide variety of available tools for the HR and IT service departments
✅ Filters for accessible data sorting and collection
✅ The Freshchat integration means businesses provide customer support as fast as possible
✅ Workflow automation is possible with Freshworks CRM
However, Freshworks CRM seems to be lacking in these aspects
❌ Automated workflows are challenging to set up
❌ Issues with email deliverability due to spam-filtering
❌ Customer support sometimes takes long to answer
If you'd like to give Freshworks CRM a try, you can sign up on their website.
💰 This lead management CRM system's pricing starts at $15 per month per user when billed annually.
noCRM
noCRM is not a traditional CRM system. It boasts the ability to create leads “in seconds” and manage the entire sales funnel with ease.
noCRM has functions such as…
- Various integrations
- Customisable interface
- The ability to build sales pipelines
- An activities loop for SDRs to stay on track
- A mobile app
With lead management functionality such as…
- Sales script generation
- Lead capturing tools from webforms, LinkedIn, Email, business cards and others
- Integrations with communication tools for prospecting
However, it should be noted that noCRM is not the best-suited for larger scale businesses, as it was built to provide the functionality for small-medium-sized businesses. Therefore, the most common argument against noCRM is that it just doesn’t provide some of the features that its competitors provide.
💰 noCRM starts at $10 per month, if you want to give it a try.
You should also keep in mind that most of the options on this list offer a free trial. It’s always a good idea to gain some hands-on experience with a tool before you buy it.
When looking to implement a CRM for lead management, it’s also important for the CRM to perform well as a CRM in the first place.
➡️ We have a handy guide for that, which can be found here.
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