83 Tools and Resources for Personalizing and Optimizing Your Emails, Lead Generation, and Marketing

Everyone knows how to sell online. You stick to a simple acronym: AIDA.

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire/Decision
• Action

Then you set up a website and…

…you have no idea what to do next.

Fortunately, there are tools for people who have been in this exact scenario. But while it’s always good to be able to create an average website and marketing campaign on a whim, you’ll have your most powerful results when you include personalization into your marketing and lead generation efforts.

Consider the following:

• When an email subject is personalized to the recipient, the open rate goes to 7.4%.
• When your website itself isn’t personalized, as many as 74% of users feel frustrated.
• 51% of estimated customers feel the need for personalized recommendations.

In a world where Amazon will welcome a user by name and offer personalized recommendations based on their purchase history, you have to be able to compete. That’s why we’ve put together this large list of tools and resources for optimizing and personalizing everything–from the emails you send out to potential clients and customers to the upsell and cross-sells at the end.

And with AIDA in mind, we’ve organized tools by the following categories:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

Note: there are no affiliate links on this list.

Attention: Resources for the First Phase of the Sales Funnel

Email Personalization Tools

• Sender. Email marketing software including subscription forms and personalization.
• MailChimp. Free to use up to a certain subscriber number.
• Replyify. Automate the email sales process while incorporating personal details for each lead/client.
• MailMerge365. Send personalized emails even when sending en masse.
• Snov.io. Automation for cold outreach, adding personalization features.
• OmniSend. Combine email personalization with SMS strategies.
• Really Good Emails. Email templates for making more attractive templates personalized to your brand.
• MailTrack. Email tracking solution so you can check on your results.
• GMass. Send mass (but personalized) emails using your existing Gmail or GSuite account.
• Personyze. Website and email personalization to increase engagement.
• Right Inbox. Gmail productivity extension that allows you to automate follow ups, track emails and set up email templates.

Email Capture and Lead Discovery Tools

• Contact Form 7. WordPress plugin for collecting emails.
• ConvertKit. Well-reviewed email marketing service.
• ManyContacts. Create a “contacts” bar for your website, expand the amount of data you collect for each customer.
• HelloBar. Popular email capture bar for your website.
• Hunter.io. Discover emails of thought leaders for a more personalized approach.
• AeroLeads. Find the email and contact information of key people.
• Lead Crunch. B2B lead discovery and lead generation service.
• LeadFeeder. Maximize your lead discovery by viewing the “warm” leads already browsing your site.
• LeadGenius. Make more use of your B2B marketing data to discover leads.
• DiscoverOrg. Discover B2B leads and data with a B2B contact database.
• Apollo.io. “Data-driven revenue growth,” prospect searching through a database.
• ContactOut. Finds your leads’ email addresses and phone numbers right on their LinkedIn and Github profiles.

Website Building Tools

• HTML5 Up!: Easy-to-manage HTML5 website templates for creating your first site.
• Templated: Site-templates for HTML.
• Strikingly: Get a website up and running in minutes.
• LiveHelpNow: A 30-day trial provides free live chat software to effectively connect with website visitors.

Social Media and Content Generation Tools

• Buffer. Schedule and plan your social media posts.
• Canva. Free way to add custom graphics to social media posts.
• AddThis. Add elements like social media share buttons to your website.
• SharedCount. Use analytics to track your social media success.
• Unsplash. High-quality, royalty-free stock photos.
• Bit.ly. Shorten links and use them to track which media are sending traffic to your site.
• WriteRack. Have more thoughts than the Twitter limits will contain? Use WriteRack to launch a high-value “tweet storm.”
• Click to Tweet. Promote your most sharable quotes and content with an easy “click to tweet” button.

Interest: Tools and Resources for Becoming More Interesting

Landing Page Creation and Optimization Tools

• leadPages. Generate landing pages and edit/optimize.
• Unbounce. Get more people to stay on your landing pages.
• HelpSquad. Sound familiar? Add live chat to your website to engage with customers and answer questions.
• Optimizely. Optimize your site to make it as engaging as possible.
• Web3Canvas. Templates, freebies, and random gizmos that make your site more interesting.
• Coolors. Check your color scheme to optimize your landing page palette.
• Colllor. Pick a color palette easily and quickly.
• Layers for WordPress. Fast webpage builder for creating WP pages and landing pages.
• Website Grader. Hubspot’s tool for grading the effectiveness of your marketing website.
• Hyperise. Add personalization to your webpage to make it more responsive to individual users.
• OptinMonster. Conversion optimization kit for capturing more leads via your website.
• Google Optimize. Increase the optimization and personalization of your site, including advance statistical modeling.
• Jebbit. Capture customer data across any device and easily visualize the data for personalization down the sales funnel.
• Adobe Target. Test and optimize your funnel.
• DynamicYield. Comprehensive personalizaiton services, including marketing messaging custom-tailored to match user behavior.
• VWO. A/B testing, split URL testing, multivariate testing, all aimed at finding the appropriate customer segments for your messaging.

Writing, Editing, and SEO Tools

• Grammarly. Check your grammar, word choice, and spelling in one place.
• HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator. Great for brainstorming new content.
• HemingwayApp. Check your site for its readability–and aim for a lower one.
• Adverb Checker. Keep the writing clean and clear and check your grammar at the same time.
• KeywordTool. Find out the topics that people are already searching for.

Customer Relationship Management and Drip Marketing

• SalesForce. Top CRM for keeping customers in the loop.
• Contactually. CRM designed specifically for real estate professionals.
• Agile CRM. All-in-one CRM service working on the cloud.
• Hubspot. Comprehensive marketing service, easily plugging in various marketing tools to their CRM.
• FreshSales CRM. Easily manage drip-style automation from a centralized dashboard.
• Detective.io. Focus less on research and more on customer management.
• Segment. Personalize your sales process with data that works across channels.
• Clerk.io. Personalize your e-commerce platform by learning what your customers do most often.

Email Drip Marketing

• Customer.io. Send drip emails automatically.
• Bomb-bomb. Energize your drip marketing with videos.
• QuickMail. Integrate email marketing with tools like Gmail.
• Mailjet. Email building, contact management, and easy drip marketing with automation tools.
• InfusionSoft by Keap. Marketing and sales automation, including automating your sales emails.
• Drip. Ideal for people with a lot of customers and potential leads to manage.

Desire and Decision: Resources for Making the Sale

• Calendly. Easily schedule phone calls with potential leads in a way that fits naturally into your schedule.
• Gumroad. Fast way to get your product online and begin selling.
• Proposify. Generate a professional proposal for leads.
• Yesware. Scheduling and sales software, especially useful at the point of decision.
• Zoom. Talk to the person before finalizing any decision.
• Yusp Personalization Engine. Want customers to feel the personalization of your website? Personalize your segments even if you’re selling at scale.

Action: Finalizing the Sale and Upselling

Finalizing the Sale

• HelloSign. Sign documents online and finalize the agreement.
• Signature Maker. Easily sign documents online with a premade signature.
• SalesPresenter. Finalize sales for sales reps on the floor in the retail industry.
• Clinchpad. Also a CRM, but with a high concentration on making the sale.
• LinkedIn Sales Solutions. Meet more people ready to make a purchase on LinkedIn.

Upselling and Cross-selling

• Oaky. Upselling software for hotels and hospitality.
• Upsell-Crosssell for Shopify. Leverage existing sales on a Shopify cart for more sales.
• Monetate. Use Monetate to offer custom-recommended products for cross-selling after a customer has made a purchase.
• Qubit. Analyze customer behavior to come up with the best recommendations for future actions.
• Barilliance. A full platform that could be put in any category on this list, but includes robust retention marketing features after the purchase.