Cold outreach is a popular trick that marketing gurus and recruiters use to expand their network of influence. It’s a pretty simple concept, really – gather as many emails as possible and craft a well-sounding marketing campaign targeted at all of them. Then just press send and hope that enough emails reach their destination. When they say that the marketing process is complicated, they forget to mention all the different useful tools that people in the ‘business’ have at their disposal. Anyone (even those without a fancy marketing degree) could expand their email lists with a little well-placed know-how. Below we will discuss the best strategies and tools that help you create the ultimate company mailing list for your business.
Why search for company emails?
You might already have the perfect products or a distinguished business pitch that will earn you millions; the problem is, you have nobody to pitch it to. Depending on if you are a small or large business, you will need a differently-sized marketing network. Smaller businesses tend to operate with 1-3 employees at best, while larger organizations have over 10 employees at any given time. Word of mouth isn’t enough to spread your message anymore. In a fully digital world, one needs to quickly connect to as many people as possible without any fuss for both the user and the client. But how do you find your prospects’ emails?
Popular business social networks such as LinkedIn contain useful email addresses. If you know how to connect to a business account and extract the email, you will be able to come into contact with a prospect and pitch your message. Another way is to use email extractors. Extracting emails from large databases has become somewhat of a standard for email marketing. There are many different email extractors out there. We’ve done our research and will pitch you several methods that work for both small businesses and larger corporations.
Check company websites for email traces
The simplest way to find a business email is to simply reach out to the company itself. The issue with this is that most companies with their own website and a dedicated contact center are larger companies such as McDonalds, Amazon, eBay, etc. Their emails are always located in the About Us section. Or, you could use contact databases to get info on all company employees — even for a business as multi-scale as.
Note that since these companies are so big, they will have a dedicated social networking person responsible for all email communication. Also, keep in mind that bigger companies rarely pay special attention to smaller businesses. It’s a shame because many smaller businesses have a good idea that they’d want to pitch to someone, but nobody in the business will take them seriously because they lack the financial resources.
Use LinkedIn to gather company emails
LinkedIn is the leading website for starting out business owners looking to expand their marketing network. LinkedIn works very similarly to other social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter, meaning that it connects people with similar occupations or interests. Anybody who is trying to be anybody in the business uses LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers some features: the ability to style your resume, list talents and interesting facts about yourself, and connect to other people.
This connection is how you extract an email from LinkedIn. The goal is to locate a person who works for the company you are interested in and either message them or connect. Keep in mind that the goal is to find someone who works in the company you want to reach but also has a job that is at least remotely important. You cannot expect to message the janitor of Amazon and demand that they connect you to Human Resources. It just doesn’t work that way.
Messaging someone on LinkedIn is easy. You simply locate their profile and click on the Send Message icon. Depending on how active they are on the platform, you can expect a reply back in 1-3 days. If it takes any longer than that, you might be out of luck. Don’t be shy about reaching out to people. Many users on LinkedIn are specifically on the platform to form connections. Numbers are important in marketing, and the more connections you have, the more successful you appear. Send out multiple messages to several users asking for details regarding the company they work at and whether they can connect you to their official website or a specific department that you need.
The second option with LinkedIn is to browse someone’s profile directly. If that person has chosen to make their info public, you will be able to locate a personal or business email under the Contact Info tab. If the email is there, your quest is complete. Don’t be shy to reach out to them directly. This method is simple but also takes up the most time as you will have to go through every LinkedIn profile and waste quite a lot of time looking for a single email.
Use email finders to extract emails
Email finders are by far the fastest way to massively collect professional info for your marketing campaign. Email finders are online tools that allow you to fill out some information and quickly find anybody’s email. They usually work as Chrome extensions, so you do not need to install additional software. Some email finders are better than others (better in the sense that they have a larger database) and cost slightly less. Since email finders don’t require you to install software or write your own code, they are relatively newbie-friendly. Below we’ve listed the best (in our opinion) email finder that gets the job done.
- SignalHire
SignalHire is an email finder that’s been around for a while and already has great reviews online. With hundreds of thousands of monthly users and a database that contains over 400+ million publicly available domains and emails, it’s the tool that gets the job done. SiglanHire is a Chrome extension, so there is no software. To use SignalHire, follow these steps:
- Visit the SignalHire official web page;
- Download the extension in your chrome browser;
- Install the extension;
- Navigate to the user profile that you want to extract the email from;
- There should be an SH icon on the top right side of your browser. Click on the icon to open a drop-down menu. In the menu, click on Reveal Contacts button to get access to any available information.
If the person has decided to make their account and info public, SignalHire should reveal the email. This way of email extraction is simpler than having to browse manually from profile to profile.
If you visit SignalHire’s website, you will see a directory of over 10 million companies. If you register for their membership plan, you will receive credits, which will allow you to reveal email addresses, Facebook and Twitter accounts of members in a specific company. This removes the need to search for emails in different locations. It’s quite a convenient way to expand your marketing strategy.
Conclusion
Today, public and private info is already a commodity. Having someone’s email gives you the power to come into contact with that person directly. Always keep your private information secure and do not share it with 3rd parties. While this article aims to help and educate, you should always complete your own research before sharing sensitive data. Stay safe! And more importantly, make your pitches and messages count when reaching out to strangers. While there are plenty of useful tools that can help you reach out to key business figures, remember that you need to stay professional and polite when contacting someone for the first time.
