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How to Find Anyone’s Business Email Address
When you need to do cold outreach, you can usually find the contact info you need online.
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With the average person sending and receiving more than 120 business emails every day, you can’t blame people for not publicly posting their email addresses. Who wants their inbox overflowing with unwanted pitches, marketing messages and spam? But by using the right verification tools and cold email strategies, you can continually build your email marketing list, improve your deliverability rates and potentially earn new business.
The most important aspect of successfully sending cold emails is making sure you have the correct email address for the person you’re targeting. It can take a little digging, but finding someone’s business email address is possible with some research and helpful search tools. Below, we’re breaking down how you can find business email addresses and sharing our top dos and don’ts for reaching out to prospects with cold emails.
How to find anyone’s business email address
Here are the best ways to find unknown business email addresses using readily available online resources.
Collect the person’s basic information.
You may already have the details you need to obtain a prospect’s email address, depending on how you were introduced or came to know the individual. But this process is super easy even if you don’t have certain information since all you really need to start is their name. Once you have that, you’ll want to collect the following:
- Company website domain
- Phone number
- Social media handle(s)
- Job title
Two of the best places to source all of this are LinkedIn and Google.
Find the contact on LinkedIn.
Type the prospect’s name in the LinkedIn search bar. You can find the company the individual works for on their profile and then simply type the company into Google to find its domain name. Once you have that, you can use email databases and verification tools like those discussed below to determine the person’s email address.
You can also attempt to connect with the person on LinkedIn by using your own account. When you send the connection request, add a short note to let them know why you want to connect. Most LinkedIn accounts will provide you with the user’s contact information once your request is accepted.
>> Learn More: How to Create a Business Profile on LinkedIn
If you don’t want the prospect to know you viewed their LinkedIn profile before emailing them, follow these steps before clicking over to their profile:
- Click on your account icon in the top navigation bar and select “Settings & Privacy.”
- Click on the “Visibility” tab in the left rail.
- Click “Profile viewing options.”
- Select “Private Mode.”
Now you’re in ghost mode, so the prospect won’t know you viewed their profile. However, if you want to use the platform to communicate with the person, review our tips for networking on LinkedIn.
Do a Google search.
LinkedIn isn’t the be-all and end-all for finding someone’s personal information, though. A simple Google search could yield more results than you might think, as will a search through social media. With those sources, you can usually find someone’s full name, possibly where they work and if they are on any other professional platforms where their email would be listed.
Jennifer Mancini, the founder of Mancini Media Strategy, said that by searching for someone on Google, you often can pull up a business page or personal page that lists all of the person’s contact info.
“There almost always is at least an option to contact them from a form on their page,” Mancini told us.
Search an email database.
Depending on your business needs, you may want to contact multiple prospects at the same company. Email databases can help you automate email verification on a larger scale to ensure you have the right delivery address. Email databases are also helpful for obtaining relevant information like job titles, locations, etc. Below are some database services to consider.
Hunter
Jade Hickton, a private investigator at The Smith Investigation Agency, recommended Hunter, an email outreach platform.
“This email search site allows you to input the company or business of the person you are looking to contact and [it will] provide you with all the company’s [email addresses],” Hickton said.
Hickton pointed out that it also gives you the standard email address format used for the business’s employees, so then you would just need to plug in the specific person’s name to complete their email address. For example, if you discover an organization’s email address style is firstname.lastname@company.com, you’d use jane.doe@company.com to email Jane Doe.
Snov.io
Hickton said another useful site is Snov.io, which offers various sales tools, including an email finder. “Some of the search options include by domain, company, name, etc.,” she said. “Snov.io also offers bulk searches of up to 20,000 at one time.”
AeroLeads
AeroLeads is also one of the best tools for finding email addresses online. It can also unearth other valuable details, such as the person’s company name, contact information and location.
Apollo.io
Krystal Covington, a marketing consultant, suggested Apollo.io. She likes that this sales intelligence and engagement platform allows her to use company search criteria to find relevant individuals and add them to lists or email contact sequences.
Though not foolproof, all of the resources listed above are quick, easy and low-cost ways to find email addresses and engage in cold outreach. Scaling your outreach will up your costs, but it can be worth your effort and funds if you work out a successful cold email strategy,
Test the email address.
Increasing your deliverability rate is more effective than sending thousands of emails to unverified addresses. Guessing at business contact information can increase your bounce rate and get your emails sent straight to the spam folder. To avoid this, always verify email addresses before you hit send. This crucial step can lead to better response rates and elevate your chances of getting your email in front of the intended recipients.
Once you have what you think are viable email addresses, there are a few ways to test them to see which ones are correct.
Use email verification tools.
If you still have only the name and company where the person works, you can try using an email verifier, such as VoilaNorbert. The service is free if you just need to find a few email addresses. After signing up, you simply enter the name and company domain of the individual you want to contact, and their email address will be automatically generated.
You can also use the platform to collect email addresses at scale. Once you have all the names and business domains for the contacts you want to connect with, organize it in a spreadsheet with “Name” and “Company Domain” as the two columns. Then, upload it to VoilaNorbert, where the data will be processed and each person’s email address will be identified. You can then download the entire list of email addresses for future use.
Some email checkers allow you to import your contact list, making it easy to clean up your address book. Email verification services that don’t require you to register to use their tools make it even simpler and faster to check a few email addresses.
Complete a Google search.
Another way to see if you have the correct email address is to type the contact information into the Google search bar. More often than not, the email address will appear in the search results. That’s because it’s becoming commonplace for people to put their email contact information on social media networks, business websites, online press releases, etc. — all pages Google crawls. The email address is likely current and valid if it appears in your Google search results.
Verify the email address through Gmail.
If you’re a small business verifying Gmail-hosted email addresses one by one, Gmail itself is one of the most reliable sources for verifying email accounts. Take the following steps:
- Log out of your own Gmail account.
- Click “I don’t know my password.”
- Type in the prospect’s email address.
- If the email is invalid, Gmail will instantly notify you with the error “No account found with that email address.” Then you’ll know you have the wrong address.
If you do have the correct Gmail address, take the time to ensure your emails won’t go into the recipient’s promotions folder.
The dos and don’ts of sending cold emails
Now that you know how to find the business email addresses you need, you need to understand how best to use them.
Avoiding annoying email campaigns and using the right strategies when cold emailing can increase your success rate. A/B testing your subject lines, offering an incentive and crafting a creative and confident sales pitch can all improve your chances of receiving a reply.
Let’s look at the top dos and don’ts for sending a cold email.
Do: Keep it short.
A cold email should be considered an initial success if it’s opened and read. People already have too many emails to read and reply to, and messages from strangers are the lowest priority. That’s why it’s essential to keep your email straight to the point, ideally fewer than five sentences. Always include why you are contacting them, what you offer and a call to action.
Do: Research your prospect.
A cold email should always include personalization. Do you have a connection to the prospect’s company, hobbies or background? If so, incorporate that. Finding a way to “speak their language” can give your cold email intentionality. While some companies and spam bots mass email business professionals daily, a simple Google search on your prospect could give you the personal information you need to catch their attention.
Do: Make it worth their time.
The end goal of a cold email is a reply. While you want to establish a connection that benefits both you and the recipient, the cold email you send should focus more on the benefits to the recipient. Pitch your best value to the prospect, stressing how you can eliminate their pain point. Ultimately, the recipient cares about solving their problems, not yours.
Do: Follow up with your prospect.
Everyone is juggling multiple plates in their business and personal lives. Even prospects interested in your cold email may not have time or remember to reply. Following up tells the prospect you care, that you’re eager to solve their problem and genuinely interested in getting to know them. However, you don’t want to bombard the person with multiple follow-ups and turn them off.
Don’t: Copy and paste every pitch.
If you have a long list of leads to send a cold email to, it might be tempting to make an email template and hit send. Unfortunately, while this may be a time saver on the surface, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. Using an email template can make emails sound more robotic and less like you cared about reaching that specific individual. Personalize each cold email to match the recipient’s needs and interests. If you’re unsure how to start, praising a prospect for a company achievement is an excellent way to show off your research and character.
Don’t: Try to sell.
Let the prospect know what value your company can provide, but the initial email shouldn’t sound salesy. It’s inappropriate to attach pricing or give them an ultimatum. This is also not the time to sound entitled or use anger to communicate your point. Consider whether the cold email is one you would reply to if you were in their shoes.
Kimberlee Leonard and Henry Foster contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
