Find out how other IT companies identify new sales opportunities and gain more customers in their region. There are really just two simple steps: First, download a list of local businesses from Google Maps with all their details and then, identify the e-mail address for their main contact.
Identifying sales leads as an IT company isn’t easy. However, there is a process that some Jotelulu Partners use to create a database of potential customers (accountants, legal offices, consultants, etc.). It’s really very simple and you just have to use 3 online tools:
How to find more potential customers in your region
Most IT companies specialise in catering for the needs of one type of customer (such as consultants, accountants, retailers, hotels, legal offices, etc.). By developing, implementing or configuring services for a specific field, it is then much easier to replicate a solution for other companies of a similar type. All they have to do is find those companies in order to gain more customers.
So what if they could get hold of the e-mail address of the manager of one of those companies? Or better yet, what if they could filter these companies by location (town, region, etc.)?
Well, that’s exactly what Jotelulu Partners are doing, and if you read on, you’ll find out how to do it yourself.
Step 1. Download the list of businesses from Google Maps
Leads Extractor – Google Maps Scraper is a Google extension that allows you to generate a list of businesses based on existing data on Google Maps. All you need to do is download the extension from the Chrome Web Store by logging in using a Google account. Once you have successfully downloaded the extension, go to Google Maps and activate the Leads Extractor – Google Maps Scraper extension (1).
Step 1. Activate the Google Maps Scraper account.
Once you have activated the extension, perform a search on Google Maps (2) for the type of business and the city/region that you’re interested in (e.g., “Consultants in London”).
[NOTE: The free version of Lead Extractor – Google Maps Scraper only allows you to download 4 leads per search. The paid version ($45/month) allows unlimited searches and downloads each month, enough to create a powerful database.]
Step 1. Search Google Maps for businesses in a specific location (e.g. “Consultants in London”).
Once you have performed your search, simply click on the extension again (3) and click on “Download Results” (4).
Step 1. Click on the Lead Extractor extension and click on “Download Results”.
The extension will automatically generate a CSV file (5) containing all the details for each one of the businesses selected on Google Maps.
Step 1. Download the CSV file containing potential customers and their details.
Once you have downloaded the file, you simply identify the useful data in the document.
To do this, open the CSV file in Excel and select column A. Then select the Data tab from the top menu and click on the “Text to Columns” button. In the window that appears, choose “Original data type: “Delimited” and click next. Check “Tab” and “Comma” under the “Delimiters” option and click next. Finally, under Column Data Format, choose “General” and click Finish.
Step 1. List of businesses with contact details ready to begin filtering and investigating leads.
The CSV file will now have changed to show all the information separated into columns, with e-mail addresses (6) and phone numbers (7) ready for you potential customers.
Step 2. Research the main contact.
You now have contact details for businesses that you are interested in. But if you’re planning on writing them an e-mail, perhaps writing to their general inquiries address (info@xxxxx.com) is not the most effective way. Often, particularly for small businesses, it’s much more effective to directly contact the manager.
This is where Hunter and LinkedIn can help.
Hunter is a tool that allows you to build on this contact information that you have retrieved and find other useful e-mail addresses. It’s very simple to use. Just go to the Hunter website (https://hunter.io) and enter the domain of each of the businesses that you identified previously (8).
Step 2. Find specific e-mail address using Hunter.
This tool automatically returns all e-mail addresses linked to this domain that have been published on the internet (9).
[NOTE: The free version of Hunter only allows you to perform 25 searches per month and it blurs out parts of e-mail addresses that it provides (although you can normally work out the blurred parts easily). The paid version ($49/month) allows up to 500 searches a month.]
Step 2. List of specific e-mail addresses linked to a domain.
In most cases, Hunter returns general e-mail addresses and specific e-mail addresses of particular employees all mixed together. Ideally, you should take all the general addresses and put them in an excel spreadsheet – you can never have too many points of contact. Then, with the e-mail addresses of individual people, you will need to find out not just the e-mail address but the name and position of the person in question (normally, the manager of the company).
To find out this information, the best way is to combine the information from Hunter with information available on LinkedIn:
- Investigate the sources provided by Hunter using the source drop-down menu (9). The links shown will direct you to the website where the e-mail address is published. Often, you will also find the person’s first and last name here too, as well as their full e-mail address.
Step 2. Obtain more information about each contact by investigating the sources provided by Hunter.
- Search LinkedIn. This professional social network allows you to search for people (10) that work for a specific business, thereby obtaining information about their name and position. This is perfect if you are looking to find leads and contact details for the manager of a certain company. LinkedIn can also be a great alternative way of contacting them if e-mailing them doesn’t get you anywhere.
Step 2. Search for employees of a certain business to pin down specific contacts.
A specific database for IT companies
Gaining new potential customers as an IT company is not a simple task. But creating a database based on company type and location can be a great opportunityto increase revenue and expand your business by offering services that can be easily replicated for similar types of companies.
Furthermore, e-mail is a great way of making contact with potential customers. If you have both general e-mail addresses and contact details for specific people within the business, you have a better chance of sending your message and value proposition in a concise, personal yet non-intrusive way. This can doubtlessly be very powerful if used correctly.
Having read this article, you might be interested to learn about other methods that IT companies use to contact potential customers. If so, you might like to read the following posts:
- How to Write Your First Contact E-mail to Potential Customers (As an IT Company).
- 6 Reasons to Opt for the Cloud Instead of On-Premises Software.
We hope that you find all of this information useful. Best of luck!
