Email outreach is like cold calling but without the awkwardness of a physical conversation.
We’re not talking about email blasts—those crude attempts at spamming that often end up in the recipient’s trash folder. No, we’re talking about crafting a well-thought-out email that speaks to your target audience and encourages them to respond.
Some marketing authorities bash it, but countless businesses have had tremendous success with email outreach.
So long as you have the right email address and know how to package your message, email outreach could be the difference between a sale or no sale, a partnership or no partnership, or an opportunity or a missed one.
You can research how to package your email message or craft the perfect outreach email, but on getting the right email address for any company, business, or individual online, we got you covered:
7 ways to find any company or business’s email address.
1. Use Email Lookup Tools
Email lookup tools are one of the easiest ways to find a company’s or business’s email address. These online resources allow you to input the name or website of a company, and they will trawl the internet and provide you with their email addresses.
Some popular email lookup tools include Hunter.io, VoilaNorbert.com, and FindThatLead.com. These websites offer free and paid services, depending on the number of email addresses you require.
Although these tools are not always 100% accurate, they can provide a good starting point for your email outreach efforts.
FindthatLeads, for instance, allows you to search for email addresses by entering a company’s name or domain name. The tool will then pull tonnes of data across the internet and cross-reference it with its database to provide you with one of the most comprehensive email address search results.
You can then use this email address to send your email outreach.
Even better, Find That Lead also doubles as an email marketing tool, allowing you to send personalised emails directly from the platform. This feature is convenient if you plan on contacting multiple companies at once.
The tool even comes with a Google Chrome extension that you can use when browsing the internet.
2. Intelligently Use Social Media
Social media is another excellent place to find email addresses. Many businesses now have a social media presence with contact details that their customers can use to contact them.
Here are three social media networks we suggest you start with:
Most companies have a Twitter presence, and Twitter bios are an excellent source of contact information. If you have a list of target companies, their Twitter bio is the first place to check.
To make your search easier, use the “Advanced Search” options on Twitter’s homepage:
Enter the company name or website in the “All these words” field.
Type in the person’s name, position, or keywords that you think might be associated with their role.
Hit “Search.”
Click on “People.”
You’ll be surprised by the results you get.
For example, if I type “content marketing” in the “All these words” field and select “people,” Twitter provides me with results of people who have content marketing in their bios.
LinkedIn is another social media platform you can use to find email addresses. The platform is a gold mine for business and professional information, so it’s no surprise that you can use it to find email addresses.
LinkedIn even allows you to export your connections to a CSV file or Excel spreadsheet, which you can then use as your email list for outreach purposes.
Here’s what we suggest you do:
- Go to linkedIn.com and log in
- Click on “Me” at the top of your LinkedIn homepage
- Select “Settings & Privacy” from the drop-down menu.
- On the left side of the Settings page, click “Data Privacy.”
- Scroll down to “Get a Copy of Your Data.”
- Check the “Connections” box.
Click “Request Archive” to queue up your request, and within ten minutes, you’ll get an email from LinkedIn with a link to download the file. You can then access your connection’s email addresses on the spreadsheet.
Like Twitter and LinkedIn, Facebook is also an excellent place for businesses or companies to find email addresses.
The emails you find on Facebook will be up-to-date, and you can also get a sense of the person’s interests and personality by going through their profile.
Every user who signs up for a Facebook account has to provide an email address by default.
You can find the email address by heading to your prospect’s profile, clicking on the About tab, and then “Contact and Basic Info.”
You should find their email address under the “Contact Information” section.
You can also find the email address on their Facebook page under the “About” tab.
3. Check Your Prospect’s Contact/About Us Page
Anyone with a skill they’re monetizing will usually have a personal brand or portfolio website.
Even executives and CEOs of companies have personal websites. You can find their email addresses on their website’s “Contact” or “About Us” pages.
It’s relatively easy to find these personal brand websites:
- Head over to Google
- Search for the person’s name and add keywords like “portfolio,” “blog,” or “personal website.”
If they have a website, it should show up in the first few results.
Here’s an example:
If I type “John Doe portfolio” on Google, the first result is John Doe’s website. You can then navigate the site and check for their email address.
4. Do a Quick Whois Search
You’ve just launched a new website. A few days later, you receive an email from John Doe saying they want to publish an infographic on your site. He likes the work you’re doing and wants to collaborate with you.
But how did he find your email? You haven’t listed it anywhere on your website or social media pages. The answer is a Whois search.
Whois.net is a database of publicly available information on registered domain names. So, if you have a website registered with your email address, anyone can find it with a simple Whois search.
Here’s how to do it:
- Go to whois.net
- Type the URL of the site whose owner’s email you want to find in the “Whois Lookup” field.
- Hit “Search.”
The results will show you the email address associated with that website unless the owner has chosen to hide their information.
5. Advanced Google Search
Thanks to Google’s advanced search operators, you can find email addresses with a simple Google search.
You just need to know how to use their search operators. Here’s an example:
Type this into the Google Search bar:
- site:[company website] + [person’s name] + [email]
For instance, if you’re looking for John Doe’s email address at XYZ Company, you’d type:
- site:XYZCompany.com +John Doe email
- “Prospect’s name” + email
- “Prospect’s name” + contact
- “Prospect’s name” + reach me
- “Prospect’s name” + contact information
This search will reveal any mention of John Doe’s email address online. You can then find the most relevant result and use that email address to contact your prospect.
If the prospect uses a common name, try narrowing your search down by adding their company name or position in the search query.
For example, if you’re looking for John Smith’s email address, but there are numerous results for people with that name, try searching for “John Smith + XYZ Company” to narrow down your results.
6. Check Your Email List
Your prospect could be your customer, client, or subscriber. If you have an email list you’ve been building, perhaps you should begin by checking your own database.
If you’re looking for the email address of a person who has subscribed to your newsletter, all you have to do is check your list. The same applies if the prospect is already a customer or client.
Almost every email software has a search bar where you can type a person’s name to find their email address.
You may even find prospects you forgot about or haven’t contacted in a while. It’s an excellent opportunity to re-establish communication and build relationships.
7. Make an Educated Guess
If all else fails, you can make an educated guess.
While this method isn’t as reliable as the others on the list, it’s worth a try if you’re running out of options.
You can look at the email addresses of other employees in the company and use their format as a basis for your prospect’s email address. For example, if the company uses the “first name initial” + “last name” format for emails, then your prospect’s email could be jdoe@[company].com.
Here’s a list of common email formats you can try
- First Name Initial + Last Name: jdoe@[company].com
- Full First Name + Full Last Name: johndoe@[company].com
- Full First Name + Middle Initial + Full Last Name: johnrdoe@[company].com
- Full First Name + Full Middle Name + Full Last Name: johndavidoe@[company].com
- First Name + Last Initial: johnD@[company].com
If the email list doesn’t exist, your email message will bounce back, letting you know you should try a different format.
It’s a Wrap
As we mentioned, part of succeeding in the zero-sum game of email outreach is getting your emails into the right inboxes. Sending out cold emails to random addresses won’t get you very far. That’s why it’s crucial to have a targeted and accurate email list.
Use these five methods to find any company or business’s email address and watch your outreach success rate increase exponentially.
