Proprietary outreach to businesses without a physical location?

April 28, 2023

by a searcher from Vanderbilt University in Denver, CO, USA

Hello! I'd like to begin direct outreach to businesses in my region that are located here, geographically speaking, but due to the nature of the industry, typically do not have a "front door" to walk in. Rather, they accessible primarily through web portals, and those web portals often have only contact forms or generic "info@" email addresses.

I'm struggling to determine how to reach the owners of these businesses. I expect any contact form would travel to a front desk/secretarial role, and I'd prefer not to tip off the staff that I'm considering an offer to purchase. However, I'm not sure how to identify the owners of the business given they are not figureheads, nor included in staff bios.

Wondering if anyone has recommended strategies for reaching owners in a situation like this? I'd love to just walk in the front door, but that doesn't seem to be an option for this industry!

Reply by a professional
from University of North Carolina at Wilmington in West Palm Beach, FL, USA

There are several useful tools available that can help with contact enrichment. Personally, I I have used tools like seamless.ai, ZoomInfo, and Apollo. These tools offer browser plugins that make it incredibly easy to enrich contacts on LinkedIn. Additionally, LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides a limited number of InMails per month. In my experience, creating a multi-channel campaign that incorporates LinkedIn, calls, texting, and even snail mail can be highly effective. SalesLoft and Outreach.io are excellent tools for managing such campaigns. A 27-day campaign can be a good starting point. As mentioned earlier, you can use the name convention to email, such as first name @ or first initial last name @ company. However, be careful, because sometimes these email addresses go to a general inbox that multiple people have access to. I haven’t had a lot of luck but sometimes the Secretary of State has owner info. Also try local chamber of commerce. I hope this helps!

Reply by a searcher
in Detroit, MI, USA

I'd try LinkedIn or do the guess+check method -- often emails are just firstname@, so if you're really keen on reaching a decision maker I'd email firstname@ and firstnamelastname@ to see if they bounce. An alternative is to ask for the owner's email in the initial outreach but it would have to be a convincing enough reason for the gatekeeper to pass the message along.

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