How do I find potential clients and outreach to companies? Although there are a number of industry based factors that affect that judgment, there are a few online tools that I have found helpful.

Here are some tools to support outreach that are free for scraping use:

http://www.hoovers.com/ -> This website seems to have a large and encompassing list of companies, both large and small. If you go to Hoovers, type in a company and then go to Marketing Contacts it will give you a name of a person at the company and tell you what position they are. If you purchase an account with Hoovers, you can access more information, such as email etc.

http://us.kompass.com/ -> This website is another good B2B database for finding names of individuals at a company. The site seems to have a respectable number of Korean companies, a country known for its challenges in gathering company contact names. This sites personnel tab is for Executives so it is great is you are looking for CEOs, General Managers or Chairman. If you are looking for a specific department outside of that, you would find better luck elsewhere.

http://www.ec21.com/ -> Although I found this database to be less extensive then Hoovers, it is still worth a try if the company isn’t coming up in other databases. It has a company profile tab then often has a listed individual as a contact. It does not tell you what position that individual is.

If you are looking for paid services, Hoovers and Kompass offer those, as well as Data.com and Zoom Info (Zoom info seems to be a good domestic resource if you are looking for US companies. Also has a free version (albeit limited) if you are willing to share contacts).

Linkedin for domestic companies is another great resource for finding contacts.

After you have a contact, then the hard part comes. Finding a valid email.

Finding Emails: Your first challenge is to try and first find their domain name. Typically sites will list a contact form that will have a general email such as info@randomcompany.com. From here you need to find their naming convention. Companies actually almost always use a uniform naming convention. This might be John.Smith@RandomCompany, Sjohn@RandomCompany, John@randomcompany or a few select others. I would say just first name is most common for smaller companies and first name dot last name is most common overall. If you can learn their domain name and have a name through one of the earlier methods, chances are one of those email conventions will work. Also for short term success you can set up a trial account with a company like Salesforce, or data.com by extension, use them to get a contact at the company and then once you know the naming convention use that for the relevant individual you want to reach. Also, more senior personnel that have been there longer may have a name@company convention while newer employees may have First.Last@company as the company grew and now has to differentiate between the 4 different Johns that work there.