Lead Scraping 101: Building a High-Quality Prospect List

Hey everyone, Finn here! One of the most crucial steps in any successful outbound email campaign is building a high-quality prospect list. Without a well-targeted list, even the best-crafted emails won’t get the results you’re looking for. Let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of lead scraping and how to build your Ideal Client Profile (ICP).

Building Your Ideal Client Profile (ICP)

Before you even think about scraping leads, you need to know who you’re targeting. Your ICP is a detailed description of the perfect company and person within that company who would benefit most from your product or service.

Key Elements of an ICP:

• Company Characteristics:

  • Location

  • Company size

  • Employee count

  • Estimated revenue

  • Industry

  • Keywords

  • Technologies they use

  • Funding history

  • Job postings

• People Characteristics:

  • Job Titles

  • Years of experience

How to Define Your ICP: Start by looking at your top 3-5 clients. If you don’t have many clients yet, find 3-5 examples of who your ideal clients would be. Search them up on tools like Apollo to gather data. This process might seem tedious, but trust me, it pays off. A well-defined ICP will help you scrape highly targeted lead lists that convert better.

Lead Scraping Tools

There are plenty of lead scraping tools out there, but here are my top three for 2024:

1. Source specific finding: Find natural congregations where your ICP hangs out online, such as Zillow, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Instagram Followers, and Twitter Followers. Use VAs or external tools to scrape leads from these sources.

2. Apollo: My go-to tool for scraping B2B and solopreneurs like agency owners, SaaS founders, recruitment companies, eCommerce brands, real estate agents, and financial advisors. Apollo has a vast database and extensive filtering options.
   Tip: Use ExportApollo.io to scrape unlimited leads from Apollo at a 70% market rate discount. Just build your lead list in Apollo, paste the URL in ExportApollo, and you’re good to go.

3. Outscraper: Best for scraping local businesses like home improvement companies, chiropractors, med-spas, landscapers, solar companies, and auto-detailers. Outscraper scrapes directly from Google Maps, which can be great for local business leads.

Additional Tools: If you can’t find what you need from Apollo or Outscraper, consider using:

• Listkit

• Sales Navigator + 3rd Party Tools

• Seamless.ai

• Storeleads (for eCommerce)

• Crunchbase (for SaaS)

• Igleads.io (to scrape emails from Instagram)

Verifying, Formatting, and Enriching Leads

Once you’ve scraped your lead list, it’s time to verify, format, and enrich the data.

1. Verification: Always verify your leads, even if the scraping tool says they’re “verified.” Use MillionVerifier to ensure your email addresses are valid and reduce bounce rates. Aim for a bounce rate below 2-3%.
   Validating Catch-Alls: Use the Google Chips method or a tool like Scrubby.io to validate catch-all emails. This helps you safely include more leads in your campaigns.

2. Formatting: Clean up your lead data to make it usable in your cold emails. Ensure company names and locations are properly formatted. For example, instead of “SalesAGI LLC,” format it as “SalesAGI.” Also, fill in missing location fields with “the area” to ensure your emails read naturally.

3. Enriching Leads: Use BetterContacts to enrich your lead list. This tool runs your list through the top lead scraping software to find missing data and verify it, giving you access to more accurate and complete information.

Conclusion

Building a high-quality prospect list is the cornerstone of any successful outbound email campaign. By defining a clear ICP, using the right scraping tools, and ensuring your leads are verified, formatted, and enriched, you set yourself up for success. Follow these steps, and you’ll have a targeted list ready to convert into valuable client conversations. Happy scraping!