Databases like Apollo and ZoomInfo cost $50-500/month. If your budget is $0, you can still build a targeted prospect list that gets replies. It just takes more elbow grease.
Method 1: LinkedIn Free Search
LinkedIn's free tier lets you search by job title, company, and location. The results are capped, but for a targeted list of 100-200 prospects, it's enough.
Workflow:
- Search for your target job title (e.g., "VP of Sales" in "SaaS")
- Click each profile, note name, company, and job title
- Find their email using method 4 below
- Add to a spreadsheet with columns for personalization
Method 2: Company Website Mining
If you know which companies to target, go to their website:
- Team/About page often lists leadership with names
- Job postings reveal priorities and pain points (great for personalization)
- Blog authors are often decision-makers
Method 3: Industry Directories
Every industry has directories:
- SaaS: G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, Crunchbase
- Agencies: Clutch, DesignRush, GoodFirms
- Local businesses: Google Maps, Yelp, industry associations
Browse category pages and compile company names + domains.
Method 4: Email Pattern Guessing
Most companies use predictable email patterns:
- firstname@company.com (most common)
- firstname.lastname@company.com
- f.lastname@company.com
- first@company.com
Use a free email verifier (Hunter.io has 25 free lookups/month, Snov.io has 50) to check which pattern works for each domain.
Method 5: Conference and Event Lists
Industry events often publish speaker lists, sponsor lists, and attendee companies. These people are actively engaged in your industry — they're warm leads.
Method 6: Apollo Free Tier
Apollo offers 10,000 email credits per month for free. That's enough for most small campaigns. The catch: only 2 active sequences and limited filters.
Importing Into ClickReach
Once you have your list in a spreadsheet:
- Save as CSV with columns: name, email, company, job title, and any custom fields
- Import into ClickReach with column mapping
- ClickReach auto-detects duplicates and skips them
- Add custom fields for personalization (
{{painPoint}},{{observation}}) - Assign to a color-coded list and launch your sequence
A manually researched list of 200 prospects with real personalization will outperform a 5,000-contact database dump every time.
