Step 1: choose one niche and one area
“Local businesses” is not a target. “Roofers in Austin” is. A narrow target lets you write one message that sounds like you know the trade, and it lets you see every business in the market at once.
- Pick a niche you can show results in, or one you understand from the inside.
- Pick an area you can serve: a city, a region or a whole country.
- Check the size before you commit. A market of forty businesses is used up in a week; one of four thousand needs a second filter.
You can check the size of any market in the lead finder: choose the niche and the city and the count appears, with how many of the businesses have a phone number, a website and an email address. The leads index lists every niche by country and city.
Step 2: get the whole list, not a sample of it
Working from the first page of a directory means working the same twenty businesses as everyone else. The advantage of local outbound is being able to reach all of them, including the ones on page nine.
A complete list has one row per business with its name, address, website and the email address it has published, and its phone number in the file with phone numbers. Get it for the niche and area you chose; at $7 per 1,000 rows a typical city market costs less than an hour of your time. If you plan to call, choose the file with phone numbers: the businesses of the list that have one, at $33 per 1,000 rows.
Step 3: pick the businesses that need what you sell
The list is the raw material. The filter depends on your offer.
| If you sell | Look for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Websites | Rows with no website, or a website that is slow or dated | The gap is visible to both of you in ten seconds. |
| SEO or local search | A website that does not appear for the trade and the town | You can show the search result in your first message. |
| Ads management | A good website and no visible advertising | They have something worth sending traffic to. |
| Software or supplies | Every business of the right size | Fit comes from the trade, not from a gap. |
A blank website column is a signal, not a proof: it means no website was found for that business. Look before you write to them.
Step 4: make first contact
Phone and email both work for local businesses. Owners of trades answer the phone because that is how customers reach them. Offices and practices are easier to reach by email.
- Say one specific thing you noticed about their business, then one thing you can do about it.
- Keep the first message under a hundred words. Ask for a reply, not a meeting.
- Follow up twice, a few days apart. Most replies come after the first message, not to it.
- Send cold email from a domain set up for it, at a low daily volume, and include how to opt out.
Email rules differ by country. The buyer compliance guide that comes with every file explains what to check before you send.
Step 5: keep the numbers
Record how many businesses you contacted, how many replied, how many became calls and how many became customers. With those four numbers you can work out what a customer costs you and how big a market you need to hit a target.
A worked example, with made-up numbers to show the method: 500 businesses contacted, 25 replies, 8 calls, 2 customers. If the list cost $7 and your time and tools cost $600, each customer cost about $300. Whether that is good depends on what a customer pays you. The cost per lead calculator does the sums.
When one market is worked through
Move sideways, not at random. Keep the niche and take the next city, or keep the city and take a related niche. Either way most of your message and your proof carries over. Every list page here links to the same niche in nearby cities and to related niches in the same city for that reason.
Questions and answers
- What is local lead generation?
- Finding businesses in a particular area that could buy from you and starting a conversation with them. It usually means choosing a niche and a city, getting a list of every business that fits, and contacting them by phone or email.
- How do agencies find local business clients?
- By picking one trade and one area, getting the complete list of those businesses, filtering for the ones with a visible need (no website, weak search presence, no advertising), and contacting them with a specific observation about their business.
- How many businesses do I need to contact to win a client?
- It varies with the offer, the niche and the message, so measure your own numbers from the first hundred contacts. Plan for a market of at least a few hundred businesses, so that a low reply rate still produces enough conversations.
- Is it legal to cold email local businesses?
- Rules differ by country, and you are responsible for following the rules where your recipients are. Many countries allow business-to-business email with conditions such as identifying yourself and offering an opt-out. Read the buyer compliance guide and check the rules for each country you send to.