Are you planning on starting a new business soon? Or, do you already have an established brand? Whichever the case is, you won’t have a business if you don’t have any prospects and this is why lead generation is so important.
Of all of the different lead generation techniques, one of the cheapest but most time consuming prospecting I have used was sending out cold emails.
I know that we get a lot of spammy generic sounding emails everyday, but I am referring to targeted email outreach to the key decision makers in company. This bypasses all the gatekeepers with traditional contact forms or phone calls, and you would be surprised how many of them respond or inquire for more info.
Obviously, the more emails you send out, the better. For very large campaigns a problem arises, how do you get so many email addresses? Today I wanted to show you how to save time by using some email extraction tools that automatically scan specific sites or keywords to compile a list for you.
How Do Email Extractors Work?
An email extractor is essentially a computer software that extracts all possible email addresses from the web. In most cases, an Email Extractor runs a search based on user-defined criteria. Common criteria include a domain name or a keyword.
- Search Engines, there are plenty of them. Here, the Email Extractor runs a search by keyword.
- Websites. Here, the Email Extractor scans all the pages of a website the user specifies.
- Email Accounts. Here, through a scan via POP3 and IMAP a search is conducted for Gmail, Yahoo, and other known email servers.
- Personal Computers. Here, the Email Extractor scans all the files in the different drives.
- Facebook. Here, the email extractor can find email addresses from Facebook pages, groups and personal profiles.
Most Email Extractors will also remove any duplicate emails found in the search.
What to Look for in an Email Extractor?
All the Email Extractors in the market work similarly, as described above. So, which one is more convenient for creating your list of email addresses? Well, differences in the user interface, features, stability, and speed differentiate these programs.
Particularly, speed is an important factor to consider. For an effective email marketing campaign, you need a very large number of email addresses. Collecting these addresses manually is almost an impossible task.
Another very convenient feature is the ability to extract email addresses from social media. Facebook and Twitter and two of the most used social media platforms. A good email extractor can effectively extract email addresses from these two social networks. Hundreds of thousands of email addresses can be extracted from different Facebook pages alone. Go figure!
Here are the 3 main email extraction software:
Atomic Park Email Hunter. This is what I am currently using in my businesses, it has all the features above and many more including using a proxy server not to have your IP blocked, ignores hidden emails (or spam traps), works incredibly fast, has many filters, and can even exclude sites owned in different Geos. Plus it is the most affordable option with a one time fee of only $99 and software you download to your own computer.
Hunter.io. They are one of the biggest names in the industry and also have solutions to find email addresses in bulk with their large database. However, as this is a cloud server they do believe in data transparency and list every single email address they collect in their domain search as a public source. Plans with CSV exports start at $34 / month (for 1,000 sites), but you most likely would need the Growth ($69 / month) or Pro ($139 / month).
Leadmine. It's a newer email extractor but powerful option for prospecting. With an email verifier with 200+ million addresses, they guarantee a delivery of 95%. Plus their chrome extension works with Linkedin, Crunchbase, and even Google Search Results. However, it is even more expensive then hunter.io with plans starting from $29 / month (100 credits) to the Professional with only 1,000 monthly searches for $149.
What is the best Email Extractor Software?
Although software can do it faster, not all Email Extractors work at the same speed. Also not all email extractors are the same price. Sometimes you need to filter through 20,000+ websites or keywords for searches to create an initial list that can be quite costly.
This is one of the main reasons why I rated Atomic Park the best email extractor for the money. They have been in the business for a long time and have the tools to make sure that you don’t fall for a spam traps with a (hidden email) where you immediately get blocked.
However, as effective as email outreach is it is important not to overdue. There is Can-Spam law for unsolicited emails in the Canada and the USA, and we know about the changes to the GDPR in the EU. These are the best tools to get this data, but when marketing make sure to use at your own discretion.