When we find good opportunities to build reputable links we may not have valid contact email addresses. This is exhausting and discouraging.
In trying to build links, you (as a link builder) would have been frustrated with the number of emails that actually are received and replied. An industry low of around 8% was reported recently as the percentage of emails received and replied in link building. This means if you send 10 emails, there’s a high chance that none of them will be replied. If it’s already so hard to get replies, you want to make sure you are sending emails only to the right persons.
Here is the good news! The need and use for emails is only going to increase. Did you know that according to Statista, from 2018 to 2023 email usage will grow by 2 or 3% each year?
In any successful link building effort, one of the most important things you’d need to have is valid email addresses. Relevant contact information plays a key role in ensuring that link building is successful.
As you follow these tips, you will find an increase in response and engagement from recipients.
The first suggestion is to….
1. Check the Sites for Relevant Contact Information First Before Using Tools
I know this seems daft because the problem was that sometimes relevant contact information is not always easily accessible but it is imperative that you first search thoroughly before firing up any tool.
The reason is that sometimes overdependence on tools will cause us to miss easy contact information. An example is when the contact you’re trying to look for is using a “Gmail” or “yahoo mail” address, most tools will not be able to generate it because they base their results on domain-based email addresses.
Effective Searching Methods – You will normally start searching on the site. Contact information is usually available via a link on sidebars, headers or footers.
But if you cannot find one or there is no page that contains contacts, then you might want to try out the “About Us” page. Sometimes you can find vital information concerning contacts and the role they play in the organization here.
To avoid being tagged as a pest, it is essential that you send emails to contacts that will be interested in your mail. Not just anybody. Specifically, target people who will understand your mail and can actively reply to you favorably. You must also make sure that your emails are crafted to evoke a response.
You can know the people who might be interested in your mail by their job description or by simply asking the contact email address you have. A simple “Who should I contact for information on …….” might go a long way in ensuring you mail the right person.
If after all of this is done and there is no discernable contact information, don’t be discouraged. There are other viable methods to try.
2. Utilization Of Search Engines
Search engines are magical tools that do all your work for you and then make sure you get all the glory. It sounds like the “house elves” in Harry Potter but I digress.
Search engines can help you narrow down contact information especially if it is hidden or private.
The world’s most private search engine, Startpage, is the experts choice among search engines for finding out contact information. It comes with easy to use features, nice results view and an anonymous function that allows you to look for contacts privately.
A simple search such as “email address of XYZ, in ABC company” will reveal the contact information you searched for. But in cases where it doesn’t, a little bit of improvisation will be needed.
Enlarge your search terms to include the names of the contact if possible phone numbers too. For contacts publicly available on the web, you will be able to access it through the search results.
Other methods are available as we now turn to the world of utilizing tools. It is important to point out that tools are limited and they must be used with ingenuity to be able to maximize your results.
3. Using Email Finding Tools to Find Anyone’s Email
In this article, we are trying to move away from being totally reliant on tools but we still have to point out that email finding tools are effective to a high degree. They make our jobs easy and fast.
A major email finding tool we will be using to show how tools can be effectively used is “Hunter“. The best part of Hunter is that it has a Chrome extension that pretty much just needs to be downloaded, installed and immediately it is ready for use.
How to Use the Email Finding Tool “Hunter” Effectively to Find Anyone’s Email
- Download the extension for Google Chrome and then finish the installation process
- Enter the site you want to send an email to
- Look for Hunter’s logo on the top right-hand corner of your screen and click on it
Easy steps, right? You haven’t even read the best part yet. The best part is Hunter will fish out every email address that is associated with the domain you entered. This tool can even filter out those sites by categories if you’re being specific in the area you want to target.
Does it get any better? It does. Hunter will even return names and job titles associated with the email address. You can now pick through the results to ensure accuracy in sending your email.
There is always a downside. The major downside is that Hunter returns a whole lot of email addresses and you still have to guess which one is the right recipient for your email. You may guess wrongly and leave out viable contacts for nonviable ones.
It isn’t an exact science as there are margins for errors but as you combine tools with other methods, those margins are reduced drastically.
Always Verify Emails Before Sending Them
You have to be careful in sending emails. Wrong email addresses will increase the bounce rate and affect deliverability.
An easy way to be sure of the email address you’re sending the mail to is to verify the email address using verifying software like Proofy, Mail Floss or NeverBounce.
Using Never Bounce (recommended) is easy and reliable. It even works for bulk emails. There are three categories email addresses can be classified into
- Valid
- Invalid
- Unknown
When email addresses are valid, send your mails. When the address is invalid, you obviously continue searching for other contact information. Unknown is generally a risk that might not be worth taking.
Verifying does not take time, it is relatively easy to use and it will affect your link building ability positively. Mistakes will be limited and you will be surer of the emails you’re sending.
4. Subscribing to Newsletters and Contacting Directly From the Newsletter
This works for small-time companies that are being run by a few hands or maybe just one. Follow the company, subscribe to their newsletters, reply to one newsletter and voilà, you’re in direct contact.
It does not work every time but it is effective when dealing with sites that infer that one person does most of the work. One way to know if one person is doing all the work is when the person’s name is also the domain name.
Close relationships can be built this way because it is a bit informal in approach than the other methods listed above.
5. To Find Anyone’s Email, Guess, Just Guess
The heading implies risk. Yes, a little bit of risk, but mitigated risk. Your guesses will largely not be done by you. You will have the option of confirming those guesses before you send the email. Effective guessing can help you find the right contact information.
Guessing effectively entails using tools to find variations that a person can use in making their email address. A tool like “Sales Navigator” (another chrome extension) shows all the variations a person’s name can be used in making email addresses.
After finding out all the variations, you have the option of sending to all of those email addresses but please disregard that option. Instead, painstakingly check out all of the variations by imputing the addresses in your proper line in your Gmail account. The address that shows information about the company or contact is the right address while the email that does not show anything should be discarded.
Note: It only works if you already know the contact name but you don’t know the email address.
Conclusion
The use of emails in link building is priceless. Effective link builders must put in as much effort as is needed to have correct emails. The key is in finding the right contact information.
While there are a lot of tools to help this process, none of them will replace time and man-hours. These tips have been proven to work for me as I attempt to find anyone’s email. I will love to know in the comments what have worked best for you.
