Phone Number List: In-Depth Guide for Lead Generation

Why Businesses Need Phone Number Lists

Different products and industries require varied sales approaches. In the B2B (Business-To-Business) world, obtaining email lists is often the first step to starting a conversation with your market. 

There’s nothing stopping you from exploring multiple communication channels, though. A reliable phone number list, for example, provides a basis for SMS marketing campaigns – not everyone responds equally well to unsolicited emails.

By contrast, over two-thirds of corporate buyers respond well to cold calls. The ability to ask questions instantly is appreciated, and the human element of this kind of dialogue helps businesses maintain contact with clients. 

Top 10 Companies that Sell Phone Numbers

Unfortunately, it is possible to spend a lot of time on the phone without many results to show for it, especially if your phone number list isn’t up to scratch. In fact, research suggests that 27% of the average sales rep’s time is wasted by inaccurate lead information, perhaps necessitating the use of an email verification tool to confirm information.

So, our primary criterion for companies that offer phone lists is a high level of accuracy, preferably backed up by a guarantee. The level of lead relevance comes a close second: if your company provides a service in Ottawa, it’s no good you paying for phone numbers with the Bahamas’ country code.

Another crucial factor is that any lead prospecting service should comply with privacy regulations. While there are websites on which you can buy leads gathered through less ethical means, you’re simply more likely to gain traction with someone who has willingly shared their phone number for marketing purposes.

BookYourData

Pros: 

• Database of over 500 million leads.
• 97%+ accuracy, guaranteed.
• Lead information typically includes work and personal emails, cell numbers, and more.
• Capable of sorting and filtering leads by very specific criteria.

Cons: 

• Primarily focused on accurate, up-to-date B2B email addresses, not phone number lists.
• Database contains relatively few leads in third-world markets like El Salvador, Antigua, and Jamaica.

Price: Your first 10 leads are free samples, thereafter they cost $0.40 per record, with volume discounts available for purchases of 100 or more leads.

Why Should You Choose It: One of Book Your Data’s most attractive features is its pay-as-you-go pricing model. This gives smaller companies and those who are just getting their feet wet with outreach marketing some budget flexibility.

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Experian

Pros: 

• Over 220 million U.S phone numbers available through their File One Phones database.
• Combined with individual credit score information.
• Up to three phone numbers per individual, validated in real time.

Cons: 

• Takes 24 hours to set up batch downloads.
• Optimized for debt collection agencies, not a true lead generation tool.

Price: Additional information is available through their web contact form.

Why Should You Choose It: Though not always useful for cold calling, being able to find a phone number associated with a social security number or address is occasionally handy. Experian is like a Yellow Pages of every American individual and organization that possesses a credit score.

UpLead

Pros: 

• Maintains lead databases in over 200 countries.
• 95% accuracy guarantee.
• Records can be enriched with additional contact information and demographic data.

Cons: 

• No 24/7 support option, sometimes tardy in responding to messages.
• Relatively expensive.

Price: You can try 5 sample leads for free, after which subscriptions cost $99 or $199/month for 170 or 400 leads, respectively.

Why Should You Choose It: Uplead has a pretty solid reputation for providing worthwhile, actionable leads. They also offer special deals if you require large volumes of leads.

Dun & Bradstreet (D&B)

Pros: 

• Competitive address book of over 200 million B2B leads to help you find company email addresses.
• Integrated marketing and sales tools.
• Also provides business creditworthiness information for a fee.

Cons: 

• No guarantee of data accuracy.
• Platform requires a considerable learning curve.

Price: Aside from a free trial, plans are available at $99 and $149 per user per month, depending on what functionality you require.

Why Should You Choose It: Though not everyone will need D&B’s advanced features, being able to manage leads, run analytics, and organize your calendar all on the same platform is pretty nifty.

Lusha

Pros:

• Browser extension helps to scrape email addresses and phone numbers from web pages.
• Supplies information beyond contact details, enabling more personalized outreach.
• Data is typically very current.

Cons: 

• Not very well integrated with all CRM (Customer Relations Management) software.
• Only about a quarter of leads include valid phone numbers.

Price: Lusha offers a no-obligation free trial, giving you access to 50 email addresses and 5 phone numbers. Packages range from $36 and $295 monthly, granting you access to between 40 and 400 phone leads and a considerable number of email addresses each month.

Why Should You Choose It: Though other, similar browser plugins exist, Lusha’s is exceptionally effective when manually scouting for leads, while their in-house database is normally quite fresh. 

Exact Data

Pros:

• Provides several different ways of contacting and segmenting clients, including by city, postal code (eg. only the commercial district of Edmonton), and region.
• 20+ year track record.
• Provides list management services on request.

Cons: 

• B2B database of 70 million contacts is relatively small.
• No guarantee of data quality.

Price: Exact Data only provides price quotations based on each prospective client’s needs. In general, though, you can expect to pay about $0.08 per lead when buying in bulk.

Why Should You Choose It: Exact Data is a good solution if you plan to institute a multi-channel outreach strategy to reach a customer on their smartphone, via email, and using paper mail simultaneously.

Salesgenie

Pros: 

• Works well with multiple CRM software packages.
• Records often include both business and private contact information for key prospects.
• Can provide support in designing multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Cons: 

• Very limited business database of 16 million contacts makes it hard to target niche leads like employment agencies.
• Not the most economical or comprehensive option for outreach marketing at scale.

Price: Standard account types are available for $149 or $299/month. Both include 500 leads per month but differ in how they let you organize your workflow. You can also try their service for free, for three days.

Why Should You Choose It: An intuitive interface, useful management tools, and good support make Salesgenie a good choice for getting small to mid-sized campaigns off the ground.

LeadsPlease

Pros:

• Lets you buy an email list that’s verified (for deliverability only) in real time.
• Can select leads based on ZIP codes, certain professions, religion, age, etc. 
• No monthly subscription fee – pay only for the leads you request.

Cons: 

• Relatively low list accuracy guarantees.
• Specialized in paper mail campaign support with email addresses and mobile phone numbers as a sideline.

Price: Consumer records are available starting at $0.195 each and business listings for $0.50; volume discounts are available.

Why Should You Choose It: Not every phone outreach campaign is supported by a mass mailing component, but this approach does have some advantages. LeadsPlease’s ability to outsource your printing and mailing requirements to the same company that provides your leads simplifies administration.

CallFire

Pros:

• Allows you to rent toll-free customer support numbers with whatever area code you choose, whether in Toronto, the British Virgin Islands, or Barbados.
• A credible partner to help you text as many mobile phones as you want, or call them with pre-recorded voice messages.
• Cheaper calls to any state, province, or country using VOIP technology.

Cons: 

• Does not sell phone number lists, you’ll have to source your digits from elsewhere.
• No simple way of integrating with cold emailing software.

Price: Depending on how heavily you plan to use their services, packages range from $99 to $599 per month.

Why Should You Choose It: Unlike companies like BookYourData, CallFire is a dedicated cold-calling and texting service provider. Though not a full-stack lead generation service, it’s excellent at what it does.

Seamless.ai

Pros:

• Harvests phone numbers and emails in real time, as if you’re using a search engine.
• Some data enrichment functionality.
• Validates retrieved phone numbers.

Cons: 

• Somewhat expensive.
• Does not include access to a stored contact info directory.

Price: Though various packages that include different features are available, pricing information is only supplied on request. However, you can expect to pay at least $100 per month for 50 credits (1 credit = 1 lookup).

Why Should You Choose It: Seamless.ai is one of the best email finder tools available and also works pretty well with phone numbers. The information it provides is timely and accurate, but comes at a steep cost.

Tips To Convert Cold Calls to Sales

Overall, only about 2% of cold calls result in a sale. However, the marketing strategy and psychological tactics you apply to your phone outreach efforts can improve this figure significantly:

1. Do your research before dialing. Knowing something about your prospective customers is crucial for effective communication strategies. Your phone number list can be enriched with additional data like demographic information.
2. Try to call new prospects during the late morning and mid-afternoon; this is when people are most receptive. Also remember that your target market may be spread across different time zones. Calgary and Ottowa are both in Canada, but residents of one are at lunch while the others are still hard at work. Montserrat (east of the Dominican Republic) is technically part of Great Britain but lies in the same time zone as New Brunswick, a Canadian province.
3. Due to the immediate, one-on-one nature of phone conversations, hiring a few multilingual sales reps can improve your strike rate. People in Montreal or Puerto Rico typically speak English, but may prefer French or Spanish respectively. 
4. If using a VOIP (Voice-Over-Internet Protocol) service, pay attention to what locations the area codes on caller ID indicate. A call that seems to originate from a tax haven like the Cayman Islands may be treated with suspicion.
5. If some prospect doesn’t respond well to telephonic conversations, consider reaching out using other communication channels. You might try sending them a paper brochure or using an email permutator to try and guess their electronic address.

Types of Phone Number Lists

Naturally, any business’s phone number list should be organized by region or category. In addition, it’s often useful to divide them into different sub-lists as follows:

• Cell phone number list: Can be used to reach contacts outside normal working hours, as and when appropriate. Maintaining this database is vital for emergency contact scenarios.
• Business phone numbers list: Used for general sales and prospecting, these can be stored in spreadsheets or databases and used for general cold calling.
• Telemarketing phone number list: These are usually associated with large numbers of private individuals, not B2B contacts. They can be filtered by contact preferences – don’t call people who’ve requested not to be bothered.
• Free phone number lists: Aside from phone numbers purchased from one of the above services, some can be downloaded without charge. Care should be taken to use these, though: since many of them are likely to be outdated or outside your target market, an extra validation and verification step is required.

Final Choice: Which Service is Best for a Cold-Calling Campaign?

In sales as in most activities, different use cases require different approaches. Before settling on a lead generation service to help you source phone numbers, think carefully about how you will end up using them.

Book Your Data allows you to target even narrow industry niches effectively but is less capable when it comes to finding phone numbers for specific prospects. Seamless.ai and Experian, by contrast, work very well for that purpose but are, respectively, expensive and somewhat cumbersome to use. Exact Data is a good, inexpensive middle-of-the-road option but using them may result in sales reps wasting time on poorly qualified leads.

Fortunately, most phone number list providers offer a free trial of some kind. Book Your Data, for instance, will happily supply you with ten leads matched to your specifications which you can use to evaluate the quality of their service.

Key Takeaways

• A phone number list is a valuable tool for organizing and streamlining your cold-calling outreach and is essential for customer support operations.
• Such a list should be segmented for targeted outreach and needs to be regularly updated for accuracy.
• You can expand your phone number database by using any of a number of lead generation services.
• There are significant differences between these. In addition to the cost associated with each, you’ll have to verify that they can meet your practical needs.
• Unfortunately, even an extensive, segmented, highly accurate phone number list that can be synchronized with CRM systems doesn’t guarantee cold calling success. Following certain best practices and training sales staff remain essential.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it Legal to Buy a Phone Number List?

Several countries have legal requirements telemarketers and cold callers have to follow; in the USA, this is the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). However, you’re still free to use purchased lists as long as you verify that your lead generation service complies with regulations in your jurisdiction.

Can I Get a Phone Number List for Free?

It is possible to source phone numbers for free, but it’s often more trouble than it’s worth. Contact information often turns out to be worthless and not knowing whether these leads have consented to being contacted leaves you open to legal penalties.

How to Validate a Phone Number List?

When entering phone numbers into your database, these should be validated for correct formatting. There are also a number of phone number verification tools that can confirm that these lines are still active and connected.

Can I Search for a Mobile Number?

Most search engines make it difficult to search for private phone numbers, including those for cell phones, due to them being regarded as confidential. However, several lead generation services provide ways to sidestep this restriction without violating ethical or legal obligations.

Is Phone Number Lead Generation Effective?

This largely depends on your target market. As many as 97% of people in general ignore telemarketing calls. However, around half of executives and managers prefer communicating by phone.

Can I Search for a Number Online?

Phone numbers can often be located using search engines, social media platforms like LinkedIn, and specialized online tools like ClarityCheck, Detectico, and IPQS. However, the results aren’t always usable: some websites don’t comply with privacy legislation and few provide the data enrichment services lead generation companies do.

What Tools Can Help Manage My Phone Number List?

Assuming you have a list of phone numbers (perhaps in .xlsx or .csv format), this can be exported for use in marketing campaigns if you’re using the right CRM software. Examples include Agile CRM, Zendesk Sell, and BIGContacts. Some of these can even be integrated with automated dialing systems, reducing sales reps’ workload.

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