Sometimes, even your favorite contact-finding tool falls short.
Hunter.io is a go-to for cold outreach, but occasionally, it returns zero contacts for a promising domain. If you’re scaling your outreach strategy and your VA hits a dead end, don’t let the process stall. Here’s how to train your VA to confidently and efficiently find decision-makers manually, no premium tools required.
In this post, we walk through the method step-by-step, using LinkedIn as our primary tool.
Step 1: Identify the Target Domain
Start with your outreach table view. Let’s say angie.com returns no results from Hunter.io. This doesn’t mean the end of the road, it’s simply time to pivot.
Step 2: Use LinkedIn’s Boolean Search
Open LinkedIn and go to the search bar. Use Boolean search operators to combine keywords that narrow the field to ideal prospects.
For example, search:angie.com AND marketing AND PPC
This will surface professionals with:
- A connection to Angie.com
- Marketing roles
- Experience or focus on PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Tip: Teach your VA the basics of Boolean search, Google has great tutorials.
Step 3: Identify the Right Contact
From the search results:
- Skim for job titles like “Senior Manager, SEM”, “Marketing Director”, or “PPC Lead.”
- Make sure the person actually works for the company by checking their profile info.
For example, if you find someone listed as:
Senior Manager, Search Engine Marketing at Angie.com
That’s a perfect match.
Step 4: Extract Contact Info
Once inside the profile, your VA should:
- Click on “Contact Info” to see if an email is listed
- Hit “Connect” and add a brief message if available
- Scroll through their activity, posts, or comments to find something relatable to mention in the outreach
Step 5: Personalise and Outreach
With the contact info in hand, your VA can:
- Send a LinkedIn message that references something from their profile or recent activity
- Follow up via email using your existing cold outreach template
Using both channels doubles your chances of a reply, while building familiarity and trust.
Final Thoughts
Training your VA to handle gaps in your outreach tool’s data is essential for scaling a reliable outbound engine. LinkedIn is free, effective, and loaded with context you won’t get from scraped email lists.
Empower your team to go beyond automation, and teach them how to find real people behind the companies you want to work with.
Have questions about implementing this strategy? Just email our support team at team@ppcadlab.com