They say cold calling is dead but 82% of buyers agreed to a meeting based on a cold call.
However, the issue is that, although finding emails has become easier, find phone numbers has gotten trickier.
But there are still effective methods you can use to find phone numbers by name. And of course, tools you can always rely on.
4 Methods to find phone numbers by names
There are several ways to find contact information like email addresses and phone numbers by simply searching via a name. The major ethical ways to do this include;
1. Free online search tools
Similar to the classic phone book.
There are reputable online tools that provide background check services for free like Anywho and Whitepages.
These free people search websites have search engines that crawl public directories and listings to provide information linked to a name. Sometimes this could include an address, email, phone number and even social media accounts.
However, since these services use public listings like electoral registers and more, they have a lot of privacy restrictions. This means the information may likely be outdated.
2. Social media and search engines
The internet has been around for so long now that there’s a wealth of information stored on it.
Accounts on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn often have email addresses and phone numbers linked to them.
So if you’re trying to connect with a business contact, there’s a good chance they have their contact address listed on their social media networks or portfolios.
You can also use search engines like Google or Bing especially when you have some details to work with.
For example, type in relevant keywords like the name, location or company and you’ll get results. This is because search engines crawl all web pages including business listings, personal websites, portfolios and so much more.
3. Paid search services
Multiple subscription services offer people search features that include emails and phone numbers. These services not only use public directories and listings but also private data partners to provide contact information.
Also, they have verifiers that ensure you get more accurate details.
For example, lemlist sources the internet to identify potential business leads, finds their contact information, verifies it and once it’s valid, adds it to your database. All you need to do is type in the name and the company and the tool does its magic.
This verification feature is very essential when you want to reduce your spam rates and preserve your caller reputation as a business.
4. Mutual connections
You can also find phone numbers the old-fashioned way.
Reach out to your mutual connections like friends, colleagues or acquaintances and ask for an introduction or a company card. In some cases, they might just be willing to give out the phone number directly.
7 Tools to Help You Find Phone Numbers Online
Ready to start finding business contacts online? Here are some recommended tools you can consider using
1. lemlist
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.5/5 (261 reviews) | Capterra – 4.6/5 (382 reviews)
Overview
lemlist is an all-in-one multichannel outreach tool that allows you to find verified emails and phone numbers for your leads.
Adding a phone number to your lead’s contact information can take your cold outreach to the next level by including cold calls in your campaign sequences.
Don’t spend hours looking for a phone number only to find an inaccurate one.
lemlist’s phone number database is powered by ContactOut, ensuring the accuracy of the phone numbers you’ll find.
3 ways to find phone numbers with lemlist:
1. Through its 450M+ leads database
- Select relevant leads
- Click “Push to Campaign”
- Select a campaign or create a new one
- Check “Find phone numbers”
- Click “Push # leads to campaign”
- The leads will appear in your campaign, some of which will have a phone number
2. In the “Lead list” of any campaign
- Select the leads you want to find phone numbers for
- Click on “Enhance leads” and then on “Find phone numbers”
- If phone numbers are found, they will appear in the phone number column
3. On LinkedIn through lemlist’s Chrome extension
- Search for leads on LinkedIn
- On the search results page, click on “Push lead(s) to lemlist”
- Choose to either: Push selected leads, all leads, or the first # of leads to lemlist
- Check “Find phone”
- Select the lemlist campaign to push the leads to
- Click “Push # leads to this campaign”
- The leads will appear in your campaign, some of which will have a phone number
Once you find these contacts, you can take it a step further by using the assistant and the AI variables feature to curate personalized outreach sequences and streamline your sales sequence.
Pricing
lemlist offers 5 pricing plans, including a free plan with which you can find 25 phone numbers per month.
With Email Starter you can find 25 phone numbers, Email Pro plan allows you to find 38 phone numbers, with Multichannel Expert you can find 75 phone numbers, and 125 with Outreach Scale.
✅ Pros
- Contact verifier and up-to-date data
- Bulk uploads and contact finder
- Free searches available
- Find phone numbers
- Offer full outreach stack of tools in one
- Linkedin integration
- Aircall and Ringover integrations for cold calling
❌ Cons
- You need to upgrade to a paid plan to access more features
To dig in deeper with the app, checkout lemlist Academy Find B2B phone numbers for your leads or view the feature find phone numbers in details
2. Lusha
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2- 4.3/5 (1,485 reviews) | Capterra- 4/5 (368 reviews)
Overview
Lusha is a finder that crowdsources contact information including phone numbers from social media profiles and business websites.
Similar to lemlist, this option also has a verifier to provide accurate information at all times. You also get additional contact attributes like the job roles, state, country and more. It has a Chrome extension that makes searching easy when you’re on other websites.
Pricing
Although the free plan is quite limited and only allows you to find 5 phone numbers, the paid plans allow large searches.
With Pro plan you can find 480 phones for $36 per month, and with Premium you can find 1,080 phone numbers for $74 per month.
Additionally, you can choose the Custom plan and set your preferences.
✅ Pros
- Simple and intuitive interface
- Chrome extension
- Free plan with limited searches
❌ Cons
- Only five free phone searches on the free plan
- Data accuracy might vary based on the contact
3. Kaspr
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2- 4.4/5 (678 reviews), Product Hunt- 3/5 (39 votes)
This is a free Chrome extension that can be used to find and extract information from popular websites.
To use this software, simply install the extension and open it whenever you’re on a LinkedIn profile, list, event or directory. It’s a bit more manual than other options because you cannot do a bulk search with a list of names.
However, you can send the data to other sales apps and launch workflows to keep track of where they are in your sales funnel.
Pricing
Kaspr offers a credit system to find emails and phone numbers.
The free plan offers very limited credits, but with the paid plans you can get up to 24,000 credits for $99 per month.
✅ Pros
- Easy-to-use chrome extension
- Additional features like enrichment cadence and in-app dialing
- Multiple integrations like lemlist, Salesforce and Hubspot
❌ Cons
- No bulk searches on the Chrome extension
- No known contact verifier
4. Datagma
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 – 5/5 | Capterra
Overview
Similar to Kaspr, Datagma is another Chrome extension that allows you to get contact information online.
You can extract phone numbers, emails and social profiles into a Google Sheet by simply searching for specific roles you want online.
However, it mostly works when you’re on LinkedIn or Sales Navigator.
The results often include job roles and industries so you can better personalize your outreach. For bigger organizations, there’s an API to help improve the data collection process.
Pricing
Datagma offers a free plan with 3 phone credits.
If you spring for a paid plan you can choose between Discover for $32 and 600 phone credits, Premium for $55 and 1,320 phone credits, or a custom plan.
✅ Pros
- Chrome extension
- Bulk uploads available
- Free plan with limited features
- Contact change detection for up-to-date data
❌ Cons
- Only gets data from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator
- No bulk uploads on the free plan
- It relies on public data which means that the accuracy depends on the quality and availability of publicly accessible information
5. Whitepages
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Comparably- 3.5/5 (215 votes), Gartner – 5/5 (2 votes)
Overview
White Pages is a background checker that provides people search including contact information like phone numbers, and email addresses.
You can search for a phone number by name and also do a reverse phone lookup where you identify the owner of an unknown phone number. It gathers data from various public sources so the data might not be exactly up-to-date.
Whitepages however offers a limited free search option. Unfortunately, you can only search for contacts within the United States.
Pricing
$4.99/month for contact info, $9.99/month for business and $29.99/month for business all-access.
However, it can only be accessed from the United States.
✅Pros
- Reverse phone lookup
- Offers phone information like whether it’s a landline, cell or VOIP, business line, and area code location.
- A well-established platform
- The free basic search option
❌ Cons
- Limited free searches
- Data may not be entirely accurate
- You can only search for US contacts
- Paid subscription is expensive for small businesses
6. BeenVerified
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Trustpilot 3.4/5 (2,188 reviews) | Consumer Affairs 4.3/5 (641 reviews)
Overview
BeenVerified offers information like phone numbers and more including public records, social media profiles and even addresses – ideal for in-person sales calls. It is a legitimate service that gathers data from public sources.
Similar to Whitepages, you can do a reverse phone lookup where if you only have the phone number, you can find the name attached to it.
The major downside to this service is that it’s only available in certain regions, so you may not be able to use the service if you’re not in the US.
Pricing
$29.99 for one-month membership or $19.49/month for three-month membership
✅ Pros
- Extensive data search options e.g name, email or phone
- Free basic search
- All features are available across all paid plans
❌ Cons
- Limited information on the free plan
- Some data may be out-of-date
- Paid plan can be quite expensive
- Only available to search within the US
7. Anywho
Rating ⭐⭐⭐
Site jabber 2.5/5 (13 reviews)
Overview
Think of this service as an advanced-level phone book. It has a wide range of contact addresses thanks to its free online people search directory.
Here, you can find people by their name or address. Since it’s updated weekly, you’re guaranteed to get more accurate information on this website. However, we always recommend doing some verification before placing a call.
You can also do a reverse phone lookup if you have the phone number. Unfortunately, it is only limited to finding numbers within the United States. Since it’s also a free tool, you cannot do bulk uploads or searches.
Pricing
Free
✅ Pros
- Free to use
- Updated weekly directory
❌ Cons
- Available to search within the US only
- Very limited features e.g no bulk search
Final tips when finding phone numbers
Phone numbers are personal information which is why it is important to always prioritize privacy laws and regulations in your region. So always ensure you only obtain phone numbers via the ethical methods discussed in this article.
Also, verify the accuracy of the phone numbers you find online so you don’t end up spamming the wrong person.
Finally, don’t keep calling if they don’t want to be contacted via phone. Instead, seek out alternative ways to reach out.
A strategic multi-channel approach to marketing outreach gives the best results.
So, we recommend you use a tool that provides everything you need to find leads, send personalized messages, automate the process and scale your business.
Start with a free lemlist trial today and see how to find phone numbers.
