You know the businesses you want to work with are on Google Maps. Every dentist, roofer and café in your target city is listed there with a phone number and a website. The hard part is turning that map into a list you can actually contact, without spending a week copying details into a spreadsheet.
This guide walks through the whole process, from choosing who to target to sending your first emails. You can do every step today, by hand or with a tool.
Step 1: Decide exactly who you are looking for
A vague search gives you a vague list. Before you open Maps, write down three things:
- The category. Use the words a business would use to describe itself: "physiotherapy clinic", not "health businesses".
- The places. Pick specific cities or neighbourhoods you can serve or understand.
- The signal that makes them a good fit. For example: no website, a slow or dated website, few reviews, or a low star rating.
That last point matters most. A web designer wants businesses with weak sites. A reputation consultant might want to find businesses with low ratings. Your offer decides the filter.
If you want industry-specific angles, see how this looks for photographers or veterinarians.
Step 2: Build your keyword and city list
One keyword in one city rarely gives you enough leads. Make a short matrix instead.
| Keywords | Cities |
|---|---|
| dentist, dental clinic, cosmetic dentist | Leeds, York, Bradford |
That is nine searches, and each one surfaces businesses the others miss, because Maps shows different results for different phrasing. Add synonyms and sub-niches until new searches start returning mostly duplicates.
Step 3: Collect the data
You have two options.
By hand. Search each keyword and city, open every listing, and copy the name, phone, website and address into a sheet. Then visit each website to look for an email address and the owner's name. It works, but expect it to be slow.
With a scraper. In GetClient, the Google Maps scraper searches live by keyword and location, and you can enter several keywords and cities in one go. Each lead can include the business name, category, address, phone, website, emails found, the owner's name and title with a confidence score, and social profiles, where those are public. Leads save into folders in My Leads, so you are not juggling files.
Whichever route you take, collect the website. It is your best source for emails and for judging fit.
Step 4: Qualify before you contact anyone
A raw list is not a lead list yet. Spend time removing poor fits:
- Delete duplicates and chains if you only serve independents.
- Remove businesses without a usable contact method for your channel.
- Check your fit signal. Open a sample of websites. Are they really dated? Is the rating really low?
- Prioritise. Tag the strongest 20 to 30 as your first batch. Starting small lets you test your message before using the whole list.
An owner's name with a high confidence score is worth more than a generic info@ address, because you can write to a person.
Step 5: Verify emails
Sending to addresses that do not exist hurts your sender reputation and wastes your effort. Run email verification on the list before sending and drop anything flagged as invalid. In GetClient you can verify a list in the same place it lives, so there is no export and re-import.
Step 6: Write a short, specific first email
Local business owners are busy. A good first email:
- Mentions something real about their business (their reviews, their site, their area).
- Says in one sentence what you do and the result it brings.
- Asks one easy question, such as whether they would like a short example.
Merge tags help you personalise at scale. In GetClient they must be written exactly like {{params.name}}, {{params.firstname}}, {{params.city}}, {{params.category}} and {{params.website}}. For example:
Hi {{params.firstname}}, I was looking at {{params.website}} while searching for {{params.category}} in {{params.city}}...
AI can help draft variations, but read every one. Here are the pros and cons of AI-written cold emails.
Step 7: Send, follow up and handle replies
Connect the inbox you will send from. Here is how to connect Gmail for outreach; any SMTP account works too. Keep daily volume modest, especially on a new account, and use send-day limits so you are not blasting on weekends.
Build a sequence of two or three follow-ups spaced a few days apart. With GetClient's flow builder you can branch: send one message to people who opened and a different one to those who did not. Our If Opened follow-up strategy covers how to write each branch.
Replies land in the Inbox, so you can answer them in one place. Have a few prepared responses for common pushback like "not interested" or "send me pricing".
Every email should include a clear way to opt out. GetClient adds a one-click unsubscribe link and skips unsubscribed addresses automatically. Rules differ by country, so check the ones that apply to you, starting with CAN-SPAM if you email US businesses. This is not legal advice.
Step 8: Review and repeat
After your first batch, look at your campaign analytics. Low opens point to subject lines or deliverability. Opens without replies point to the message or the offer. Change one thing, then send the next batch.
Old lists are not dead weight either. A business that ignored you six months ago may need you now. When you are ready to scale, check plans and credits; new accounts get 100 free credits with no card needed, which is enough to run this whole guide on a small test list.