The job this category serves
The team knows which businesses it wants to serve but lacks verified account or role information. Define that information gap before opening a database. Research and outreach are separate decisions.
What needs to exist first
- Company characteristics, exclusions and a reason the offer is relevant.
- The business role required and the fields needed to verify a match.
- A sample-review owner, a destination record and a process to reject bad data.
Where this category stops
A consumer enquiry is not an account discovery task. Finding a business contact does not establish current buying intent, an opt-in subscription or permission to start a campaign.
A useful acceptance test
Build a ten-account sample and inspect it manually. Note why each account matches, whether the relevant role exists and which fields are uncertain. Check the provider’s coverage in your actual niche.
Report usable account matches, missing fields, stale records and review time. Keep total records found separate from verified matches.
Illustrative situation
A packaging supplier targets independent food brands with a particular production model. Company criteria and a role hypothesis guide the research. Consumer followers of those brands are outside this brief.
Capabilities to put in the requirements brief
Scroll horizontally to read all columns.
| Capability | Evidence to ask for | Exception to test |
|---|---|---|
| Account definition | Industry, business model, location and exclusion criteria | A company does not match the offer or cannot be verified |
| Role hypothesis | The responsibility that makes the person relevant | A matching title has no connection to the buying task |
| Verification | A source URL, review date and reason to include the account | A stale record or an inferred field cannot be confirmed |
A worked planning example
A supplier researching independent retailers starts with organizations, not email addresses. A hypothetical sample contains ten companies: each receives a match reason, a source and a review outcome. The count of usable matches is recorded separately from the number returned by a database. No reply rate or sales result is assumed from this exercise.
Set up a limited pilot
- Write the company inclusion and exclusion rules before selecting filters.
- Review a small sample against public business information and record uncertain fields.
- Identify a relevant business responsibility, then verify that the role fits the offer.
- Save reviewed records to the shared system with their source and next owner. Keep any sending decision separate.
How to approach a product shortlist
Apollo is one researched option for this category. Its broader capabilities should be evaluated separately: a need for company data does not automatically establish a need for sales sequences. A company website or manual research may be sufficient for the first small sample.
Sources and review scope
- Apollo: Search for People
Documentation for person and company search criteria; sample verification is our proposed process. Reviewed .
Official documentation supports the identified capability only. Proposed workflows and templates are editorial planning guidance, not completed product tests.