Beginner's Guide | Ideas and Examples

With RocketReach, you can search for people that can help you grow your business and access their contact data, all in one platform! Follow the steps in this guide to power up with best practices and a complete pro workflow—you'll achieve expert results in minutes!

📑Contents in this article - click to jump to section:

1. People Search Ideas and Examples
2. Apply Filters to Find the Right Contacts
3. How to Save a Completed Search
4. Get a List of Contacts from a Search
5. Stay Organized with Contact Lists

People Search Ideas and Examples

Not sure how to start adding contacts? Check out these audience ideas below, and click the provided link to open a live search with the filters applied.

You can also first search for companies, which is useful if you want to qualify and select specific companies. (Learn More)

• Idea:  Marketing a new software that helps small businesses manage their employee benefits and payroll. Sales is currently working North America and prefers to outbound to decision makers.
  Possible Criteria:  The person's Job Title includes HR, benefits, payroll, compensation, etc. and the Management Level is manager or director. The employer's Revenue is between $1M and $15M, and Employee Count is 10-100. Location can be anywhere in the US or Canada.
  👉 See This Filtered Search
  
  
• Idea:  Hiring for a Senior Vice President position that requires experience with mergers & acquisitions. The board would like strongly qualified applicants from the restaurant industry.
  Possible Criteria:  The person's Skills include "mergers and acquisition" and Management Level is director or vice president. The employer's Industry is restaurant and Revenue is at least $50M.
  👉 See This Filtered Search
  
  
• Idea:  Finding experts in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and NFT to invite to speak at an upcoming event for wealth advisors in Australia.
  Possible Criteria:  The person's Skills include "cryptocurrency" or "blockchain" or "NFT". To further refine for expertise, start with Management Level is founder or C-suite. (Note:  The event will be in Australia, but it's not necessary that the invitees are located in Australia -- so this is not used as a filter.)
  👉 See This Filtered Search
  
  
• Idea:  Prospecting for expansion opportunities within Johnson & Johnson, west coast region.
  Possible Criteria:  The employer's Domain is jnj.com (search by domain for best results). The person's Location is select states (you can choose the specific countries, states, cities, etc. that are appropriate for your needs). Add the appropriate Job Title, such as "Project Manager".
  👉 Filtered Search

Apply Filters to Find the Right Contacts

RocketReach indexes over 700 million contacts! Find the right contacts for your needs by applying search filters. Consider your audience criteria, and enter into the search filters to narrow down and focus on the most relevant contacts.

Video Demonstration

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Consider your target audience, ideal customer persona, candidate qualifications, or other criteria. It may help to write it out first as ideas or a list, and then parse it into the filters.
2. Starting with the most important criteria, add into the search filters one at a time. Pause after each addition and check the results to ensure the matching contacts are as expected.
3. Further improve the precision of your search using options for Exact search and Exclude (Not) filters. (Learn More)
4. You can add multiple ideas within the same filter to expand the results. Using many different filters will help narrow the results to be more specific. (Learn More)
5. The matching profiles will be sorted automatically with the most relevant matches listed first. 

How to Save a Completed Search

Once you've built out a robustly targeted search, save it! Saving helps you track what you've already searched, what filters have worked well for you, and which contacts meet your criteria but haven't accessed yet.

Video Demonstration

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Start by creating a precise filtered search (See Above).
2. Once you're satisfied with the search results, click the option "Save this search" at the top of search results.
3. In the text box, enter a name for the search and click "Save".
   💡 TIP:  Use a name that references why you used this particular criteria, such as a project name, client name, date, target audience, etc.
4. Once saved, the search can be opened again by expanding the "Saved Searches" section on the top left. All of the settings of the original search will display in the filters, and then you can make changes if needed.

Get a List of Contacts from a Search

Adding contacts one at a time is time consuming and reduces your effectiveness. Instead, use Autopilot to quickly fill your pipeline with top verified contacts for your target criteria. You can even have Autopilot repeat to deliver new contacts on a schedule, and/or automatically send an email to new contacts!

Video Demonstration

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Start by creating a precise filtered search (See Above).
2. Once you're satisfied with the search results, click the option "Start New Autopilot" at the bottom left corner. *Note:  If the search matches fewer than 25 profiles, the "Bulk Add" option will not be clickable. Instead, use the checkboxes to select contacts and click "Get Selected Contacts" shown above the search results.
3. Fill out the desired parameters:
   1. Number of Contacts - How many contacts do you want? (*Note:  Required minimum of 25 contacts, maximum of 10,000. This will consume credits!)
   2. Limit Number of Contacts Per Company - Select this option and add a maximum limit if you want to spread out your outreach over as many companies as possible.  
   3. Include contacts without verified data - Leave this option unchecked if you want only contacts with verified or B-grade data. Check the box if you want to see contacts who have only name and employer info. (Learn More)
   4. Include contacts that have already been looked up - Leave this option unchecked if you want  only new contacts that you have not previously accessed. Check the box if you want to include any or all contacts that match the search criteria.
   5. Frequency - By default it's set to run instantly as a one-time job. You can optionally change the run date or choose a repeating frequency.
   6. Export & Create New List - All these contacts will be saved to the Autopilot job for easy access. We suggest you use memorable and useful terms to describe the project or segment or date.
4. When you're ready, click the button "Create Autopilot" to initiate a search and verification for the requested contact data.
5. Once the search and verification is complete, your new contacts will be accessible from the Autopilot history be locating clicking Actions > View Contacts. You can immediately download a CSV file or sync contacts to your CRM with an integration. (See Below)

Stay Organized with Contact Lists

Every contact that you access in RocketReach will be saved to your All Contacts. If you organize contacts into lists as you add them, you can easily export batches of contacts to a CSV file or sync to your CRM.

You can also create Company Lists to find contacts in target accounts. (Learn More)

Video Demonstration

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. From the search page, in the top right corner you can choose an existing list or create a new list.
2. Before looking up a contact with the "Get Contact Info" button (or the "Add" button on the browser extension), check that the desired contact list is selected.
3. Contacts will automatically add to the list shown here.
4. Navigate to the Contact Lists area to manually add, copy, or remove contacts within a list.
5. Download all contacts with their details using the "Download List" button in the top right corner.
6. (Optional) Import contact data into your CRM or email marketing tool.
   💡 TIP:  Syncing data is even easier with native integrations for Salesforce, HubSpot, SalesLoft, and Outreach. (Learn More)