Sales reps everywhere aspire to sell successfully to C-level executives. On the surface, winning over a C-suite member who holds most of the decision-making and buying power at a company seems to be the most foolproof way to boost your sales win rate.
But how do you reach C-level executives in the first place? Finding accurate and verified email addresses for C-level executives can be a daunting task since usually their contact details are a closely guarded secret. As a result, sales reps often waste prime selling time and effort just gaining a credible email address.
And this usually entails manually searching email addresses, sending emails only to get a bounce back, or sometimes jeopardizing your sales and marketing efforts by relying on outdated databases. In the absence of accurate and verified email addresses, your problems keep mounting with poor email reply rates and prolonged sales cycles.
But as bleak as it might seem sometimes, there is a way out in the form of C-level executive email list providers. By giving you access to a verified and enriched contact database, they ensure your opportunity to pitch doesn’t come weeks later.
In this article, we list down 10+ C-level executive email list providers and bolster you with some actionable tips to nail your C-level executive prospecting efforts.
But first…
Who Are C-Level Executives?
C-level executives are a group of executive-level managers who manage the big picture. Their job description requires ensuring strategies and operations align with company goals and established policies. This group of higher management executives includes titles beginning with “chief” such as:
- Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Manages strategizing and resource allocation for the entire company and ensures the company works like a well-oiled machine to meet big-picture goals.
- Chief Financial Officer (CFO): Oversees the company’s financial activities and offers strategic guidance to C-suite peers.
- Chief Marketing Officer (CMO): Manages and leads the company’s marketing efforts.
- Chief Technology Officer (CTO): Responsible for creating, developing, executing, managing, and assessing the company’s technology resources.
- Chief Experience Officer (CXO): Manages the company’s customer experience strategy, which includes mapping customer journeys, overseeing customer service teams, and analyzing customer data analytics.
- Chief Operating Officer (COO): Looks after the company’s day-to-day operations.
- Chief Information Officer (CIO): Responsible for managing the company’s internal IT resources.
Selling to C-level executives means contacting and conversing with the top executives of a company. And this requires you to adopt a different approach as compared to when you pitch to their subordinates. We’ll take a deep dive into how you can do this later in the blog.
You can rely on C-level executive mailing list providers to help you get access to the executives and kickstart what you do best- sell immediately. To get you started, here are 11 top C-level executive email list providers.
1. Prospect IQ by Klenty
Prospect IQ by Klenty is a prospecting data platform that allows sales and marketing professionals to access high-quality C-level executive mailing lists. Its database, with over 440 million verified contacts, operates on the waterfall data enrichment model that collects data from multiple vendors.
This ensures you work with accurate, verified, and reliable data on the C-suite always. Lastly, with Prospect IQ, you get 700% more contact details than the average tool.
Key Features:
- Email Finder: Discover verified email addresses for all your C-level executive prospects to help scale open and reply rates while minimizing your bounce rate.
- 26+ Filters for Improved Targeting: Leverage multiple filters like revenue, technology, job title, and more to gain targeted information on your prospect list efficiently. Not only that, you can also mark your top filter views for quick access anytime.
- LinkedIn Prospector: Its LinkedIn plugin helps you import LinkedIn URLs directly to your CRM and facilitates data enrichment in real time without switching tabs.
- Automatic CRM Updating: Your CRM records get automatically enriched and updated to ensure your team is working with the latest data.
- Complete Account Insight: Get a comprehensive data profile on every account with just the domain name. You now have all the relevant information on your potential leads in one place.
- Kickstart Your Sales Process Instantly: Schedule a personalized set of activities every time a new C-level executive prospect’s address gets added to your database.
- Remain Legally Compliant: Base your sales and marketing activities on legally procured data that meets global data standards.
Pricing:
Prospect IQ comes with flexible pricing plans to fit your specific prospecting efforts. Whether you need email and phone credits or just one of these, you can customize the pricing to pay for only what you need.
- Email: Starts at $40/month (billed annually) for 1000 email credits/month
- Phone: Starts at $40/month (billed annually) for200 phone credits/month
2. Lake B2B
Lake B2B is a C-level executive mailing list provider that helps sales and marketing professionals discover and connect with qualified potential customers holding C-level job titles.
Further, it offers industry-specific datasets for mobile gaming, healthcare, FinTech, etc.
Key Features:
- Offers access to a vast database of over 450 million global business executives.
- Filter options include SIC Code, State, NAICS code, etc.
- Get access to global markets such as India, Singapore, Japan, and the UAE, apart from the US.
Pricing:
Available on request
3. Thomson Data
Thomson Data is a suite executive email list provider with a robust B2B database of over 75 million contacts. Further, they source their data from multiple sources, including conferences, business directories, government records, etc.
Key Features:
- 75+ specialized segments to help create targeted and customized C-level executive email lists.
- 150+ data experts that ensure data is authentic, verified, and up-to-date.
- Ensure compliance with data privacy laws such as the GDPR, CCPA, etc.
Pricing:
Available on request
4. Cognism
Cognism is a premium sales intelligence platform that helps you generate C-level executive contact lists. It also offers a browser extension to enrich Sales Navigator lists and LinkedIn profiles.
Key Features:
- Offers validated C-level executives' email lists in NAM, APAC, and EMEA.
- Intent data and sales event triggers to ensure you access new prospects before your competitor does.
- Ensures legal compliance to global data privacy laws such as the GDPR and CCPA.
Pricing:
Available on request
5. Hunter.io
Hunter.io is an email validation tool that helps you discover and connect with high-value C-level executive prospects.
Its most notable feature is that it uses a combination of proprietary technology and AI to find, verify, and enrich your prospect details.
Key Features:
- Domain Search feature allows you to identify whom to contact within an organization. All you have to do is feed in the company name or website.
- Email Finder feature helps find verified C-level executive email addresses, while its Email Verifier feature helps protect your sender reputation and reduce your bounce rate.
- Send personalized emails at scale by customizing and previewing your sales emails to ensure they’re relevant and resonate with your potential leads.
Pricing:
- Free: $0 per year
- Starter: $34 per month (billed annually), and $49 per month (billed monthly)
- Growth: $104 per month (billed annually), and $149 per month (billed monthly)
- Business: $349 per month (billed annually) and $499 per month (billed monthly)
6. InfoCleanse
InfoCleanse is a professional contact list provider that offers accurate and authorized information on over 53 million professionals worldwide. Further, they boast of a 95% Inbox Placement Rate (IPR)—that is, 95 out of your 100 cold emails get delivered to your prospect’s inbox.
Key Features:
- Facilitates C-level executive emailing list customization based on technographic, job title, experience, revenue, and the like.
- Offers additional services like data cleansing, appending, scrubbing, etc.
- Ensures compliance with global data privacy regulations such as the GDPR< CAN-SPAM, USPS, CCPA, etc.
Pricing:
Available on request
7. RocketReach
RocketReach is a C-level executive prospect list provider that offers global email and phone data coverage with a 90-98% email deliverability rate.
It also offers seamless integrations with leading CRM and marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.
Key Features:
- AI-powered recommendations to help uncover contacts you might have overlooked but could be potential prospects.
- Intent data gives you a competitive edge by helping you find potential buyers who are actively searching for solutions similar to yours.
- Automated prospect lists help you create C-level executive prospect lists that update automatically and can be customized based on skills, company details and industry, etc.
Pricing:
- Essentials: $39 per user, per month (billed annually) and $52.99 per user (billed monthly)
- Pro: $99 per user, per month (billed annually) and $178.98 per user (billed monthly)
- Ultimate: $249 per user, per month (billed annually) and $358.96 per user (billed monthly)
8. Blue Mail Media
Blue Mail Media offers access to a vast database of over 8 million C-level executive prospect lists. Further, it gives a 95% deliverability rate guarantee, ensuring you drive open rates and reply rates.
Key Features:
- 70+ prospect filters to help create customized C-level executive mailing lists.
- Undertakes routine cleaning, verification, and maintenance of the database every 90 days.
- Data experts offer handpicked high-value C-level executive prospects’ contacts based on your marketing needs.
Pricing:
Available on request
9. Apollo.io
Apollo.io gives you access to accurate and rich buyer data through its vast database with over 275 million contacts. Further, it lets you set up your ICP with personas to help streamline and quicken your sales prospecting processes.
Key Features:
- The AI-generated auto-score feature allows you to leverage account history and past success to pinpoint high-converting prospects with ease.
- 65+ filters help you navigate your prospect lists while getting all the essential data points you need to create an effective pitch.
- Buying Intent and Signals helps you discover prospects actively looking for solutions in your industry.
Pricing:
- Free: $0
- Basic: $49 per user, per month (billed annually), and $59 per user, per month (billed monthly)
- Professional: $79 per user, per month (billed annually), and $99 per user, per month (billed monthly)
- Organization: $119 per user, per month (min 3 users billed annually) and $149 per user, per month (min 3 users). However, the monthly also follows annual billing.
10. UpLead
Uplead is a sales prospecting platform that helps you build C-level executive prospect lists free of dodgy data, bad-fit buyers, and low-qualified leads.
Find email addresses of C-suite prospects that meet your ICP and get targeted information to boost your email marketing campaigns.
Key Features:
- Boasts a 95% data accuracy guarantee and offers a database with over 155 million contacts.
- Facilitates real-time email verification to help you reduce your bounce rate.
- Intent data helps you find C-level executive prospects who are already looking for solutions in your space.
Pricing:
- Free Trial: $0 for 7 days
- Essentials: $74 per month (billed annually) and $99 per month (billed monthly)
- Plus: $149 per month (billed annually) and $199 per month (billed monthly)
- Professional: Available on request
11. DataCaptive
DataCaptive is a C-level email list provider that gives you access to over 55 million company contacts. Not only that, all their contacts are verified by humans to ensure no redundant, inaccurate, or outdated data makes it to your sales workflows.
Key Features:
- Segment your database based on job titles, industry, revenue size, firmographics, technographics, and more filters.
- Leverages multiple data sources such as government records, surveys and feedback forms, trade shows, webinars, opt-in email campaigns, etc.
- Ensures compliance with global data privacy laws such as GDPR, CCPA, ACMA, EDPS, and CAN-SPAM.
Pricing:
- Essentials: $3000 billed annually, $ 1125 billed quarterly, and $749 billed monthly
- Plus: $6000 billed annually, $ 2250 billed quarterly, and $1499 billed monthly
- Professional: $12000 billed annually, $ 5500 billed quarterly, and $3000 billed monthly
6 Prospecting Tips for Sales Reps to Sell To C-level Executives
61% of sales reps are not skilled at selling to C-suite buyers, as per a survey by the International Data Corporation (IDC).
This is a troubling statistic, considering C-suite executives oversee the company’s strategies and operations, making them the key decision-makers with the ultimate buying power in their hands.
But in all fairness, it can be daunting to pursue these prospects, given their airtight schedules, gatekeepers reducing access to them, and, ultimately, the fact that C-level executives simply have no time to give a second chance to poorly crafted emails lacking immediate value.
But there is still hope in the form of this 6-point checklist we’ve put together for you. Integrate the following into your emails to C-suite prospects and watch your reply rate soar:
1. Research To See What They Care About
The first step is the lengthiest, but if done right, it can set a positive tone for the entire sales process that follows. Research your C-level executive prospect thoroughly to learn their pain points, goals, viewpoints on trending topics, and what their day looks like on average.
Here are some points to cover:
- Research the company, learn who holds key roles in the organization and might be friendly toward your sales pitch. This helps you gain a good overview of the organization’s priorities.
- Conduct a PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technology) analysis to gauge how these four external factors affect the profitability of the C-suit prospect’s company.
- Browse your C-suite prospect’s LinkedIn profile, connections, and posts they share, like, and comment on.
- Explore their company’s newsletter, annual reports, and talk shows/podcasts they might have featured on. This will give you a comprehensive understanding of their priorities and how to sell them.
2. Have a Compelling Reason to Meet
You best believe your C-suite prospect has meetings even during lunch and dinner. In other words, you need to give them a compelling reason to make time for you. Here are some suggestions you can get your foot in the door:
- Sales trigger events: A meeting focusing on the need for your offering in light of trigger events such as industry regulation, market changes, and mergers and acquisitions.
- Account review: A meeting with a C-suite executive of an existing client company to highlight how your solution has helped them and what could be improved to drive its efficiency further.
- Competitor analysis: A meeting to walk through how your solution has benefited their competitor and can do the same for the C-suite prospect as well.
Whatever the reason may be, offer C-suite prospects something personalized and specific to get them to agree to a meeting.
3. Emphasize Your Strategic Value
C-level executives don’t weigh in on all decisions, just the key ones that will directly impact their business goals. With that in mind, make sure to clearly highlight your unique business value that aligns with their business strategies.
To do this, divide your messaging into these 3 segments:
- Summarize the C-suite prospect’s business strategy, pain points, and areas of opportunity.
- Summarize your company and its offerings.
- How partnering with you can help drive more revenue for the C-level executive’s company.
Segmenting your messaging like this ensures your pitch is streamlined, follows the logical flow, and hits upon all points that matter to your C-suite executive prospect.
4. Leverage Referrals
C-suite executive prospects will likely have sales pitches from unknown SDRs flying at them from all directions every day. And so, when someone they know and trust tells them, “{Solution} seems interesting, it might help streamline operations,” or “{Salesperson} from {solution} wants to reach you. {Solution} has helped me drive productivity by 20% last quarter,” it's bound to get their attention.
These don’t just add credibility to your claims but also help establish a relationship between you and your C-suite executive prospect. You can approach other stakeholders in your prospect’s company to act as referral sources.
Alternatively, you can check out your prospect’s LinkedIn profile and find mutual connections, former or current clients, colleagues, etc.
Here are some ways to stay in the game when it comes to benefiting from referrals:
- Offer to make referrals to your clients, partners, colleagues, and vendors.
- Be proactive by requesting top clients to refer you and ask them to share their feedback as well.
- Make requesting referrals a part of your sales conversation from the get-go.
- Remember to thank the referring person once you contact their new prospect.
5. Keep Your Pitch Brief
Esty’s former CEO, Chad Dickerson, once wrote: “As a CEO of a growing company, I generally have no availability.”
You might have a lot to say, but your C-level executive has extremely limited time to spare. Keeping that in mind, structure your sales pitch strategically. Keep it short and to the point.
Don’t wait to get to the WIIFT—begin with it straight away. Do your research, and tailor your email to make it resonate with your C-suite prospect instead of making them feel like just another name on a lead list for cold emailing.
Go a step further and learn about their industry trends and advancements. Becoming an expert on your prospect will help you curate a sales pitch that speaks their language and hits home for your prospect.
Lastly, look at your company. Has your partnership helped your C-suite prospect’s competitor achieve any defining milestones in space? Or maybe been recognized recently for a cause that’s close to the prospect’s heart? At the end of the day, you need to leverage all that you’ve got.
6. Have a Strong Follow-Up Strategy
C-suite executives can receive anywhere from 70 to 100 emails in a day, sometimes even more. If you're going to send only one cold email their way, chances are yours will be swept away by a tsunami of competing emails in the C-suite prospect's inbox.
In this case, you need to follow up to get their attention back.
Draft a short email to ask the prospect when you can connect to discuss further or if anything has changed on their part since your last email. This will help regain their attention.
Alternatively, after sending a few follow-up emails with no response, consider reaching out to other stakeholders and creating a fresh unique value proposition for them. You can also consider contacting assistants to help you get some facetime with the C-level prospect.
At the end of the day, persistence is key. You need to keep at it until you’ve exhausted all your options.
7 Tips to Send Emails to C-Suite Executives
Contrary to popular belief, not all C-suite executives delegate the management of their email inboxes to their executive assistants.
Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr says, “CEOs of billion-dollar companies do read emails. But you just have 1 shot. Make it count.”
Considering this, you have a real opportunity to connect personally with your C-level executive prospect. Provided you put your best foot forward. To help you with this, here we have 7 tips to elevate your email game.
1. Write Strong Subject Lines
33% of all email recipients open emails based on their subject lines. Considering this is essentially your email’s first impression, and by extension, yours for the C-suite prospect, it's important to optimize it.
Further, it's important to remember that your subject lines aren’t meant to make the sales pitch. Instead, its job is to drive open rates. Here are some points to elevate your email subject lines.
- Keep them short (between 2-5 words is ideal).
- Personalize your subject lines by including your prospect’s first name, company name, or a recent industry event.
- Address their pain points or interests.
- Create a sense of urgency but avoid setting off Spam triggers.
- Test your subject lines to discover your top performers.
2. Personalize Your Introduction
Next, make your email stand out with a stellar introduction. Remember, this is the first time they’re engaging with you, so this email is make-it or break-it.
Skip on starting with a generic sales email introduction like “Hope you’re doing well” or jumping in straight into your sales pitch and what your offering is about.
Treat your prospect as a human being and appeal to their emotional side. You could start by mentioning a common interest, a post they shared on LinkedIn, or even congratulate them on getting a promotion or receiving an award. Doing this doesn’t just earn you respect for doing your homework but also makes them feel valued and more inclined to respond to you.
3. Reveal WIIFT Quickly
Answer the WIIFT (What’s In It For Them) right off the bat. Beating around the bush with this one puts you on the fast track to the spam folder.
Clarify why your C-suite prospect should care about your email by explaining how you can help them battle their pain points and achieve their goals. This helps them believe you’re not wasting their time and mean business.
4. Tie Industrial Insights/Social Proof With WIIFT
No empty claims. If your WIIFT doesn’t include any concrete numbers, include industry insight, reports, and webinars to back your claims. You can also leverage mutual connections, competitors, etc., to offer social proof to your C-suite prospect.
These act as evidence and give your claims more credibility, thus helping prospects take your pitch seriously.
For instance, you could add: “{Competitor} witnesses a 46% increase in {specific business metric} after onboarding our product. “
5. End with a Soft CTA
There’s a hard CTA, such as “Can I schedule a 30-minute meeting on Friday at 4 pm?” and then there’s a soft CTA, such as “Would you be interested in discussing this in detail?”
Which one do you think your C-suite prospect will respond better to? No point in hard CTA.
Going for a hard CTA can leave a bad taste in the mount and make you look pushy and desperate. A soft CTA, on the other hand, lets them decide the pace of the conversation and allows them to feel in control.
6. Sign Off with a Simple Signature
Your email subject line, introduction, and body aside, your email sign-off is also important. Make sure to sign off with a simple but professional signature that mentions your name, title, contact details, LinkedIn profile, and any other relevant media links.
It should essentially contain all the information that the C-level prospect might need to reconnect with you. You can go with any of the following approaches when it comes to crafting an email sign-off:
- Warm: “Thanks for reading my email”
- Action-oriented: “Hope to hear from you soon”
- Anticipatory: “Hope you have a great day”
Here’s an example:
Looking forward to hearing from you soon,{name}, {designation}, {email signature}{Company name}{email}{phone number}7. Schedule the Email During Morning Hours
Mark Cuban, the American businessman and investor spends the first hour of his day checking his emails. And he’s not alone. Nearly 66.6% of CEOs do the same.
This is because these professionals usually have a jam-packed schedule during the day and use their well-rested, fresh minds to get ahead of their inboxes. Especially considering one’s rational decision-making capacity is highest in the wee hours of the morning.
And so, to give your email its best chance, you need to join the 6 am club. Greeting your C-level executive prospect with a well-written email early in the morning helps form a good first impression and drives your engagement rate.
6 Essential Factors to Look For in a C-level Executives Email List Provider
Now that you know the 11 leading C-level executive mailing list providers, it’s time to discuss how you can narrow your search to the winner. Here are 6 essential factors to examine when considering a C-level executive email list provider.
1. Database Size
The size of your C-level executive mailing list provider’s database determines the success of your sales and marketing efforts. And so, if your provider has a small database that doesn’t offer deep and vast knowledge of prospects, it’s going to cost you your email campaign’s effectiveness.
Consider choosing providers with extensive databases to drive the efficiency of your sales and marketing efforts.
2. Quality & Accuracy of Data
Everything comes down to the integrity of your data. And so, one of the most crucial factors to consider when choosing a C-level executive email list provider is its data quality, accuracy, and enrichment capabilities.
It's best to avoid providers with a single source of data, as they have no way to cross-check the quality of the database and enrich their existing data.
3. Extent of Global Coverage
Your marketing and sales activities could be localized right now, but as you grow, you’ll need to access new markets. With this long-term goal in mind, examine your chosen C-level executive email list provider’s ability to keep up with you.
Consider choosing a provider with access to data across EMEA, APAC, and NAM regions.
4. Compliance with Data Privacy Regulations
Your chosen provider must comply with global data privacy laws such as the GDPR, SOC 2 Type II, and the like. This not only ensures you base your sales and marketing efforts on legally procured data but also helps build customer trust and prevent legal action.
5. Integrations With Other Tools
Your chosen provider must be able to work in tandem with your existing business systems. There is no point in onboarding a tool that forces you to remove your current ones. Analyze system integrations during product demos to ensure the tool operates seamlessly with your existing tool stack.
6. Gives Verified Phone Data
Apart from a verified and accurate list of email addresses, your chosen provider must be able to source your C-level executive prospect’s phone number as well. This allows you the flexibility to shift modes of communication if need be and further multichannel outreach efforts.
And that’s it! Keep the above concise list in mind as you check out various C-suite executive email list providers to find out which is the best in the market.
But if you want to quickly find a solution that ticks all the above boxes, check out Prospect IQ by Klenty.
How Can Prospect IQ Help You Unlock Premium C-Level Executive Email Lists?
Prospect IQ by Klenty is a prospecting data platform that uses the waterfall lead enrichment model. The platform aggregates data from multiple vendors and carries out multiple enrichments on top of each other to help you find 700% more emails and phone data.
This C-level executive mailing list provider empowers you to create high-value C-suite emailing lists with advanced features such as:
- Email Finder: Helps you find verified email addresses for every C-level executive prospect. All you have to do is feed in the prospect’s name, and you’re greeted with comprehensive and reliable data in just a click of a button. This, in turn, allows you to increase your opens, minimize bounce rates, and drive your reply rate. Further, your CRM system is automatically updated with the prospect’s data as well.
- LinkedIn Prospector plugin: Imports LinkedIn URLs directly to your CRM and enables real-time data enrichment. By extracting information directly from LinkedIn, it removes the need to manually upload data into your sales and marketing tools. With Prospect IQ’s LinkedIn Prospector, you can extract information, without switching tabs.
- Company Hierarchy Data: Your primary prospect might be a C-level executive, but it’s important to know their team size and dynamics. With Prospect IQ, you get reliable and updated company hierarchy data. Identify stakeholders in the purchase decision to pursue them and shorten the sales cycle significantly.
- Phone Finder: Want to shift the conversation from emails to phone calls? Prospect IQ’s Phone Finder helps you get your C-level executive’s phone number in a single click, further enhancing contactability.
With Prospect IQ, you can rest assured you have every tool you need to drive your meetings booked quota. Book a demo to get verified and reliable C-level executive email lists with Prospect IQ.
