Goldmine for finding new clients?

[James4B]

Has anyone else used Companies House data to find new business leads?

I work in digital sales and started digging into the Companies House API a few weeks ago. Turns out around 750 new trade businesses register every single week — plumbers, electricians, builders, beauticians, cleaners, you name it.

The interesting part: about 85% of them have no website at all. Most haven't sorted their accountant, their branding, their Google listing — nothing. They've just filed their incorporation and they're getting started.

I built a system that pulls this data automatically, checks whether they have a website, and even finds phone numbers and email addresses from the ones that do have a basic online presence. Every Monday I get a report with scored leads — the ones with contact details and no website float to the top.

It's been a real eye-opener seeing the volume. Just yesterday's registrations had over 800 trade businesses across the UK.

Curious whether anyone else has tried this approach? I know web designers, marketing agencies and accountants would find this useful — wondering if anyone's doing something similar or would want access to the data.

 

[Mark T Jones]

There are plenty of people using Companies House new registrations for 'leads' - although the data itself is pretty weak.

I started a dormant company 2 years ago and was initially bombarded with letters (because there was no other info given) for SEO, credit cards, etc etc

 

[cjd]

Of course, seems an obvious approach. We test marketed it for 3 months, sent several thousand personalised letters. Not one single response.

 

[James4B]

Good points both — and you're right, just blasting letters to Companies House addresses is a waste of time. That's the old approach and it doesn't work because:


1. The registered address is often an accountant's office or a home address — not where the business actually operates2. Everyone does it, so new directors get buried in junk mail. There's no targeting — you're writing to everyone regardless of whether they actually need what you sell


What I'm doing is different. I'm not sending letters. I'm enriching the data — checking whether they have a website (most don't), finding their actual phone numbers and email addresses from whatever online presence they do have, pulling their Facebook and Instagram pages, and scoring each lead based on how much they likely need help.


So instead of sending 1,000 generic letters and hoping, I'm calling 20 people who registered last week, definitely don't have a website, and have a phone number I've already verified. Completely different conversation rate.


The Companies House data on its own is weak — agreed. It's what you layer on top of it that matters I guess.

 

[fisicx]

And of those 20, how many are now clients?

 

[cjd]

Good points both — and you're right, just blasting letters to Companies House addresses is a waste of time. That's the old approach and it doesn't work because:


1. The registered address is often an accountant's office or a home address — not where the business actually operates2. Everyone does it, so new directors get buried in junk mail. There's no targeting — you're writing to everyone regardless of whether they actually need what you sell

Solicitors and accountants pass them on and if it goes to a home address where it's either read or binned by the director regardless.

We are writing to everyone regardless of whether they need our products but that doesn't matter if it's cheap. Simple fact is that that you either find a cheap method of reaching the whole population knowing that almost all are wasted or you find a cost effective method of targeting. It just depends how the numbers and costs play out; both methods reach the theoretical 20 potential customers.

If your targeted method can be automated so that it becomes very low cost I can see that it could have some added value to those who still believe in/practice cold calling/direct mailing but it still suffers from the fact that those methods are a very ineffective mechanism for many kinds of sales. Doesn't stop a lot of people doing it though.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I think the term 'goldmine' is the distraction here

What you are doing- evidently pretty well - is editing raw data into something meaningful. That's good value-add, which will undoubtedly be useful for some.

How they use that data (and whether its GDPR compliant ) is the next question.

 

[James4B]

And of those 20, how many are now clients?

Fair question. I'm not using it for my own cold outreach — I work in e-commerce so these aren't my target customers. I built the system because I saw the gap and I know people who sell to trades (web designers, accountants, marketing agencies) spend hours every week manually hunting for exactly this kind of data.

I've packaged it up as a weekly report service. Still early days but the data speaks for itself — 800+ new trade businesses in a single day, with contact details already found for the ones that have any online presence.

 

[James4B]

Solicitors and accountants pass them on and if it goes to a home address where it's either read or binned by the director regardless.

We are writing to everyone regardless of whether they need our products but that doesn't matter if it's cheap. Simple fact is that that you either find a cheap method of reaching the whole population knowing that almost all are wasted or you find a cost effective method of targeting. It just depends how the numbers and costs play out; both methods reach the theoretical 20 potential customers.

If your targeted method can be automated so that it becomes very low cost I can see that it could have some added value to those who still believe in/practice cold calling/direct mailing but it still suffers from the fact that those methods are a very ineffective mechanism for many kinds of sales. Doesn't stop a lot of people doing it though.

You're spot on — that's exactly the point. The automation makes it nearly zero cost to run, which means even a modest conversion rate makes it worthwhile. The difference is you're not carpet-bombing 10,000 addresses with a generic letter. You're contacting 20 people who registered this week, don't have a website, and whose mobile number you've already found. That's a phone call, not a mail merge.

 

[James4B]

I think the term 'goldmine' is the distraction here

What you are doing- evidently pretty well - is editing raw data into something meaningful. That's good value-add, which will undoubtedly be useful for some.

How they use that data (and whether its GDPR compliant ) is the next question.

Appreciate that — and you're right, "goldmine" was probably overselling it. The raw data is ordinary. The value is in the enrichment layer.


On GDPR — it's all public data. Company registrations, director names and registered addresses are published by Companies House specifically to be publicly available. The phone numbers and emails are scraped from publicly accessible websites that the businesses themselves have put online. No different to someone Googling them manually — just automated. No personal data is purchased, no private databases are accessed.

 

[fisicx]

The data itself is of little value until it’s been tested. You need to run some trials to see if your tool results in new leads.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Public domain doesn't necessarily equate to GDPR compliant - particularly of they have opted out.

Legitimacy is a key issue here.

 

[cjd]

You're spot on — that's exactly the point. The automation makes it nearly zero cost to run, which means even a modest conversion rate makes it worthwhile. The difference is you're not carpet-bombing 10,000 addresses with a generic letter. You're contacting 20 people who registered this week, don't have a website, and whose mobile number you've already found. That's a phone call, not a mail merge.

I was meaning your ability to automate the process of finding and collating the data from the various sources so as to quickly and cheaply produce a weekly targeted list. Is this what you are able to do?

If so I suspect there's a market for it. So long as it's legal and you can find a way of proving a high conversion rate.

 

[Paul Carmen]

@James4B We did this as a trial, with a large subset of data, did something similar to what you're doing (seeing if the company had a website & we could find a phone number & email). We also ran a variant of it when Google shut down the GBP free websites too. We captured the entire UK GBP website setup that didn't have their own proper website, and all the contact details we could for a client of ours.

We emailed these companies offering low cost websites, GBP and business services. The open and response rate was low, we followed up with outreach calls.

The new businesses were very hard to get hold of, unless they had a good website already! Those we spoke to were mainly trades, they didn't have any money for websites or marketing, they usually were relying on word of mouth etc to get business initially until they'd made some money.

The GBP side was similar, many did not even know they had a free GBP website, and had no business from it. They either had no money to build one or did not have a website because they're doing OK without it.

It's not a market that's got lots of untapped potential, as the people who are doing it properly already have these services planned upfront. You might be lucky and get some of these customers, but it's basically a large tranche of people with little idea about business, with low or no budget for any work, making it a hard sell for a very low margin service.

 

[James4B]

The data itself is of little value until it’s been tested. You need to run some trials to see if your tool results in new leads.

It's already working, I don't need it myself but it is producing results each week based on the data.

 

[James4B]

I was meaning your ability to automate the process of finding and collating the data from the various sources so as to quickly and cheaply produce a weekly targeted list. Is this what you are able to do?

If so I suspect there's a market for it. So long as it's legal and you can find a way of proving a high conversion rate.

Sorry, yes that's right. My system produces a list every Monday and provides a list of registered compaines to the recipients email address in PDF format. Fristly it searches companies house and then matches those companies details by scouring the internet looking for domains, phone numbers, email addresses and current social media presence.

 

[James4B]

@James4B We did this as a trial, with a large subset of data, did something similar to what you're doing (seeing if the company had a website & we could find a phone number & email). We also ran a variant of it when Google shut down the GBP free websites too. We captured the entire UK GBP website setup that didn't have their own proper website, and all the contact details we could for a client of ours.

We emailed these companies offering low cost websites, GBP and business services. The open and response rate was low, we followed up with outreach calls.

The new businesses were very hard to get hold of, unless they had a good website already! Those we spoke to were mainly trades, they didn't have any money for websites or marketing, they usually were relying on word of mouth etc to get business initially until they'd made some money.

The GBP side was similar, many did not even know they had a free GBP website, and had no business from it. They either had no money to build one or did not have a website because they're doing OK without it.

It's not a market that's got lots of untapped potential, as the people who are doing it properly already have these services planned upfront. You might be lucky and get some of these customers, but it's basically a large tranche of people with little idea about business, with low or no budget for any work, making it a hard sell for a very low margin service.

Thanks Paul, that's genuinely helpful real-world data — and you're right that the core trades market is tough. No money, word of mouth works for them, they don't see the value in digital marketing. I've seen the same thing.


But I think that's why targeting matters more than volume. If I'm trying to sell £2k websites to a sole trader plumber, I'm going to have a bad time. If I'm selling a £20/month social media package to a new beauty salon, or accounting services to someone who just incorporated a limited company and suddenly needs to file accounts, the maths is completely different.


The other thing is the buyer, not the lead. My target customers aren't the tradespeople themselves — they're the web designers, marketers and accountants who've already figured out their niche and just need a steady pipeline of fresh prospects to work. They know their conversion rates, they know what they charge, and the data pays for itself if even 1 in 100 converts to a £49/month SEO retainer.


Different business model to selling services direct to trades. But genuinely appreciate the honest take — it's rare to get that level of detail from someone who's actually tried it.

 

[James4B]

Public domain doesn't necessarily equate to GDPR compliant - particularly of they have opted out.

Legitimacy is a key issue here.

Valid point and worth addressing properly.


Legitimate interest is the lawful basis we'd rely on for B2B contact data — which is explicitly recognised under UK GDPR for prospecting when the recipient is a business and the outreach is relevant to their work. ICO guidance specifically acknowledges this for B2B marketing.


The data flow is: Companies House data is public by statute, contact details are scraped from the businesses' own published websites where they've put the information online precisely to be contacted, and any direct marketing that uses the data has to include an unsubscribe mechanism and honour opt-outs.


You're right that public availability isn't a free pass — and we'd need to make sure subscribers using the data understand their obligations too. Something I'll be clearer about in the T&Cs. Good shout.

 

[fisicx]

Which comes back to you doing some testing to see if your data results in leads for your target user. Offer free use of the tool to whoever for 6 months with you doing lots of mentoring and see how effective it is.

TBH I’ve found outreach far less effective than targeted marketing on various portals.

 

[ThatDevAaron]

OP types like AI

 

[James4B]

OP types like AI

You mums AI... would AI say that?

 

[ThatDevAaron]

You mums AI... would AI say that?

well. given your only non-ai-looking response sounds like it was made by a Ukrainian immigrant. ima say yes

 

[James4B]

well. given your only non-ai-looking response sounds like it was made by a Ukrainian immigrant. ima say yes

I see your point.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Thanks Paul, that's genuinely helpful real-world data — and you're right that the core trades market is tough. No money, word of mouth works for them, they don't see the value in digital marketing. I've seen the same thing.


But I think that's why targeting matters more than volume. If I'm trying to sell £2k websites to a sole trader plumber, I'm going to have a bad time. If I'm selling a £20/month social media package to a new beauty salon, or accounting services to someone who just incorporated a limited company and suddenly needs to file accounts, the maths is completely different.


The other thing is the buyer, not the lead. My target customers aren't the tradespeople themselves — they're the web designers, marketers and accountants who've already figured out their niche and just need a steady pipeline of fresh prospects to work. They know their conversion rates, they know what they charge, and the data pays for itself if even 1 in 100 converts to a £49/month SEO retainer.


Different business model to selling services direct to trades. But genuinely appreciate the honest take — it's rare to get that level of detail from someone who's actually tried it.

The client we were working with was trying to sell start up basic website packages - from £195, & web & local SEO - from £295, plus very low monthly fees. There was almost no interest, certainly not a good enough rate to justify running phone outreach.

We work with several accountant clients for lead gen, and again these type of new customers are more trouble than they're worth. If they sign up for anything its very cheap, as they have no bookkeeping and accounting to be done initially.

We had an accountant who specifically targeted startups, expecting to get incorporation, bookkeeping, payroll, accounting etc, so an ongoing revenue, what he got was incorporation, nothing, and a handful wanting help shutting down 18-24 months later! We now target an entirely different type of customer for him, with a far more lucrative ROI.

It's a common misconception, but web and accountancy businesses often do not know their own conversion rates, warm word of mouth and their own web leads will be at a very different conversion rate to a list of cold startups.

Good luck with this, but as @fisicx says, you really need to test this yourself first.

 

[James4B]

The client we were working with was trying to sell start up basic website packages - from £195, & web & local SEO - from £295, plus very low monthly fees. There was almost no interest, certainly not a good enough rate to justify running phone outreach.

We work with several accountant clients for lead gen, and again these type of new customers are more trouble than they're worth. If they sign up for anything its very cheap, as they have no bookkeeping and accounting to be done initially.

We had an accountant who specifically targeted startups, expecting to get incorporation, bookkeeping, payroll, accounting etc, so an ongoing revenue, what he got was incorporation, nothing, and a handful wanting help shutting down 18-24 months later! We now target an entirely different type of customer for him, with a far more lucrative ROI.

It's a common misconception, but web and accountancy businesses often do not know their own conversion rates, warm word of mouth and their own web leads will be at a very different conversion rate to a list of cold startups.

Good luck with this, but as @fisicx says, you really need to test this yourself first.

The client we were working with was trying to sell start up basic website packages - from £195, & web & local SEO - from £295, plus very low monthly fees. There was almost no interest, certainly not a good enough rate to justify running phone outreach.

We work with several accountant clients for lead gen, and again these type of new customers are more trouble than they're worth. If they sign up for anything its very cheap, as they have no bookkeeping and accounting to be done initially.

We had an accountant who specifically targeted startups, expecting to get incorporation, bookkeeping, payroll, accounting etc, so an ongoing revenue, what he got was incorporation, nothing, and a handful wanting help shutting down 18-24 months later! We now target an entirely different type of customer for him, with a far more lucrative ROI.

It's a common misconception, but web and accountancy businesses often do not know their own conversion rates, warm word of mouth and their own web leads will be at a very different conversion rate to a list of cold startups.

Good luck with this, but as @fisicx says, you really need to test this yourself first.

All fair points Paul, and genuinely appreciate the detail — that accountant example is a really telling case study.

You're right that I need to test it properly with real subscribers before I'll know the true conversion rates. The product is live, the data is flowing, so now it's about getting it in front of the right people and letting the numbers speak for themselves.

Taking your advice on board — cheers for taking the time to share the real-world experience. Most people just theorise, so it's valuable hearing from someone who's actually run the numbers.

 

[Ozzy]

Reading this thread was like having a conversation with Claude

 

[Mark T Jones]

You mums AI... would AI say that?

TBH I was pretty certain it's AI. The typical clue is in the ratio of words and platitudes to actual content.

Worth bearing in mind, whether you're using it or not

 

[James4B]

Reading this thread was like having a conversation with Claude

Sorry but that has nothing to do with the original topic.

I came here to share a business idea with like mined people which is what I thought this forum was for? To gain insight, solid advice and feedback.

I guess not.

 

[Ozzy]

I came here to share a business idea with like mined people which is what I thought this forum was for? To gain insight, solid advice and feedback.

Well, the issue you have is that you seem to have relied too much on AI. You've created a service and are using data, and if prompted a certain way, AI will tell you that the service you offer is lawful and that 'legitimate interest' is allowed. However, for LI to apply you need to assess if the individual would agree with your assessment. If the individual, if challenged in court, did not agree with your assessment of use of their data meets the legitimate interest test then you lose.

You are not allowed to message these people any marketing messages until they have confirmed their interest. Companies House and the ICO have documentation that states that the public record data itself cannot be used for marketing purposes, as that does not meet the intent by which the data was provided by the individuals for the public record.

The only exception to this is if you do not record the individual names of the directors/PSCs. If you direct mail to the company and not to a named individual, that moves outside the scope of GDPR and then you just have Companies House and their TOS for the use of the data.