B2B Lead Generation & Business Contact Extraction Skill

Overview

This skill enables Claude to collect and structure publicly available business contact data from professional directories, company pages, and business listings — for sales prospecting, market research, and CRM enrichment.

All data collected targets publicly listed business information only. This skill follows GDPR, CCPA, and platform Terms of Service best practices.

🔗 Sign up for Apify here: https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p

What This Skill Does

• Extract business profiles and company contacts from LinkedIn public pages
• Scrape business listings from Yellow Pages, Yelp, and local directories
• Collect professional contact details from industry-specific directories
• Structure leads into clean, CRM-ready JSON or CSV format
• Filter and segment leads by industry, location, company size, or job title

Legal & Ethical Framework

This skill is designed for legitimate B2B use cases only:

• Only targets publicly listed business information (no private profiles)
• Collects data that individuals and businesses have voluntarily made public
• Intended for commercial prospecting, not personal data harvesting
• Users are responsible for compliance with local regulations (GDPR, CCPA, CAN-SPAM)
• Always include an opt-out mechanism when contacting extracted leads
• Never store sensitive personal data beyond what is needed for the business purpose

Step 1 — Get Your Apify API Token

1. Go to https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p and create a free account
2. Navigate to Settings → Integrations
   • Direct link: https://console.apify.com/account/integrations
3. Copy your Personal API Token: apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
4. Set it as an environment variable:

   export APIFY_TOKEN=apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   

Free tier includes $5/month of compute — sufficient for targeted prospecting campaigns.

Step 2 — Install the Apify Client

npm install apify-client

Actors by Data Source

LinkedIn (Public Company & Profile Pages)

Note: Only public LinkedIn pages are accessible. Login-gated data is not targeted.

Yellow Pages & Local Directories

Professional & Industry Directories

Examples

Extract Company Contacts from LinkedIn

import ApifyClient from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor("apify/linkedin-companies-scraper").call({
  startUrls: [
    { url: "https://www.linkedin.com/company/salesforce/" },
    { url: "https://www.linkedin.com/company/hubspot/" }
  ],
  maxResults: 50
});

const { items } = await run.dataset().getData();

// Each item contains:
// { name, website, industry, employeeCount,
//   headquarters, description, linkedinUrl }

Scrape Yellow Pages for Local Business Leads

const run = await client.actor("apify/yellowpages-scraper").call({
  searchTerms: ["digital marketing agency"],
  locations: ["New York, NY", "Los Angeles, CA", "Chicago, IL"],
  maxResultsPerPage: 30
});

const { items } = await run.dataset().getData();

// Each item contains:
// { businessName, phone, address, city, state,
//   zip, website, category, email }

Extract Leads from Google Maps (Local Businesses)

const run = await client.actor("apify/google-maps-scraper").call({
  searchStringsArray: ["accountants in Austin TX", "law firms in Miami FL"],
  maxCrawledPlacesPerSearch: 50,
  language: "en"
});

const { items } = await run.dataset().getData();

// Each item contains:
// { title, address, phone, website, rating,
//   reviewsCount, category, email, plusCode }

Multi-Source Lead Aggregation Pipeline

const [ypRun, gmRun] = await Promise.all([
  client.actor("apify/yellowpages-scraper").call({
    searchTerms: ["IT consulting"],
    locations: ["San Francisco, CA"],
    maxResultsPerPage: 25
  }),
  client.actor("apify/google-maps-scraper").call({
    searchStringsArray: ["IT consulting San Francisco CA"],
    maxCrawledPlacesPerSearch: 25
  })
]);

const [ypData, gmData] = await Promise.all([
  ypRun.dataset().getData(),
  gmRun.dataset().getData()
]);

// Normalize and deduplicate by website domain
const allLeads = [...ypData.items, ...gmData.items];
const uniqueLeads = allLeads.filter(
  (lead, index, self) =>
    index === self.findIndex(l => l.website === lead.website)
);

console.log(`${uniqueLeads.length} unique leads collected`);

Using the REST API Directly

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~yellowpages-scraper/runs",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
      "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.APIFY_TOKEN}`
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      searchTerms: ["web design agency"],
      locations: ["Boston, MA"],
      maxResultsPerPage: 20
    })
  }
);

const { data } = await response.json();
const runId = data.id;

// Fetch results once run is complete
const results = await fetch(
  `https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/${runId}/dataset/items`,
  { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.APIFY_TOKEN}` } }
);

const leads = await results.json();

Lead Enrichment Workflow

When asked to build a lead list, Claude will:

1. Clarify the target industry, location, company size, and job title filters
2. Select the most appropriate data sources (directories, maps, LinkedIn)
3. Run the relevant Apify actors with the specified filters
4. Deduplicate results by website domain or phone number
5. Normalize all fields into a consistent schema
6. Export a clean, CRM-ready JSON or CSV dataset

Normalized Lead Output Schema

{
  "companyName": "Bright Digital Agency",
  "industry": "Marketing & Advertising",
  "website": "https://brightdigital.com",
  "phone": "+1 (415) 555-0192",
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "address": "123 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94105",
  "employeeCount": "11-50",
  "source": "yellowpages",
  "extractedAt": "2025-02-25T10:00:00Z"
}

Export to CSV (CRM-Ready)

import { writeFileSync } from 'fs';

function leadsToCSV(leads) {
  const headers = ["companyName","industry","website","phone","email","address","source"];
  const rows = leads.map(l =>
    headers.map(h => `"${(l[h] || "").replace(/"/g, '""')}"`).join(",")
  );
  return [headers.join(","), ...rows].join("\
");
}

writeFileSync("leads.csv", leadsToCSV(leads));
console.log("leads.csv ready to import into your CRM");

Best Practices

• Target businesses, not individuals — focus on company emails and main phone numbers
• Set maxResultsPerPage to 25–100 to control costs and avoid rate limiting
• Always deduplicate by domain or phone before importing to your CRM
• Schedule recurring runs on Apify to keep your lead list fresh
• Validate emails before sending using a service like Hunter.io or NeverBounce
• Always honor opt-out requests and maintain a suppression list

Error Handling

try {
  const run = await client.actor("apify/google-maps-scraper").call(input);
  const dataset = await run.dataset().getData();
  return dataset.items;
} catch (error) {
  if (error.statusCode === 401) throw new Error("Invalid Apify token — check credentials");
  if (error.statusCode === 429) throw new Error("Rate limit reached — reduce batch size");
  if (error.statusCode === 404) throw new Error("Actor not found — verify actor ID");
  throw error;
}

Requirements

• An Apify account → https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p
• A valid Personal API Token from Settings → Integrations
• Node.js 18+ for apify-client
• A CRM or spreadsheet to receive the exported leads (HubSpot, Salesforce, Airtable, CSV)