It's frustrating to have a great idea for a brand collaboration but no way to get in touch with said brand. Through my years of pitching myself as a photographer and also doing sales I have had to track down over 1,000 people whose email address I didn't have.

Here are 6 tricks I used to find almost any email address. 

Look on Fohr Card:

Sure I am biased, but we have over 80 of the world's best brands using Fohr Card Messaging, and your pitches sent through our system go straight to the right person, best place to look for your contact is in the brand directory.

Get an intro

If we don't have the brand as a client (yet), there are 3 ways to find someone to intro you:

1. Another influencer who has worked with the brand before
2. A friend that is connected with the desired contact on LinkedIn
3. You know someone who works at the holding companies that owns the brand (i.e. Kering, LVMH or Richemont)

If you have any of these three, get an introduction, as they are much more effective than cold outreach, so use them if you can get them. 

Google Search

Searching for an email address on Google has a few steps. 

1. You have to find who at the brand is doing that job that would make the decision, generally look for PR Directors, Digital Marketing Directors or Directors of Social.
2. Once you have the name search "first name+last name+brand URL"
3. If that doesn't work start looking for Press Releases the brand has published recently, email addresses are often at the bottom of those. 

Data.com

 If your internet sleuthing isn't turning something up, Data.com is a great place to find almost anyone email address for not much money. 

Rapportive Hack

This is a bit more complicated hack that has served me well in the past, I couldn't explain it better than Rob over at Distilled, check it out.

Twitter DM 

If you interact with the brand enough they should follow you back and once that happens send them a quick DM saying you "have an idea for a collaboration and would love and email address where you could send through details".

Next week I will write a post about writing super effective cold emails that are almost guaranteed to get a response from the brand.