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Is there a comprehensive business database out there that takes variables for sorting?

For example, if I wanted to say something like, "Show me all businesses with more than 50 employees within a 100 mile radius of zip code 55555." Anyone know of anything like this?

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3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

InfoUSA is a great source for this type of information. Beyond zip codes and area, you could filter buy number of employees, years in business and even the type of Business based upon SIC codes. This is useful if you have built an application that targets a certain demographic, or client type.

For example, lets say you built SALON software. You could use infousa to get a list of hair salons that have 4+ employees in the states where you want to target. Very smart marketing when combined with Email, Direct Mail, Phone and even in person sales visits.

Best of luck.

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Forgot to mention, this information is very expensive. You could try to buy the same leads databases on Ebay or others. The information changes rapidly, so buying a 15million + business database from ebay will have to be updated every few months. InfoUSA verfies the data, so its premium is worthwhile. For just email or cheaper efforts you could just buy a CD. If your budget is very limited you could just YELP, or do a YellowPages or CitySearch until you can afford a more robust solution. – Frank Jan 13 '11 at 0:56
infoUSA data is largely based on YellowPages scrapes and cold calls no? I'd use their data if there were some way to verify it is reliable and up to date. – Henry the Hengineer Jan 13 '11 at 1:30
They actually monitor the data themsevles. I get a call from them every few months to verify information based on my businesses. No database is 100% accurate, but through mail and calls they verify it themselves. They also put in some fake information. The fake information is for them to catch others who try to resell their data. So say i bought the whole 15 million db of businesses, and posted it on my own version of YELP, infoUSA would find the decoy listings and know i was using their data. – Frank Jan 13 '11 at 1:53
up vote 0 down vote

Yes there are packages with that type of information in it. They vary for the different map demographic software packages. Pricing is typcially in the thousands.

There are several packages out there. To get started search for terms like: "Demographic business map packages marketing"

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up vote 0 down vote

The closest type of free information that is available from the US government comes from the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its Occupation Employment Bureau:

http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/index.html

http://www.bls.gov/oes/

Unfortunately, they do not disclose names of individual businesses but they do provide data on number of employees per average establishment per zip code in any particular NAICS sector.

There may be private sources that are closer to what you want (they typically amass info. from phone books and cold calling) but they will be pricey and there's no guarantee they'll be accurate (how would you check them?).

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