The business lists that I have had to pay for have not turned out like I was told they would. These businesses sell their lists to hundreds of people in the same business. So when you contact a person you are just one in many that are contacting them. Take the time and start making your own list. You will be surprised at how fast it will grow.

My web-design company relies heavily on such lists - we focus on servicing small start-up companies. Our experience is that the 'commercial' list companies have leads that are old, stale, over used and over priced. We have found that most states will provide through the state dep. of commerce some type of mailing list at very reasonable prices. We will regularly use these lists and send direct mail to new companies and because we are getting them directly from the source they are very fresh and out solicitation/contact is often the first they have recieved. ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

Several people have stated that Info USA is a long established business that seems to have a good reputation. I would try them. Also the local library would have books of lists that might be very helpful for you. You would have to take some time to do this research on your own though.

You will have to try out searching for business incorporations for every state... It's not 'easy' but it is definitely do-able... one problem with salesgenie that I have heard is 'stale leads'... you might want to check out ellipsis dive ... it's a new product in the field of lead generation and provides a totally radical solution... it won't give you 'business contacts in US' per say... but if you refine your search to what you are looking for... say 'mortgage florida' or something like that.. you will get quite better results... Hope this helps... good luck!

Who are you looking to market to? The B2B market? A lot of people recommended Infousa, and although they are extremely large and spend alot of time verifying their lists, there are better, less inexpensive sources out there. Most data brokers sell from the same sources -- usually Dun and Bradstreet. Infousa compiles their own data out of the Yellow Page phone books. They actually scan them, call and verify the leads. If you are looking for low cost, you could just use the phone book or online directories. However, It's up to you determine how much your time is worth though -- It would be rather time consuming and you would have a difficult time getting results. Speaking of which? What are you trying to accomplish with the list? What are you selling? postcard printing ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

I am not aware of any such list that is provided by the government. You may have better luck searching private businesses. On a related note, you may be interested in this article: The Legal Steps to Buying a Business

I don't know about the governemtn providing such a list, but I know of 2. Sales Genie - I have absolutely no experience with them. I just remembered their commercials on the radio.(salesgenie.com) Then there's Info USA. I have some experience with them, but not on a leads level. From what we know, they are a pretty stand-up group. We mostly work with them to help promote our clients. Recently, I began to also look into purchasing leads, and I can tell you that you can define the type of lead you want with great detail. This will help ensure you are selling to the right group of people and not spamming the world. Please don't spam the world. ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

InfoUSA has been around for a long time and they provide useful and current information but their fee is quite high. If you don't mind putting in some time, you might check your local library to see if they offer the ReferenceUSA database. You can in-put your criteria and create your own mailing list. I am able to access the database from my home computer by entering my library card number. You will need a library card if you don't want to go to the library to use the system.

There are several list companies out there that you can tap into. You really need to find one that is reputable and will give you a clean list. The company we use for sales lists is USdatacorporation.com. They've always come through for us no matter what type of list we've needed. --- This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.