B2B Lead Generation Platform: Self-Service Local Prospecting

The founder had compiled millions of UK business records from Companies House filings and public registers. He wasn’t building a database – he was solving a problem he’d watched small business owners struggle with for years.

A plumber searching for construction companies within driving distance. A restaurant supplier trying to reach cafes in their delivery radius. Each paying hundreds of pounds for lead lists that were outdated before they arrived, or thousands for agencies that treated local campaigns as an afterthought.

The data existed. Making it accessible to non-technical business owners – without exposing it to scraping or requiring marketing expertise – was the engineering challenge he brought to us.

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The Problem

Local lead generation shouldn’t be this hard – but for UK small businesses, reaching nearby prospects means navigating an expensive, fragmented mess.

The data exists – accessing it doesn’t. Companies House publishes business records, but raw filings aren’t marketing lists. Turning that data into actionable contacts means either building technical infrastructure or paying data brokers hundreds of pounds per list.

Geographic prospecting that actually works. Map integration lets users define their actual service area by postcode and radius. Dynamic markers show matching businesses in real time.

Multi-channel means multiple platforms. Email tools don’t handle physical mail. Print services don’t track digital engagement. Running a coordinated local campaign means juggling logins, exports, and separate analytics.

Agencies price out the businesses that need them most. Professional lead generation starts at thousands of pounds per campaign. For a local tradesperson or supplier, that’s more than the campaign is worth.

As a result, small business owners either abandon local outreach entirely or spend hours manually researching prospects one by one – time they should be spending on actual work.

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The Solution

We designed the platform around a simple user journey: enter a postcode, see local businesses on a map, filter to your ideal prospects, and launch a campaign – email or physical mail – without leaving the interface.

Instant access to millions of UK businesses. No lead list purchases. Users search the founder’s proprietary database directly – filtering by location, industry, company size, and operating history.

Geographic prospecting that actually works. Map integration lets users define their real market: “construction firms within 15 miles of my postcode.” Dynamic markers show exactly who they’re targeting.

Protecting the data asset. The database is the product’s moat – exposing it to scraping would destroy the business model. Every data access pattern needed to make bulk extraction impractical while keeping legitimate prospecting frictionless.

Multi-channel without complexity. Email and physical mail serve different purposes, but users shouldn’t need to learn two systems. Channel selection became a single step within the existing campaign flow – not a separate workflow.

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How We Built It

The founder had the database and the vision. What he needed was a product architecture that would make the platform intuitive for non-marketers while protecting his proprietary data from scraping.

We spent weeks in Figma and on calls – mapping user flows, debating technical tradeoffs, and pressure-testing business assumptions. This wasn’t just visual design: it was product strategy, technical specification, and business model validation happening in parallel.

Three key decisions shaped the product:

The domain verification challenge. Small business owners aren’t DNS experts. We designed a guided flow that generates the exact records needed, walks users through where to add them, and provides clear feedback when verification fails. No technical support required for the 90% case.

Protecting the data asset. The database is the product’s moat – exposing it to scraping would destroy the business model. We designed a preview-only approach: users see sample companies to validate their targeting, but full contact data releases only when a paid campaign executes.

Multi-channel without complexity. Email and physical mail serve different purposes, but users shouldn’t need to learn two systems. We unified the campaign workflow – same filtering, same templates, same analytics dashboard – with the channel selection as a single step in the flow.

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Technical Architecture

The architecture needed to handle three challenges: querying millions of records by location efficiently, managing email deliverability at scale, and integrating physical mail fulfillment.

Geospatial database design. Millions of organization records with related contacts and addresses. Geospatial indexing enables sub-second radius queries – users search “within 15 miles” and get results instantly despite the dataset size.

Email deliverability at scale. Dedicated sending infrastructure per campaign with isolated tracking. Automated DNS record generation walks users through domain verification. SPF/DKIM/DMARC validation ensures emails reach inboxes, not spam folders.

Multi-channel integration. Maps API for geographic visualization, email platform for delivery and analytics, print fulfillment service for physical mail – each selected for specific strengths, integrated through clean API boundaries into a unified user experience.

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The Result

The platform gives UK small businesses what previously required agencies or enterprise tools: access to comprehensive local business data, intuitive geographic targeting, and professional multi-channel campaigns – all through a single guided workflow.

Proprietary data as product. The platform centers on a unique, continuously-updated database the founder owns – not a wrapper around third-party data. That distinction defines the competitive position: no third-party dependency, no margin erosion from data licensing.

Complexity eliminated. A workflow that previously required four or five separate tools now runs through a single session. Non-marketers operate it without training.

Accessible pricing. Tiered subscription pricing undercuts both enterprise platforms and agency services. A local business owner runs professional multi-channel campaigns for less than the cost of a single agency consultation.

Sustainable data protection. Every data release ties to a paid campaign – making bulk extraction economically impractical while keeping the database commercially viable long-term.

Millions of business records, once raw data, now power a self-service marketing engine.