My firmographic ICP was solid: 50–500 employees, Series A–C, US-based SaaS. I was still sending 800 emails a month to generate 12 demos. The problem wasn't the ICP — it was that I had no idea which of those 40,000 companies in my TAM were actually ready to switch.

Then I started running tech stack filters. Same email volume, 31 demos. Not because I wrote better subject lines. Because I stopped emailing companies that had no reason to care.

This is the operational playbook I wish existed when I started. Not a provider comparison — there are plenty of those. This is a 5-step workflow: how to pull technographic data cheaply, how to map signals to buying intent categories, and what to actually write in the email once you have the data.

Step 1: Pull the Data Without a Six-Figure Contract

Most articles mention HG Insights and ZoomInfo as the category leaders, which is true and also unhelpful if you're not ready to spend $30K/year.…