TL;DR
  • Competitor followers are in-market. They're actively following companies that do what you do.
  • This is one of the warmest cold lists you can build — no intent data purchase required.
  • ICP scoring in Clay filters down to the contacts worth reaching before anyone touches a sequence.
  • Personalization is built in: you know exactly why they're relevant — they follow your competitor.
  • The play works especially well when a competitor has a large, engaged LinkedIn following in your target market.
The Signal

WHY *COMPETITOR FOLLOWERS* CONVERT

Someone who follows your competitor on LinkedIn is doing so for a reason. They evaluated a product in your category. They're a customer, a prospect, or someone who's actively curious about what you do.

That's a warm signal — and it's a list your competitors don't know you're working. Pull it, filter it for ICP fit, and reach out with context.

The Build

HOW THE *PLAYBOOK* RUNS

01
Competitor Page Identification

We identify 3–5 competitor LinkedIn company pages most likely to have followers who overlap with your ICP — direct competitors, adjacent solutions, category-defining tools your buyers already use.

02
Follower Scrape

Using PhantomBuster or a Clay LinkedIn integration, we pull the follower list from each competitor page. Output: names, job titles, current companies, LinkedIn URLs.

03
Clay Enrichment & ICP Scoring

Profiles enrich in Clay — company firmographic, contact email waterfall, AI ICP scoring. We filter to A and B tier only. Unverified emails and non-ICP contacts are suppressed automatically.

04
Sequence Routing

High-fit contacts route into a personalized email sequence via Instantly or a LinkedIn sequence via HeyReach — or both in a combined multichannel flow. Opener references the category, not the competitor by name.

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Opener Strategy

Don't mention the competitor by name. Lead with the problem or category: "I noticed you follow a few tools in the [X space] — wanted to reach out about..." It's warm without being weird.