How to Get Local Business Leads with AI

If you sell to local businesses, the leads are already sitting on Google Maps: names, phone numbers, and emails. In this walkthrough I connect Apify's Google Maps scraper to the Claude desktop app so Claude does all the heavy lifting: it picks the right search, runs the scraper, and hands you contact data ready for outreach. We test it on high-end Paris restaurants, then I show you how to scale to thousands of leads for less than $10.

What you need

• A free Apify account ($5 of credits every month, which used correctly is over 1,000 effective leads)
• The Claude desktop application. You cannot use the web version of Claude for this, so grab the app from the website if you need it.

1. What Apify is (0:09)

Apify is a platform that scrapes data from the web through what they call actors: tiny robots that fetch information from any website or platform you can think of. There are actors for TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, you name it. Today we use the Google Maps one.

2. Why Google Maps for local targeting (0:36)

Google Maps lets you target precise geographic locations for any type of service you want to contact: lawyers, restaurants, dental clinics, medical clinics, anything. Everyone on Google Maps has contact information attached, so you get the email plus the phone number straight up.

3. Create a free Apify account (1:18)

Sign up for the free tier. You get $5 of credits each and every month, and that is more than enough to follow this tutorial and run your first thousand-plus leads.

4. Get your Apify API key (1:29)

Head into the Apify console. It can look a bit intimidating, but the only thing we need from it is an API key, which establishes the connection between Apify and Claude.

Apify console > Settings > API and integrations > Personal API tokens
> Create a new token (I named mine "Tutorial") > Copy

A word of caution: an API key is pretty much the password to your account. If someone has it, they can spend your money. On a free account the exposure is only $5 of credit, but in general, be careful with API keys.

5. Connect Apify to the Claude desktop app (2:48)

In the Claude desktop app, we set up the connector:

Left sidebar (burger menu if hidden) > Customize > Connectors
> Add Connector (+) > Browse Connectors > search "Apify" > Install

Then configure it:

Connector > Configure > paste your Apify token > Save > Enable

Both of those last steps are critical. If you do not hit Save, it will not work. If you do not hit Enable, it will not work either. As soon as I hit Enable, all of Apify's tools loaded: finding actors, getting actor details and costs, running them, fetching results, and reading documentation.

6. Check that Claude can reach the scraper (5:14)

Before scraping anything, verify the connection:

Hey, Claude, do you have access to the Apify Google Maps scraper?

For this kind of task I recommend a bigger model such as Opus, since it involves real analysis. Claude confirmed access and picked the best-rated scraper: nearly half a million users, a 93 percent success rate, and 4.7 out of 5 stars.

7. Run your first search (6:19)

I sell to restaurants in this example, so here is the exact request:

Hey, Claude. Using that scraper, can you please get me 20 Michelin star or high-end gastronomic restaurants located in Paris, please? Let me know when you're done.

You can get far more detailed than this: ask it to fetch pricing, filter out entries without contact information, or run a very narrow search across one section of your city. Cities, blocks, anything. It is literally Google Maps data.

While it runs, you can hop back into the Apify console and watch the actor Claude started on your behalf, including the exact query it sent.

8. Emails and phone numbers in the results (8:33)

Claude came back with all 20 results, complete with phone numbers and emails, plus a breakdown you can work from. That means you can go door to door, call, or email these businesses. And this is the real edge of local targeting: an email from someone targeting "the best marketing agencies in the US" is a much weaker message than one saying you target the best agencies in this specific part of this specific city, and people are much more eager to respond to someone genuinely interested in them and their local problems.

9. Scale to 1,000+ leads for under $10 (8:52)

We pulled 20 for the tutorial, but the same flow works with 100, 500, 1,000, or 2,000 leads, and that costs less than $10. On top of that, you can ask Claude to analyze the Google Maps profiles of all those businesses and pick the top 10 out of 1,000 that best fit what you offer.

Pitfalls and tips

• Desktop app only. The web version of Claude will not work for this connector setup.
• Save, then Enable. Skipping either step silently breaks the connection.
• The connector can bug out on install. If it does, quit the Claude application, reopen it, and come back to the Connectors tab.
• Guard your API key. Treat it like a password, even on a free account.

Where to go next

Start with your first 50 to 100 leads, and when you are ready to run this at scale, parallel workers are the next unlock: see Use Cowork Subagents to 10x Your Productivity. Not sure which model to run the analysis with? Read How to Choose the Right Claude Model.