One of the discussion points that emerged at a roundtable we hosted on Tuesday was B2B outbound / business development (i.e. getting in touch with people you don't already know to start a conversation, set up a meeting, introduce your company, etc).

There was a diverse set of experiences and attitudes on the topic. At Casla, we generally think outbound should be an ingredient in the B2B go-to-market mix, with some nuances and caveats:

▪️ The larger the customer lifetime value, the stronger the case for outbound:

➞ To provide some rules of thumb: where CLV is over £100k, if you're not doing some form of outbound, you're almost certainly making a mistake; £10k - 100k, it's probably worth doing; under £10k, it starts to become questionable; under £1k, don't do it.

▪️ Low volume is better than high volume:

➞ Technology has enabled companies to do huge volumes of outbound, whether by buying thousands of email addresses and loading them into a sequencer, or using a parallel dialler to phone 10 numbers at the same time, or automating LinkedIn outreach. This has always been a bad vibe, but it's now also increasingly ineffective as a result of advances in the technology to counter it (e.g. sophisticated email filters, iOS and Android call screening, LinkedIn clamping down on automation).

▪️ As far as possible, it's best to avoid buying B2B contact info:

➞ It's never been easier to buy B2B contact info, but doing so opens up a Pandora's box (e.g. deliverability issues due to inaccurate data; complex legality, particularly when more than one country is involved).

➞ Constraints foster creativity; avoiding it encourages better, lower volume, higher value approaches.

▪️ LinkedIn InMail is the best outbound channel:

➞ You don't have to worry about data accuracy or deliverability.

➞ As it's a paid LinkedIn feature (each message sent costs about ~£1) there's a lot less noise.

▪️ Diversify your "offers":

➞ For a low volume approach to work, it's often necessary to provide a range of interesting and valuable ways for people to engage with your company; this might be an offer to create content together, or an event.

➞ There's also a lot of ways you can elevate an introductory meeting; for example, by offering an in-person meeting with your CEO or another senior leader, or a briefing on industry trends by an internal subject matter expert.

▪️ Outbound needs to work for everyone, including your reps:

➞ For outbound to work long-term, it needs to serve all three parties involved: 1) for the company, it needs to deliver ROI 2) for the people being contacted, it needs to be valuable 3) for the reps, it needs to be enjoyable.

➞ Of the three, the rep's experience is the most commonly overlooked, which is a mistake because engaged, long-tenured reps are key to outbound success.