# Outbound that respects consent > Reaching companies that have never heard of you: whom to contact, on what lawful basis, which data to keep, how to honor an opt-out, and what a good cold message looks like. - Course: [B2B Marketing and Sales: Win Your First Company Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales.md) - Module: Building demand in a long sale - Lesson 14/32, ~22 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/outbound-with-consent ## A list for sale **Marta:** Veloria came to us through a contact. We can't wait for luck all of 2027. A vendor offers a list of 5,000 HR managers, emails and mobile numbers, for a few thousand hryvnias. **Sofia:** Cheap. We could send everyone our brochure on Monday. **Alex Tutor:** Stop there. Reaching out first is called **outbound prospecting**, and it's a normal part of B2B. Done well, it's targeted, short, relevant and lawful, with an easy way to say no. **Alex Tutor:** That list fails on every count. Those people never heard of the vendor or of us, you can't show where their data came from, and most of them aren't companies we'd ever sell to. **Alex Tutor:** And 5,000 unexpected brochures bring complaints, and email services start sending our mail to spam, including our invoices to real clients. > **Exercise:** Why is buying the list of 5,000 HR managers a bad idea? Choose all that apply. ## A lawful basis **Marta:** But it's a work email, not someone's private life. Does data protection even apply? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. A named person's work email is personal data under the EU's data protection rules, GDPR, and under Ukraine's personal data law. To use it you need a **lawful basis**. **Alex Tutor:** In B2B that's usually consent or a **legitimate interest**: you weigh your interest against the person's rights. Relevant to their job, expected in their role, easy to refuse: that tends to pass. **Alex Tutor:** A guardrail, not legal advice: some countries also require prior consent for marketing email, even to work addresses. Before the first campaign, agree its rules with a lawyer, then follow them every time. **Sofia:** So the question is not "can I find their email?" but "can I explain why I wrote to them?" **Alex Tutor:** Check Marta's first instinct before we go on. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** a named person's work email isn't personal data, so data-protection rules don't apply to B2B outreach. > **Exercise:** Which outreach is easiest to defend under a legitimate-interest basis? ## Whom to contact, what to keep **Alex Tutor:** Start from the companies, not from addresses: the ones that fit the profile you built, such as logistics or IT firms whose staff work with EU partners. Then find the one person whose job this is. **Alex Tutor:** Usually the head of HR or learning, through a work address the company published or a professional network profile. Not the CEO, and not ten people at once. **Alex Tutor:** So at a company that fits, who gets the first message? > **Exercise:** A freight firm of about 300 people fits Klasna's customer profile. Whom do you write to first? **Sofia:** And in our CRM I'll save everything I can find about them, to personalise better. **Alex Tutor:** Keep only what you need: name, role, company, work email, where you found it and when. No personal phone, no birthday, no family. That's **data minimisation**. **Alex Tutor:** An AI tool can help research a company or draft a message. A person still checks every fact before anything is sent. **Alex Tutor:** Quick one on the AI draft before we sort the CRM. > **Exercise:** An AI tool drafted a first email saying the prospect "recently opened an office in Berlin". What do you do before sending? > **Exercise:** Which fields belong in the CRM record of a cold prospect? Choose all that apply. ## No means no, at once **Marta:** Somebody replied: "Please don't write to me again." Can we send one last follow-up in a month, just in case? **Alex Tutor:** No. An opt-out is honored at once and for good. Stop the sequence, remove them from every list, and keep only a short suppression entry so nobody writes to them again by mistake. **Alex Tutor:** Every message should make that easy: who you are, why you wrote to this person, and one line on how to stop hearing from you. **Sofia:** And a polite thank-you to the person who said no? **Alex Tutor:** One short line confirming you removed them is fine. No arguing, no "are you sure?". > **Exercise:** A prospect replies: "Please remove me from your list." What do you do? ## Your turn: a first message **Alex Tutor:** Let's compare two first emails to a freight forwarder in Lviv, about 300 staff. Its site names a head of training as the contact for learning partners. > **Two first emails** > > **A.** "Hi {FirstName}! Following up on our call 🙂 LAST CHANCE: 30% off corporate English ends Friday! Our tutors boost productivity like nothing else. Brochure attached (24 pages). Book a demo today!" > > **B.** "Hello, I'm with Klasna for Teams, an online English school for companies. Your site lists you as the contact for training partners. Freight teams often lose time on calls with foreign carriers; we run short lessons around shifts. Would a 20-minute call in the next two weeks be useful? If not, reply 'no' and I won't write again." **Sofia:** A pretends we already spoke, invents a deadline and makes a claim we can't back. **Alex Tutor:** And B says who is writing, why this person, one relevant problem, one small ask, and how to stop. **Marta:** Which parts of A would hurt us most if the head of training forwarded it to her boss? > **Exercise:** Which elements of email A make it spam rather than outreach? Choose all that apply. **Alex Tutor:** Now write your own version, for a company you choose from our customer profile. **Marta:** Under 100 words, please. Nobody reads a cold email longer than that. **Sofia:** And I end with one question, not three. **Alex Tutor:** And no claims you couldn't prove if they asked. > **Exercise:** Write a first cold email (**under 100 words**) from Klasna for Teams to the head of training at a company that fits Klasna's customer profile (for example, an IT services firm whose engineers work with EU clients). Make clear who you are, why you are writing to this person, one relevant problem, one small next step, and how to opt out. > **Key ideas** > > - **Outbound prospecting** is normal in B2B when it is targeted, short, relevant and lawful, with an easy way to say no. Never buy lists of personal data. > - A named person's work email is personal data under GDPR and Ukraine's personal data law. Have a **lawful basis**, usually a legitimate interest weighed against the person's rights; some countries also require prior consent for marketing email. Agree the rules with a lawyer once, then follow them. > - Start from companies that fit your profile, then the one person whose job it is. Keep only name, role, company, work email and the source. > - Honor an opt-out at once and everywhere; keep only a suppression entry. > - A good first message: who you are, why this person, one relevant problem, one small ask, how to stop. **Alex Tutor:** Next time: the quarter is over and leads have doubled. How much of that did marketing actually cause? - Previous lesson: [Content a committee uses: one asset per role and stage](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/content-a-committee-uses.md) - Next lesson: [Measuring marketing with a baseline](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/measuring-with-a-baseline.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.