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- Identify the cause of death.
Go through your list of old, stale, or dead leads and identify what’s gone wrong with each one (some of the reasons may be found here). Classify them according to these reasons. This way, it would be easier for you to refine your strategy and process for reviving each “cause of death.”
- Research on the dead prospects.
It’s been months since your last interaction, surely there’s something new with your old prospect.
Scope out social media and press releases. You are most likely to get intel on your contact’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn) or news releases.
- Reach out.
This is where it gets tricky. There is no one way to reach out. Here are some ways you can re-engage with old prospects:
- Be strategic: Map out your process for reaching out—from the initial to the follow-up. Learn from past experience and change it up. For initial contact, you may email, call, or send an SMS. From the initial re-engagement, map out your follow-up process. Automating your follow-up would be a good move, too.
- Send casual feelers: The last thing you want to do is send out a completely impersonal, template email. Something very casual, like “Hi! I heard from the news that you’ve recently __________. I was wondering if you would have any need for ______ now?”
- Be personal
: This would work with old prospects you managed to form a professional relationship with (read: they actually interacted with you before). You can bring up a topic that was previously discussed: “Hey, I remember you saying the last time we talked that you were gearing up for a trip to Sweden. How was it?” (Note: resist asking them about anything you just picked up on their personal social media account—too stalker-like.) Once they respond, that’s where you can start the ball rolling—but wait till after you’ve had a real conversation about her trip. - Don’t bring up the past: Your opening line shouldn’t be anything negative, like mentioning that you never heard from them before. Make your initial email casual and non-committal, not a guilt trip on what went down the last time. Keep it positive!
- Send them something valuable
: This is the beauty of the content you’ve been investing in for your marketing. You can send your old prospect a link to a post on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram that may be of interest to them. That’s a gentle nudge equivalent to you saying, “Hey, look! This is what we can do for you.” You can also invite them to an event or a special limited-time offer for a discount or special rate.
- Discuss what else is new with them.
Once you’ve managed to reach out successfully, have them feel like you are genuinely interested in all the developments happening from their end. Your discussions should give you insight on new requirements they may have, avenues where you can work together, and problems they may be having from these new developments or from current (competitive) providers.
It’s very important that you appear very invested in what they’re saying—and you can’t fake this. This is your second chance; make sure not to blow it.
- Tell them what’s new with your solutions for them.
No need to tell them everything that’s changed with you, your product, or your service. Focus on the new things you can offer them. This could be a new feature or a new price package. If there is honestly nothing new, you can just try to re-establish a relationship with them and make sure that yours is not a bridge they’ve completely burned.
