Reactivating a list of old leads

Every development has the spreadsheet. Two thousand people who enquired during the launch, or at the portal, or at a broker event, and were called once or never. You already paid for those names. Going back to them is the cheapest pipeline you have — and the easiest to ruin.

Start with what you are allowed to do

The rules differ by country and by channel, and the cost of getting them wrong is not a fine so much as a burned list and a damaged sending domain. Before the first message:

• Email needs a lawful basis, a real unsubscribe link that works in one click, and a sender domain you have authenticated (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). A cold blast from a domain with no sending history goes to spam and takes your other mail with it.
• Text messages are stricter nearly everywhere. In the United States you need prior express consent for marketing texts, registered sending under 10DLC, and STOP handled instantly. A phone number on a spreadsheet from a portal is not consent to text.
• WhatsApp needs opt-in for WhatsApp specifically and an approved template to message first — see the WhatsApp guide.
• Calls follow do-not-call rules and local calling hours. Check them for the market you are calling into, not the one you are calling from.

Record where each contact came from and what they agreed to, next to the contact. When someone asks “how did you get my number?”, the answer needs to exist.

Have a reason to write

“Just checking in” is why these campaigns fail. A list that went cold went cold for a reason, and the way back in is something that has genuinely changed since they enquired:

• a new release, a new line of stacks, or a phase opening
• a price change, or a payment structure that is easier than it was
• a delivery date that is now close enough to be real
• the building topping out, the model unit opening, the amenity deck finished

One fact per message, said plainly, in the language they wrote to you in. If you have nothing new to say, wait until you do.

Segment before you send

Split brokers from buyers — brokers want the kit, not a nurture sequence. Split by what they asked about: the person who wanted a two-bedroom under a million does not want a message about penthouses. Drop the addresses that hard-bounced last time. And take out anyone who ever said no: someone who told you to stop and then hears from you again will not merely ignore it, they will report it.

How the sequence should behave

• Every step says something different. Three messages that are obviously one sequence read as an automation and get deleted as one.
• Stop the moment someone answers — and mean it, across channels. Nothing annoys a person who just replied like the next scheduled message arriving anyway.
• Answer what comes back, immediately. A reply to a reactivation message is a live lead for about an hour. If it sits in an inbox until Monday, you have re-cooled a list you just warmed.
• Hand the good ones to a person with a summary of what they originally wanted and what they just said.
• Space it out. Days between steps, not hours. This list is not in a hurry.
• Mark the no’s properly — not a fit, with the reason in their own words. That is how the list stays worth having next time.

Measure replies, not opens

Open rates have been unreliable since mail clients started pre-fetching images. The numbers that mean something are: replies, conversations that reached a person, visits booked, and unsubscribes. If unsubscribes climb, the reason to write was not a real one.

Ask Sofia works through the list herself — an email when something changes, a message a few days later, in the contact’s own language — stops the moment someone answers, and then answers whatever they said, at whatever hour they said it. See how she keeps old leads warm.