Database reactivation: your old customers are the cheapest leads

How do you win back customers who haven’t called in a year? You already know who they are. Nobody has texted them since the last job.

They didn’t leave. They forgot your name. Then they need the same kind of work again, so they search. They call whoever shows up first. That’s a customer you already paid to win, gone to someone else. It’s one of the quiet ways leads go cold.

What is database reactivation?

Database reactivation is one plain text to people who bought from you before. It asks if they need you again. They already know your work, and you already have their number.

It’s the text you’d send one customer, sent to each of them.

People drift away for plain reasons:

• They lost your number. You’re saved as “fence guy,” or not saved at all.
• The next job is a different job. You built the fence. They didn’t know you fix decks, too.
• Something small bugged them. A late start, a mess left behind. Nobody asked, so they never said.
• Someone else got there first. Another business came up in a search on the day they looked.

Hearing from you fixes most of them.

Start with the people most likely to say yes. One good job, then nothing. A kind review. A question about a job you never did, like the second bathroom. They liked you enough to pay you, or to ask.

Leave out the job that went wrong. That one needs a phone call, not a text.

Where do you find your old customer list?

It’s already somewhere. It doesn’t need to be tidy. It needs a name, a number and the last job.

• Your accounting software. The best place to start. Every invoice has a name, a number and the job.
• Your phone. Your contacts, and old texts with customers.
• Your booking app or calendar. Every past booking is a past customer.
• A customer system. If you use one like Income Mavericks, the list is already in it.

What should a win-back text say?

Their name, your name, the job you did, and one easy question. That’s all. It should read like a text from a person, because it is one.

Here’s how one round goes:

Example wording. Write yours the way you talk.

Have a time ready when they reply. “Thursday morning or Friday afternoon?” is one reply. “When works for you?” is three.

They didn’t leave you. Nobody reminded them you were there.

Then stop doing the things that make it read like an ad:

• Not the deal first. A coupon can help. Put it after the job you did, not before. “We built your fence last year” says you remembered them.
• Not the whole list at once. Each reply is a person waiting for an answer. If they all land on one morning, some wait too long. Send a few at a time.
• No third text. Two is enough. A third starts to feel like a sales list. If they don’t answer, they don’t need you yet.

In Income Mavericks, a text like this can go out in a few ways:

• Once. One round to a list you pick, like everyone with no job this year.
• On a schedule. Three or six months after someone’s last invoice, it can send on its own.
• To one group. Only deck customers, or only last year’s. Each group gets its own text.

Every reply lands in one inbox.

It’s the text you’d send each one if you had a free afternoon. Send it, and answer whoever writes back.