How to Re-Engage Your Network and Turn Cold Prospects into Warm Leads

A few months ago, I wrote about the benefit of having long, mid and short-term strategies for new business growth during times of uncertainty and unpredictability.

And I recommended that your mid-term strategy might center around re-engagement. Specifically, focusing on prospects that are at the midpoint of your sales funnel. These are the prospects with whom you’ve had two-way interaction and who have expressed even a preliminary level of interest in working with your agency. You’ve built a level of trust with these folks and they’re likely to grant you permission to reengage in a way they wouldn’t to a stranger.

There’s another set of people with whom you’ve built a relationship based on trust—your professional network.

I’ve always been surprised by how many agency leaders overlook their network of contacts. Somehow, between servicing current clients and pitching new business, these valuable contacts get taken for granted.

Your network of professional contacts is one of the best sources of new business you have, but it needs care and feeding. One way you can do this is by adapting the principles of re-engagement campaigns and applying them to your contact list.

You've heard it said that it's cheaper to keep a current client happy than to find a new one. This is a variation of that idea: It's more efficient to convert a contact who knows, likes and respects you than it is to build a new relationship.

How Agencies Can Re-Engage Cold Prospects

First, for the purposes of this exercise, put aside the contact records of people you don't have a personal connection to—like newsletter or podcast subscribers. These folks may love your content, but they're still relatively anonymous to your agency. (Do, however, conduct a more traditional re-engagement campaign on your agency's contact list to make sure it's clean and productive.)

Divide the remainder into four groups. The actual percentages will differ in each agency's case, but my hunch is that it will look something like this:

Top 15%: The Buddies

These are close professional relationships that border on/bleed into the personal. They're former colleagues or clients who will be excited to hear from you just because you're you.

Unlike all the other groups, your agenda with "the buddies" has to stay loose. Yes, you're on a business mission, but this objective takes a backseat to your primary intention, which is to nurture a relationship that's already important to you both.

In fact, use this as an opportunity to find out how you can support one another. No one has the answers, but everyone is craving to hear—and share—ideas that may improve our lives and businesses.

Trust that business opportunities and leads will rise organically out of your conversation.

Because you like each other and want to see each other succeed, you might use this opportunity to ask for referrals—just be prepared with a request that’s compelling and easy to pass along to the right prospects who need what you do. And, of course, reciprocate the favor if you can.

Next 40%: The Dormant Fans

You've probably only interacted with these contacts on a strictly professional level, nevertheless, they're warm relationships. They've witnessed your agency in action and were impressed.

Besides former colleagues or clients, these are people you’ve met at conferences and events (remember those?), agency partners you worked with well in the past, or prospects that you connected with, even if it didn’t result in winning the business.

Make it a win-win interaction by leading with something that’s of value to them. It can be as simple as sharing the results of a research study that's relevant to a business problem they're trying to solve (ideally a study your agency conducted). Or something meatier, like offering a specially-priced package of services that might serve as an incentive to work with you.

If they're a potential partner rather than a client, ask if they'd refer you to some of their clients who'd find your offer valuable.

Next 35%: The Disappearing Acts

You probably had a positive professional relationship with these folks at some point, but maybe it wasn't strong enough to push it into the realm of fandom despite your best efforts.

I wish I could tell you why some people stay responsive and others just disappear, but it's not productive to dwell on that kind of stuff. Instead, make a last-ditch effort to engage before either archiving them or demoting them to your general subscriber list.

Be honest and don’t be afraid to show a little vulnerability—we’re all feeling a little vulnerable these days. Tell them in your own words appropriate to the situation that this relationship is meaningful to you and why you’d like to reconnect.

Some may be jolted into a response that keeps the relationship alive (in which case, I'd upgrade them to the "dormant fans" group and find a way to keep them engaged).

Bottom 10%: The Rejectors

We all have relationships that somehow got damaged beyond repair. Those aren't the ones I’m talking about here, but sometimes they're mistaken for them. However, this group does include clients associated with accounts that left and pitches you lost.

The mistake I see agencies make is forgetting about these relationships the moment that they, sad and dejected, turn to walk off the playing field. Unless you lost a client or a pitch because of an egregious mistake, these may actually be some of your best prospects–and they’re often ignored!

Why did you lose that pitch or piece of business? Was it because you lacked category expertise that you have now? Was it a political decision made by someone who is no longer at that company? Or, has your champion gone to a better job at a different company? A little bit of research could reveal some hidden "dormant fans" or even "buddies."

Make Re-Engagement a Regular New Business Practice

Re-engaging your network may be the perfect way to get you back into a business development mindset, but make it a regularly recurring activity too. At least once a year, segment and contact your network, shifting more valuable contacts into more valuable categories and downgrading, or even eliminating, the contacts that won’t serve you in the future.