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Re-engage Cold Leads: 8 Proven Marketing Tactics to Try

Published on Oct 15, 2024

Re-engage Cold Leads: 8 Proven Marketing Tactics to Try
Sonya Matejko
Sonya Matejko studioID

Don’t let cold leads put the freeze on your sales pipeline. 

You know the once promising marketing-qualified leads that are now eerily quiet with little to no engagement. From poor timing and unclear value proposition to insufficient follow-up, there’s a host of reasons why leads go cold in the first place. 

However, re-engaging these leads is a strategy many marketers and sales leaders overlook. Need a reason to look again? 

I’ll give you three. These prospects:

  1. already have a foundation with your brand
  2. are further down your sales pipeline 
  3. could be one nudge away from coming back from the dead. 

To maintain a healthy sales pipeline, don’t give up on your cold leads just yet. Below are eight white-hot strategies for how to re-engage cold leads.

Boost Response Rates With Personalized Follow-ups 

Send a follow-up, but make it personal. With a robust CRM system, you can automate the process by sending an email related to their previous actions, like web search history. See the example from Airbnb, an online marketplace for short- and long-term homestays, which highlights homes in an area the user searched. 

📧 Related Reading: B2B Lead Nurture: Evaluating Personal Email vs. Business Email Addresses

Personalization goes beyond just names and locations. Customize your follow-up by showing you understand their needs. See below for an example from Donors Choose, an online charity, highlighting supplies “fellow 5th-grade teachers” are ordering. This example is great because it gives the lead a peek into their colleague’s preferences.

If it’s a marketing-qualified lead you’ve previously spoken to, you can also send a hyper-personalized note, calling attention to your previous conversation or interaction. (Bandwidth permitted, of course.) 

Spark Engagement Through Giveaways

Giveaways are effective because they tap into the natural desire to win. According to sources, contests have a 34% conversion rate compared to other types of content. 

Use your giveaway as a way for your prospect to re-engage with your brand and experience the benefits rather than submit an entry form. Check out the below example from Trulia, a real estate company that invites the lead to create a board (i.e., using a key feature) to enter the giveaway. 

👍 Related Reading: 7 Proven Content Engagement Strategies for 2024

You could also coax your lead into engaging on another platform to expand your touchpoints. See the below example from Stills, a design-oriented image licensing platform. Stills’ giveaway requires entrants to follow the brand on Instagram AND tag a designer in the comments, potentially gaining more leads. 

Drive Action With Limited-Time Offers

Scarcity drives human behavior, making timely offers highly effective for re-engagement.

Consider offering time-sensitive deals or personalized discounts to re-engage your cold lead. See the below example from Yohana, a digital personal assistant service. Note how the special offer highlights the discount is only available for “a limited time” while reminding the lead what pain points the service helps solve. 

🧠 Related Reading: The Psychology of Conversions: 5 Consumer Behavior Insights for 2024

In another example, Active Campaign, a software company, leads with benefits, showing them what they could do with the service. This example accentuates urgency by highlighting the “final day” of the offer and exclusivity by saying it’s the “lowest price in over a decade.”

Deliver Value With New, Relevant Insights

Warm up your chilly leads by giving them something useful. Consider offering actionable advice through blog posts, webinars, or case studies that address their challenges.

In this prime example from Casper, an e-commerce sleep company, the brand addresses a common pain point up front: back pain. The email also includes answers to other common questions sleepers might ask, like what mattress is best for their body type. It’s useful without a hard sell.

Webinars are another avenue. According to studioID’s 2024 Audience Snapshots, live webinars were more likely to be associated with a buying decision in under three months. See what that could look like in the webinar invitation below.

This invite clearly outlines what attendees will gain from the webinar through bullet points. The invite also evokes authority by including information about the expert speakers. Plus, bonus points for the countdown and urgency! 

Build Rapport By Soliciting Feedback

Want your cold lead to show interest in you? Show interest in them first. Request feedback to show interest in their opinions. 

Beyond its great design, the example from Graza, an olive oil brand, is fantastic because it offers value. How? By 

  1. teasing improved content, based on their feedback and
  2. offering a discount in exchange for their time

You can also keep it simple, like Google’s example below. Google does well here by clarifying how long the survey will take and how many survey questions to expect. (Think of a time you didn’t have a heads up and then wound up knee-deep in a 15-minute survey…not a great experience.)

Reignite Interest With a New Offer

Intrigue your cold lead by presenting a new product or service feature. But here’s the kicker: avoid simply sharing “We have a new widget!” and share how your new offer affects them (ideally, how it can help solve their problems).

Miro, a visual workspace, does this well in the following example because it shows the lead what they can do (make their work leap forward) and uses visuals to explain how. More than that, it includes a waitlist, making the lead feel special by letting them in on this special offer.

You can combine the previous step (i.e., feedback) with this one, as Shift Robotics does. Shift Robotics’ email introduces its new product by tying updates to feedback. This strategy is a solid example of making qualified leads (and customers!) feel heard and more likely to engage. 

Encourage Interaction With Quizzes 

Defrost your lead by inviting them to interact. Better yet, use the interaction to give them content tailored to them. Not only does this help you gather data to improve targeting later, but it also makes the experience feel more personal to the lead. 

One great way of doing this is via quizzes. See two examples below one from Skillshare, an online learning community, and one from Natalist, a company providing fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum essentials. These are two very different companies, but they have one strong approach. 

These quiz examples guide the lead to a personalized recommendation based on their answers. This curation makes the experience feel more high-touch. 

Stay Visible with Remarketing Efforts 

Not hitting it off over email? Retarget cold leads on social media to heighten their consideration. 

Seventy-seven percent of marketers use Facebook and Instagram in their retargeting strategies. 

(LinkedIn is a growing space for retargeting ads, too.)

According to Neil Patel, named one of Forbes’ top 10 online marketing experts to follow, remarketing based on a specific URL visit is one of the best retargeting methods. Patel points to this example from LeadPages, which retargeted him on social media after he did not convert on a webinar-training landing page. 

Highly Helpful Last Words

Converting cold leads can feel frustrating—but they’re still worth pursuing

When in doubt, take this advice from author and sales leader Anthony Iannarino

Refuse to attach a negative meaning to the word ‘no.’ View it as feedback. ‘No’ tells you to change your approach, create more value, or try again later.

Give your sales team the best chance at sealing the deal. Turn even the coldest leads into qualified sales with a potent lead nurture strategy. Download infographic.