38% Conversion from Old Leads? Reactivation Works
Some of your best commercial opportunities are already in your CRM. You just haven’t looked at them in a while.
In our work with B2B sales and growth teams, we’ve helped reactivation campaigns convert between 38% and 50%, depending on the segment. These aren’t cold contacts. They’re leads who already showed interest, had a conversation, downloaded something, or even engaged with your team last year. They’re warmer than they look and faster to move than new prospects.
Most CRMs Are Full of Dust, Not Dead Ends
Sales and marketing teams are good at creating volume. Over time, you collect thousands of contacts: webinar attendees, demo no-shows, closed-lost deals, referrals that never answered, past clients who churned. And then things get busy, priorities shift, people move on.
What’s left is a CRM that’s technically full, but operationally silent.
According to HubSpot, up to 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales, and often it’s not because they’re unqualified it’s because they’re never nurtured or re-engaged. That’s a staggering number when you think about how much effort and budget goes into filling the top of the funnel.
And yet, almost no one has a structured reactivation process.
Why Reactivation Works (When Done Right)
There’s a very practical reason reactivating leads tends to perform so well: you’re not starting from zero.
These contacts already know your name. They’ve seen your brand, interacted with someone from your team, or shown interest in a related topic. That prior context, even if dormant, creates a different baseline than a totally cold outbound list.
In fact, research suggests that it’s 6 to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain or reactivate an existing one. So from both a cost and effort standpoint, re-engaging what you already have just makes more sense especially when you need short-term results.
But It’s Not Just About Sending an Email
A common mistake is treating reactivation like a one-off email blast. That rarely works and often does more harm than good. People can tell when they’re an afterthought.
What works instead is approaching reactivation like any strategic commercial effort: with segmentation, timing, intent signals, and a clear message that respects the relationship.
A Strategic Asset Hiding in Plain Sight
What we’ve learned through this work is simple: your CRM isn’t just a database it’s a commercial asset.
And like any asset, it needs to be activated, maintained, and measured.
The leads you’ve collected over the last 12, 24, even 36 months might not be ready for purchase tomorrow, but they absolutely can be reactivated with the right approach.
McKinsey reports that companies that use data to personalize B2B outreach can increase conversion rates by 15–20%. Combine that with reactivation strategy and relationship context, and you’re looking at a high-leverage, high-trust channel that often outperforms cold acquisition especially in complex sales.
The Opportunity Right Now
If your team is under pressure to deliver more pipeline this quarter, look inward before chasing the next outbound tool or lead gen hack.
Start with your own universe.
Ask:
Who already knows us?
Who already showed intent?
Who could we help today if we reached out with something relevant?
Chances are, your next best opportunity isn’t a stranger. It’s someone you forgot about.
If You’re Curious Where to Start
We’ve built dozens of reactivation and internal demand campaigns for teams across industries. It’s not about magic or automation it’s about organizing what you already have, making it work harder, and doing it in a way that feels human and relevant.
If you’d like us to take a look at your lead base and help you spot the highest-potential segments, we’re happy to do that.
