What you need to know
- Every past lead in your database is already paid for. Reactivation is the lowest-cost way to generate new jobs.
- SMS open rates are roughly 90% within 3 minutes, compared to 15 to 25% for cold email.
- A 1,000-contact list at 10% reply rate and 40% conversion produces around 40 booked jobs from a single campaign.
- Australian Spam Act compliance is straightforward for past customers and genuine enquirers. Purchased lists are off limits.
- Stagger your sends so you can handle the replies. Do not send 1,000 messages on a Monday morning with one person on the phone.
Open your CRM. Look at leads from 12, 18, 24 months ago that never converted. Past quote requests, old enquiries, demo no-shows, customers who have not bought again. Most businesses have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of these contacts sitting dormant.
You already paid to acquire every one of them. Whatever ad spend, referral fee, or marketing campaign brought them in is sunk cost. They are effectively free to talk to again. And yet most businesses never do.
Why does email not work for reactivation?
The instinct is to email cold leads. The data on it is bleak: typical email open rates for cold reactivation campaigns are 15 to 25%, and click-through rates are 1 to 3%. By the time you account for inbox sorting (Promotions tab on Gmail, Focused vs Other on Outlook), most reactivation emails are read by no-one.
Worse, repeated cold emails to past leads damage your sender reputation. Hit too many old addresses with low engagement and your future emails to actual customers start landing in spam.
SMS reactivation: a different result
SMS open rates are roughly 90% within the first 3 minutes (per multiple Australian and US studies). For reactivation specifically, response rates of 5 to 15% are common, sometimes higher in service businesses where the customer has an obvious recurring need (dental cleans, car services, pest control treatments).
The mechanic is simple. Take a list of past leads or customers with phone numbers. Send a short, conversational message. Wait for replies. Convert the replies.
“Your past customer and lead data is the most valuable, first-party asset your business has. Most businesses simply are not using it.”
What does a good reactivation message look like?
Three rules:
- Sound like a person, not a marketing template. First name. No emojis. No marketing-speak.
- Make the reply easy. One question they can answer with a yes/no or a short reply.
- Give them a reason now, not someday. Time-bounded but not desperate.
Examples that work:
Dental: “Hi [name], it's [practice]. It has been a while since your last clean. Would you like us to book you in for the next available? Reply YES with a preferred day.”
Trades (HVAC): “Hi [name], it's [business]. We installed your aircon back in 2024. Heading into summer. Want a quick service to make sure it is ready? Reply YES.”
Real estate: “Hi [name], [agent] from [agency]. I helped you with an appraisal back in [year]. Property values in [suburb] have moved. Happy to refresh the appraisal if you are still considering selling. Reply for a chat.”
What to expect from a campaign
A typical small-to-medium business reactivation campaign:
- List size: 500 to 5,000 dormant contacts
- Reply rate: 5 to 15% (depends on industry, list quality, message)
- Booked / qualified: 30 to 50% of repliers (high, because these are not cold strangers, they were customers or leads at some point)
- Cost: a few cents per SMS plus the time to reply to inbound
A 1,000-contact list at 10% reply and 40% conversion = ~40 booked jobs. For most service businesses that is a five-figure revenue lift from a single SMS campaign that took an afternoon to set up.
What to watch out for
Australian Spam Act compliance. You need consent. Past customers and people who actively enquired generally meet the “inferred consent” bar (they have an existing business relationship). Cold purchased lists do NOT. Do not do that. Each message must include the sending business name and a way to unsubscribe (“Reply STOP to opt out”).
List hygiene. Old phone numbers reassign. About 5 to 10% of your list will be wrong numbers or new owners. Apologise and remove. Do not bombard.
Capacity to reply. Do not send 1,000 messages on a Monday morning if you cannot handle 100 incoming replies that day. Stagger.
How Gibson sets this up
We provide the SMS infrastructure (compliant Australian short-codes or long-codes), help write the message, segment the list, schedule the send, and pipe replies into your CRM so they land alongside fresh enquiries. Each suburb or campaign segment can have its own message variant if you want to A/B test.
Your past customer and lead data is first-party data you own outright. In a world where digital advertising costs keep rising and third-party targeting gets less reliable, that database is one of the most valuable assets your business has. Most businesses simply are not using it.
Book a free call audit and the Gibson team will look at your existing customer/lead database and tell you what a realistic reactivation campaign would look like. Most clients find at least 50 to 200 jobs hiding in their database within the first send.
Database reactivation, customer reactivation, same engine
Database reactivation and customer reactivation are the same engine: AI database reactivation ranks your dormant customers and lapsed customers, then a managed customer reactivation campaign goes out as an ACMA-compliant SMS marketing campaign. Run as SMS marketing Australia sequences with CRM reactivation back into your system, it is one of the best SMS marketing platform options for AU operators, built to win back customers and reactivate customers rather than blast generic SMS marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Is SMS database reactivation legal in Australia?
Yes, if done correctly. Past customers and people who actively enquired generally meet the inferred consent bar under the Australian Spam Act. They have an existing business relationship. Each message must include the sending business name and an opt-out mechanism such as 'Reply STOP to opt out'. Cold purchased lists do not meet consent requirements.
What kind of response rates can I expect from an SMS reactivation campaign?
Reply rates of 5 to 15% are common for service businesses, sometimes higher for industries with obvious recurring needs like dental, pest control or HVAC. Of those who reply, 30 to 50% typically convert to booked jobs because they were already customers or qualified leads at some point.
Why doesn't email work as well for reactivation?
Typical email open rates for cold reactivation are 15 to 25%, with click-through rates of 1 to 3%. SMS open rates are roughly 90% within the first 3 minutes. Beyond the numbers, repeated cold emails to old addresses with low engagement can damage your sender reputation and push future emails to spam.
How big does my list need to be to make reactivation worthwhile?
Even a list of 200 to 300 past contacts can generate meaningful results. A 1,000-contact list at 10% reply rate and 40% conversion produces around 40 booked jobs from a single SMS campaign that costs a few cents per message.
What happens if some numbers have been reassigned since we collected them?
About 5 to 10% of any older list will have wrong numbers or new owners. Apologise, remove them immediately, and do not send follow-ups. Your system should also honour all STOP replies and remove those numbers from future sends.
