If you’ve been running your franchise for a number of years, or recently took over a well-established one and inherited everything that came with it, there’s a good chance you’re sitting on a database of historic recruitment leads you’re not quite sure what to do with.
Sometimes these can run into the thousands. I’ve even seen as many as 10,000+ before – enquiries that came in, went quiet, and have been there ever since. No doubt you’re wondering whether they’re still worth bothering with, or whether it’s time to simply wipe the slate clean.
Chances are a lot of them are beyond reach. But what if there are still a few gold nuggets in there who could go on to become valuable franchisees? Here’s how to find them, and how to re-engage them in the right way.
First, understand why they went cold
Before you do anything, it’s worth asking why these leads went quiet in the first place. Was it poor follow-up at the time? Did life get in the way? Or had they already chosen a competitor?
If you have a well-constructed CRM with clear notes and pipeline milestones, you’re already ahead of the game, because someone who went quiet after one enquiry email is in a very different position to someone who attended a discovery meeting and then disappeared. From there, you can tailor your approach accordingly.
If this is an inherited database with little or no context attached, you’ll be starting from scratch, of course, but there are still ways to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Don’t carpet bomb the whole database at once
The temptation is to send a bulk email to everyone and measure the response, but this is likely to cause serious problems. Not least of these is the impact on your sender reputation. In case you’re not aware, your sender reputation is basically a trust score that email providers assign to your domain based on how recipients interact with your emails, and a poor one means your messages are far more likely to end up in spam than in inboxes.
Blasting thousands of cold contacts in one go risks damaging that score badly, generating a wave of unsubscribes and spam complaints, and producing very little in return.
A far smarter approach is to segment by recency and work through the database in stages, starting with the most recent enquiries – say the last 12 to 18 months – and working backwards from there. These contacts are more likely to remember you and re-engage, which not only produces more meaningful early results but protects your sender reputation and improves deliverability for everything that follows.
What you should actually say
This is where a lot of franchisors go wrong, because the temptation is to treat older leads the same way you would a fresh prospect. The tone needs to be honest and low-pressure, acknowledging the gap and giving people a genuine reason to re-engage, whether that’s new territories, stronger support structures, or franchisee success stories they haven’t heard yet.
Give them a real reason to take another look, not just a reason to click delete.
If this is a database you’ve inherited from a previous owner, there’s also something else you need to consider: GDPR. Under UK law, you can’t assume that a past enquiry gives you the right to contact someone now. However, a genuine change of business ownership does give you a legitimate basis to get in touch, provided you’re introducing yourself as the new owner and asking whether they still wish to hear from you, not launching straight into a sales pitch.
Measure the response carefully
Whatever you send, track the results properly. Not just open rates, click-throughs, and replies, but also the unsubscribes which will tell you which segments of the database are truly beyond reach and can be removed. Likewise, if someone has shown renewed interest after months or years of silence, you’ll know where to direct your time and resources.
So, is there gold in there? Let’s find out!
A historic database isn’t worthless, but it isn’t automatically valuable either. The franchisors who get results from this kind of exercise are the ones who take a structured, patient, and considered approach, and who are realistic about what they’ll find. If you’d like to talk through what a sensible re-engagement strategy might look like for you, I’m happy to help.
Just click the button below to schedule a call.
Andrew Croney
Franchise Consultant
