Running a reactivation campaign for your business can be the most powerful way to generate new appointments with old marketing dollars. However, like anything, some pitfalls can destroy a campaign and we have had to battle many of them.. In this article, we are laying out a few lessons we have learned running these and how you can run a successful reactivation campaign yourself. 

What is a “reactivation” campaign?

A reactivation campaign is when you take your old leads and a text-based message to get them to reengage with your company. Ideally, they reengage and schedule an appointment.  In the past, you would send these messages out from your CRM, you would have conditional logic in the workflow, and if the lead responded positively, they were given a calendar link that they could use to schedule an appointment. Now, we use AI to do all of this. AI can qualify the leads, have a proper conversation, and schedule them directly on a calendar. 

How To Run A Reactivation Campaign

You can technically run a reactivation campaign through any CRM. However, we use our white label Go High Level CRM to send these reactivation messages. It allows us to drip contacts into the AI at a pace that we feel makes sense for the campaign. If you need help setting this up, feel free to reach out to the RevSquared team. We have videos on the subject. 

Troubles With Reactivation Campaigns

Everyone should be up-to-speed now with what a reactivation campaign is and how you run it. On paper, this seems straitforward and simple, but in practice, it is not. We have had to overcome multiple issues with these campaigns and my hope is, this article will save you a lot of time when you run your campaign. 

Getting Registered 

Did Bill Gates create twillio because this feels like the “Impossible” SMS. All jokes aside, twillio has guardrails in place and mass SMS blasting is not something they are great for. In order to send SMS in 2024, you’re required to do what is called A2P 10DLC registration. This essentially links your company to the messages being sent. They have a host of industries they do not like which can make it difficult for some companies to get A2P approved. 

When doing this, you need to insure that you have proper opt-in language on your website or where you generate leads. Not a lot of workarounds that we found here. It’s just part of the process. 

Account Warm-up

Once your A2P is approved, you then need to warm that account up before you can send your approved limit of 5k SMS per day or 15k SMS per day. These limits are based on what you requested and were approved for when you registered your A2P. Day 1 you might be able to send 100, and you have to work your way to the account maximum. 

When we started, we would try and hit the threshold by the end of the day so we adjusted the reactivation drip accordingly. However, this left us trying to blast out the missing quota at the end of the day. By doing so, we got flagged by carriers and would constantly get the account suspended. The best way to solve this is to use a different software or to make sure you keep an eye on how many messages are going out each day and that you are hiotting the required limit. 

Preventing Account Suspension

This is the hardest part. With Twillio, they have guardrails like I mentioned earlier. They say that your opt out percentage needs to be under 1% and that your error rate needs to be under 5%. Just to break that down, this means that if 2 out 100 people you message types “Stop” to your message, then your account will be suspended. This also means that if you send 100 messages and 5 of those numbers are not in service, flagged by the carrier, or are a landline, you will be flagged and suspended. 

This is absolutely brutal and can reek havoc on a well performing campaigns. We did find some workarounds here. The first is a company called text grid. We are not an affiliate and just started using this, but they do not have the same guardrails. You register A2P with the same approving body, but the error and opt out % doesn’t matter to them. They also do not start you with a limit like twillio, so no warm,-up needed. 

However, for those staying with Twillio or wanting best practices. In order to prevent error rates, you need to scrub your leads. This is important to ensure they are not on the DNC list as well as removing landlines. We currently use real valiadito, but have also tried myfreednc.com, realphoneverfyier, and some others. The big thing here is ensuring you’re not sending messages to landlines or numbers that are not in service. 

As for the 1% opt-out percentage, we have a solid solution here. That flag comes in place when the customer replies back with the word, “STOP”. Take a moment, process this sentence, and adjust accordingly. This works like a charm. 

AI Booking

This is 2024 and AI is here. The AI is very powerful if designed correctly. When we make an AI for reactivation, we try and keep the qualification questions between 3 and 4 questions. You can use the Ai to take deposits, send out applications, or whatever you would like it to do before booking. We have seen the best success when using something we email to them from the AI as a trial close. For example: “I’m going to send you this application and then schedule a call for your with one of our senior advisors. What is a good email for me to send that to?” Once they reply back with their email, you have a very high chance of scheduling that appointment. AI is also great because you can have it do all of the follow-up if someone didn’t book or appointment reminders if they did. 

Calendar configuration

This seems simple, and it is. Make sure that you configure your calendar correctly. There was an issue where we configured the calendar for only allowing people to schedule within a 3 day window. We had a prospect say that they needed a date that was 5 days out, and the Ai would not allow them to schedule./ That is easily solved by extending that on the calendar settings. 

Pipeline Updates

When running these campaigns it will weed through a LOT of leads. We created stages in the deal pipeline for “In Que,” “SMS Sent,” “Hand-raised,” and “Appointment Booked.” We have more as well, but these are automated in our deal pipeline. They move based on what transpired with the lead. 

Plucking Deals 

When running these campaigns you are sending a lot of messages. You need to keep an eye on the conversations. We recently had a client that had 4-5 deals sitting in their conversations that they should call right away. The Ai took it all the way, but they didn’t schedule or had called in. Be sure and keep an eye on your conversations. 

If you would like our teams help in setting-up and running a reactivation campaign, be sure and reach out. These campaigns are highly effective if you have good data. If you decide to run this on your own, you should be sure and follow these