Lead nurturing B2B: how to reactivate leads in CRM

Client

Challenge

Valueships operate a B2B services model, where purchasing decisions are made more slowly and business relationships are based on trust and the context of previous conversations. The company had an active CRM with contacts with whom it had historically conducted sales conversations, but over time, communication faded.

The key problem wasn't a lack of leads, but rather uncertainty about whether the existing database still held real business value. The goal was to create a new, recursive lead nurturing process and begin automating sales and post-sales activities. Instead of launching a new lead generation process, the goal was to test whether expired contacts could be reactivated in an orderly manner that didn't damage the relationship.

Questions asked

Before launching the activities, the team posed several key decision-making questions:

• Do CRM contacts still reflect current customer decision-making roles?
• Does a negative response or lack thereof in the past indicate a lack of purchasing potential or merelyinadequate timing?
• How to initiate re-contact without the effect of an intrusive follow-up?
• Can outbound serve as a validation tool rather than just a sales tool?
• How do we get back to people we previously talked to in a natural way - not in a direct sales way?

Our hypotheses

Instead of assuming the effectiveness of actions in advance, the project was treated as a test of several hypotheses regarding working with past leads.

Hypothesis 1

Historical contacts in CRM still contain real purchasing potential if the communication relates to the previous context of the conversations.

Hypothesis 2

Cold mailing can act as a tool for reactivating relationships, not just as a channel for acquiring completely new leads.

Hypothesis 3

The combination of email and LinkedIn increases the chance of a response in the B2B services model, where decisions are spread over time.

Solution

Our goal was to create a system that would select the right people to re-contact, analyze past communications with specific individuals, check when the last contact was made, and contextualize this knowledge in creating a personalized message for a given lead.

Solution 1 - Analysis of data from the CRM system

The first step was to filter the records in the CRM system - Pipedrive, exporting the records in CSV format for initial analysis based on standard descriptive data - e.g.:

• Location qualification,
• Cleansing of “close friends”
• Filtering out people who are contacted through other channels or who have been clearly stated that the contact should be repeated at another time.
  

After completing the initial cleaning, the data was entered into the data orchestrator, i.e. the Clay tool, and was further processed for enrichment, qualification and verification of data validity.

The Clay tool allowed us to download and analyze the communications within the analyzed deals and individuals.

During the analysis, we noticed that multiple people were often involved in the communication, but only one "main" person was entered into the CRM system. By checking this variable, we increased the number of contacts by ~30%.

We then created a list of all the people, including the newly selected ones, and verified whether they were still working at the same company in two ways:

1. We have verified whether the email address provided in previous communication is correct.
2. We checked on LinkedIn whether the person had changed position or company:
   
   1. If she changed the company - congratulations on her development
   2. If she was promoted - congratulations on your promotion
   3. If both of these elements are met, the better.
   4. If the position and company are the same - great, then they will know who we are and what we can potentially talk about
      

The above information allowed us to create appropriate segments of the people mentioned above, with additional information on whether they communicate in English and Polish.

Solution 2 - Agent creating personalized messages

The messages we sent as part of lead nurturing were as follows:

To build the message, we used 3 variables from the analysis process:

• Month of last contact,
• Information about what the service in question was about,
• We have added value about the report on pricing strategies for 2026,
• We offered a free 30-minute consultation with a pricing expert

We also introduced multi-channel variants - if someone did not respond immediately, a workflow was prepared to push leads that did not convert via email to LinkedIn.

Solution 3 - Nurturing CRM via mailing

The next stagewas the activation of contacts from CRM via mailing.

The email served as a signal: it checked whether there was still a need on the other end or a topic worth revisiting. This made it possible to distinguish between truly stale leads and those that simply needed a follow-up.

Solution 4- Follow-up nurturing via LinkedIn Outreach

The second channel was LinkedIn, used as a complement to email, not a replacement. Follow-ups on LinkedIn referenced earlier email communications and reinforced their context.

Ten stages allowed confirm the intention on the recipient's side and shorten the communication distance in a natural way for B2B relations.

Business Conclusions

Case Valueships demonstrates that a lack of response in the past doesn't necessarily mean a lack of purchasing potential. In the B2B services model, silence often stems from customer priorities, not a negative decision.

Structured lead nurturing allows you to treat CRM as a business asset, not an archive of failed sales attempts. Used appropriately, outbound can serve as a diagnostic tool that allows you to better understand the true status of the relationship.