You already know
a few hundred people.
Most small businesses have a list of past customers they never contact. Not because they do not want to — because writing the message is the thing that never gets done. This sends the useful ones for you, on a schedule or when something actually happens.
The cheapest customer is the one you already had.
Someone used you two years ago and was happy. They have since forgotten your name, so when the boiler goes they search and find somebody else. Nothing went wrong — you just were not in front of them at the moment it mattered.
This is about staying useful to people who already chose you once. It is not about sending more messages: a list that gets a reminder when it is genuinely relevant stays subscribed, and one that gets weekly promotions does not. If what you want is volume, I am the wrong person.
Messages with a reason to exist.
Each of these is triggered by something real — a job finishing, a season arriving, a year passing. None of them are “checking in”.
- After a job — a thank-you, and what to watch for
- A review request, timed for when the work is fresh
- Seasonal reminders — the service due before winter
- Appointment follow-ups with anything you promised to send
- Reactivation for people who have not been back in a year or two
- Renewals before a plan or a contract lapses
- Occasional news, when there is actually some
- Segments, so the boiler reminder only goes to boiler customers
Consent is not the boring part.
Email and texting are regulated differently, and texting is the stricter of the two. Getting this wrong costs more than it saves, so it is built in from the start rather than added later.
- People are only messaged if they agreed to be, and the record of that agreement is kept
- Unsubscribe works, is easy to find, and is honoured immediately
- Texts say who is messaging and how to stop
- Nobody is bought, scraped or imported from a list you did not build
If you already have a customer list, the first question I will ask is how those people got onto it and what they were told at the time. Sometimes the honest answer is that a list cannot be messaged, and the right move is to start collecting consent properly from today. I would rather tell you that than help you into a problem.
An HVAC company services boilers every autumn. The list of who had a service last year already exists in their job software, and every one of those customers ticked a box agreeing to reminders.
In September, people who had a service last autumn and none since get one email: here is when yours was last done, here is the link to book. Everyone else gets nothing. The ones who have already booked are excluded automatically, so nobody is reminded about something they have done.
Invented to illustrate the workflow. Not a customer, and not a measured result.
Businesses people come back to.
- Home services with repeat maintenance
- Restaurants and hospitality
- Retail with regulars
- Professional offices with annual work
- Anyone sitting on a customer list they have never used
Setup
Picking a platform, connecting it to wherever your customer list actually lives, writing the messages in your voice, setting the triggers and segments, and getting consent and unsubscribe handling right before a single message goes out.
Ongoing
New campaigns, seasonal messages, and tidying the list as it grows. Only if you want it.
Platform fees
Email and SMS platforms charge by list size or by message. You hold the account, which matters here — your customer list should never live somewhere you cannot reach it.
Before you ask me.
Possibly not. Texting generally needs clear prior consent to be texted, and “they were a customer once” is usually not enough on its own. Tell me how the list was built and I will tell you straight what can and cannot be sent.
It will if the messages have no reason to exist. Sent when something is genuinely relevant, it mostly does not — and the unsubscribe rate tells you honestly either way.
You do, and the account is in your name. If you stop working with me you keep everything.
Setup is quoted per business. Platforms charge their own fee by list size or message volume, paid by you directly. The pricing page has the general range.
Yes, in your voice, and you approve everything before it sends. You can also write them yourself and I will wire them up.
Got a customer list you have never used?
Tell me where it lives and how it was built. I will tell you what can be sent, what cannot, and whether it is worth doing at all.