There's a “secret” source of leads that most people tend to ignore – especially online.

It's much cheaper and more effective than the usual sources of leads. But we tend to avoid it because we don't know how to approach it.

That source of leads? Your existing contacts.

Now that might sound like cheating a bit – surely they can't be leads if you already know them or have them on your email list.

But very often we let those contacts go cold.

They haven't bitten in the first few weeks since we first met or they signed up, so we kind of stop communicating with them. Or we're happy just to send our regular newsletter hoping one day they'll “wake up” and get more interested.

And we then trot off to spend a fortune (in time or money) trying to get new leads rather than making more from what we've got.

It's crazy really. So much effort on connecting with them in the first place and we just give up on them if they don't immediately bite.

Now I don't mean nagging or chasing or spamming.

In fact, I think it's our fear of being annoying that holds us back from making the most of our existing contacts. We're worried that since they didn't seem immediately interested; if we keep offering things to them we'll annoy them.

So here's a simple method you can use to reactivate your leads in a way that builds credibility and trust rather than hurts it.

I call it a Value Reactivation campaign. Well, truthfully, prior to this email I didn't have a good name for it. But from now on I'm calling it a Value Reactivation campaign :) 

It's based on the same principles as my Re-Ignite process – but has a little bit more techological intelligence built in. Here's what you do.  

The first step is to create a useful piece of content in an area where you have an offer. A comprehensive blog post or short video is ideal.

You then share that content with your email subscribers or personal contacts. The key here is tracking – you need to know who clicks through to read or watch the content. Most email marketing systems will let you do that, and for personal emails you can use a tool like Mixmax.

You can re-promote that content from a different angle to people who don't initially click through to it because the chances are they just didn't see the original email rather than they saw it and decided not to click.

At the end of the content, you make your offer. That might be a small product for sale which is a next step from the free content, or some kind of strategy call or high-value briefing which again takes them further in the area of the content.

For example, you might offer a free video with your best tips on improving your Linkedin profile, followed by an offer for your online training course on winning clients with Linkedin. Or a strategy call to help them with a roadmap for making the most of social media with the offer of your coaching support afterwards.

The key is that the offer you make should be of specific value to people who are interested in the free content. Don't offer your course on interpersonal selling skills after content on Linkedin for example. Offer something that takes them further, faster, in the area your free content focused on.

You can then follow-up on that offer via email to the people you know clicked through to the content.

The key here is that you're “preaching to the converted”. You're not sending an offer cold to someone. You're sending a reminder of a highly relevant offer to someone you know is interested in the area based on their behaviour – ie they clicked through to content in that area. And you've already built credibility and trust because of the quality of the content.

The end result is that you send something of value for free to your contacts, and only do a gentle “pitch” to people you already know will be receptive because their behaviour has demonstrated an interest.

Sounds like something even the most timid of us could do to re-active our contacts.