In short: your CRM holds people you have already talked to, and nobody follows up with them anymore. With the Growth plan, Sales Farmer imports these contacts from a CSV file, HubSpot or Pipedrive, finds the ones who went quiet, and prepares draft campaigns that you review and launch yourself. You stay responsible for your contact base.
Why wake up a dormant contact?
Because reaching them costs less than reaching a stranger. They already know your name or your company, they have already talked with you, and a recent event may have changed their situation: a new job, a hire, a funding round.
Most CRMs collect these records without any method. A quote that never got an answer, a trade show, a call from two years ago. Each record looks too small to deserve a follow-up, yet together they make a reserve of meetings.
The limit: a dormant contact is not an interested contact. Some went quiet because the project died, others because they forgot you. Expect an uneven reply rate, and treat the first answers as a test.
How do you import your contacts?
There are three ways, for up to 5,000 contacts.
- A CSV file. You export your CRM and upload the file, and the columns are recognized automatically. You can correct the mapping if needed.
- HubSpot. Sales Farmer reads your contacts directly from your account.
- Pipedrive. Same idea, from your Pipedrive account.
The import copies the data into Sales Farmer and does not change your CRM. You can delete all imported contacts in one click, and your CRM, your campaigns and their prospects stay untouched.
How does Sales Farmer find the dormant ones?
It compares the date of each contact's last activity with the delay you choose. A contact with no activity for longer than that delay becomes "dormant". If your delay leaves the list empty, shorten it or import more contacts.
Some contacts are set aside automatically, and the count is shown to you:
- people who unsubscribed;
- your customers;
- people outside your target, based on your campaign profile;
- people already in a campaign;
- people who replied recently, or who were active recently;
- people whose activity date is missing;
- people you set aside by hand.
This list of exclusions protects your customers and your reputation. Writing to a customer as if they were a stranger is the worst mistake a CRM follow-up can make. The list does not replace your own care: if your CRM is poorly kept, the exclusions will be too.
Which contacts should you follow up first?
The contacts to follow up this week come first, each with the fact that justifies reaching out now. The priority takes into account how warm the signal is, how long the silence has lasted and the value of the deal.
The Watchlist can help. It watches the LinkedIn profiles of your dormant contacts and spots a new job, a hire, a funding round or a post. The first signals arrive after the next runs of the extension. A contact who only has an email can be linked to their profile if you paste their LinkedIn address by hand.
A recent fact gives you a reason to write. Without one, you follow up "to catch up", which reads like a sales reminder. Our article on job changes gives wording for this case.
How do the follow-ups go out?
You tick the contacts to follow up, then Sales Farmer creates draft campaigns, one per reason and per channel. You read the messages, edit them, then launch each campaign from its page. Nothing is sent before that.
The sequence depends on what is known about the contact.
- Email and LinkedIn known: a short first email, then a LinkedIn invitation with a note, a message and a follow-up.
- LinkedIn only: the invitation with a note, a message and a follow-up.
- Email only: a first email, then a follow-up in the same thread. An active sending mailbox is required.
Emails go out from your own mailboxes, within their daily caps. Every message reminds the reader that they can ask not to be contacted again, and emails carry an unsubscribe link. The text starts from the triggering fact. It recalls your last exchange (the month only) only if your CRM holds a note about the person.
A reply stops the sequence. It then lands on the Replies page, which our article on the single inbox describes.
How do you prepare your base before the import?
Half an hour of cleanup avoids costly mistakes. Check three things in your CRM before you export.
- Activity dates. A contact without a date is set aside, because there is no way to tell whether they are dormant. Fill in what you can.
- Customer status. Mark your customers as such: this is what lets the tool leave them out of the follow-up.
- Unsubscribes. Copy into the file the people who asked you to stop contacting them, otherwise the tool cannot know about them.
This work is done only once, and it also improves your CRM for every other use. The limit: Sales Farmer cannot guess what your CRM does not say. A poorly kept base gives a rough follow-up list.
What does the legal framework say?
It depends on your situation, and this article does not settle it. The principle fits in one sentence: the contacts come from your CRM, so it is up to you to make sure you have the right to follow up with them.
Sales Farmer reminds you of this on screen. You need a legal basis, outreach suited to business contacts, and a way to honor unsubscribes. Read our article on GDPR for the principles, then have your practice checked by a lawyer or your data protection officer.
What results can you expect?
No figure can be promised here. The reply rate depends on the quality of your CRM, the age of the contacts, the care you put into your messages and the health of your email domain. Measure it yourself.
A good test: launch the follow-ups on a small slice, for example the most recent contacts on the priority list. Look at the replies, adjust the message, then move on to the next slice. The Results page compares your numbers with the previous period, and warns you when the sample is too small to conclude anything.
Limits
Worth knowing before you start.
- A Growth plan feature. Without it, the page offers to upgrade to the higher plan.
- 5,000 contacts at most per import.
- A contact without an activity date is set aside, because there is no way to tell whether they are dormant.
- Emails need a connected mailbox. Without an active mailbox, contacts who only have an email are left out.
- The Watchlist depends on the extension and on a connected LinkedIn account. Signals arrive after its runs.
- The legal responsibility stays yours.
- LinkedIn limits very active accounts. Waking up a thousand contacts at once is the best way to draw attention. Spread out your launches, using the caps on the LinkedIn limits page.
FAQ
Do I need a HubSpot or Pipedrive account to use this feature?
No. A CSV file exported from any CRM works. HubSpot and Pipedrive only save you the manual export.
Are my contacts changed in my CRM?
No. The import copies the data into Sales Farmer. You can delete all the imported records without touching your CRM.
Do the messages go out right away?
No. The campaigns are created as drafts. No message is sent until you launch them, one by one.
Will my customers get a follow-up?
Customers that are identified are set aside. Still, check the list before you launch: the exclusion depends on what your CRM contains.
Start small
Import a file of a few dozen contacts, read the drafts, and launch a first slice. Try Sales Farmer free for 14 days, then move to the Growth plan when you are ready to follow up with your CRM.