Prompt · Re-engagement
Email to a past client who went quiet
Restart the conversation. The work, if any, is two emails away.
- Email type
- Re-engagement
- Business
- Agency
- Tone
- Professional
- Length
- 90-130 words
The re-engagement email prompt
Write a plain-text email to [CLIENT], a past client we have not worked with in [HOW LONG]. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes. I am writing because of [THE PROMPT], not because the pipeline is thin. Rules: - 90 to 130 words. Three short paragraphs. - Open on [THE PROMPT]. A reason to write that is external to my needing work is the only thing that separates this from a pipeline email, and clients can tell instantly. - Reference the work we did in half a sentence, specifically enough that it is clearly them and not a template. - Do not ask how they have been. Do not say "I hope this finds you well". Do not say "I was just thinking about you", which is almost always untrue. - No proposal, no availability, no attachment, no rate card. If they want to work together they will say so, and if they do not, mentioning it makes the email awkward to answer. - End with a question they can answer in one line, about their work rather than about a project. - Never invent a number, statistic or result from the previous engagement. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX]. - No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line of five words or fewer that references the prompt, not the relationship. Return subject, body, sign-off.
What to fill in first
[CLIENT]- Their name, and the work you did together. Be specific about the project.
[HOW LONG]- The real gap. "Since the spring", "about eighteen months".
[THE PROMPT]- Why you are writing now. Something you saw, made or learned that connects to their work.
[XX]- Leave as written. The placeholder for a figure you supply, never one the model supplies.
When to send it
When you have a genuine reason, which is rarely the same week you notice the pipeline is thin. Clients who have worked with you can read the difference between a note and a canvass in the first sentence, and getting it wrong closes the door more firmly than silence would have.
What to change first
[THE PROMPT]. It is the entire premise. Something you made that connects to their work, something
you saw about their market, a change that affects the thing you built for them. Without it this is a
check-in, and a check-in is a request for attention dressed as generosity.
What good output looks like
Subject: The thing we built for you
We rebuilt the same booking flow for someone else last month and finally worked out why yours needed the extra confirmation step. It was the timezone handling, which we got wrong originally and patched around.
If yours is still running as we left it, that patch is worth replacing — it is about an hour and I can send instructions rather than an invoice.
Separately: did the second location ever open? I remember it was waiting on the lease.
The prompt writes the words. Bring them here and the studio builds the campaign — branded, dark-mode safe, and ready to import.
Generate your ownIn the studio
A model writes copy. It does not write email.
Production HTML that survives Outlook, dark mode and a Gmail clip is a different job from writing the words. Describe the send once and export it to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or MailerLite.