23 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
How to win back customers you have not heard from in two years
Every business has a list of people who paid them once and were happy, and almost none of them ever contact those people again. It is the cheapest work available anywhere — no advertising, no competition, and the trust already exists.
Why it gets ignored
It feels like admitting you need work, and there is a fear of annoying people. Both are overstated. A past customer who was happy is generally pleased to hear from a tradesperson who did a good job.
The other reason is practical: most small businesses have no list. The details are in a notebook, in an email inbox and in a phone, and were never gathered into one place.
Build the list first
An hour with your invoices will produce most of it. Name, what you did, when, and a contact. That is a genuine business asset and almost nobody has one.
Be mindful of the data protection position: you can contact past customers about similar services, but keep marketing consent separate and always give a way to opt out.
- Pull names and dates from your invoices
- Note what you did for each one
- Sort by how long ago and by what would naturally be due
- Contact the ones where there is a genuine reason
- Keep it to a message, not a campaign
Only contact people where there is a real reason
A boiler serviced two years ago is due. A garden landscaped three years ago needs maintenance. A roof repaired five years ago is worth an inspection after a bad winter.
That is a service, not a sales message, and it reads completely differently. Contacting people with nothing specific to say is what makes this feel like spam.
Keep it personal and short
A message from a person, mentioning the specific job, is worth far more than a designed newsletter. Two or three sentences.
Send them individually if the list is small enough. It will out-perform anything bulk by a wide margin.
What to expect
A low response rate in absolute terms and an extremely high return relative to cost, because there is no acquisition cost at all.
Do it twice a year, not monthly. The value of this list comes from being used sparingly.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.