Find every prospect who replied but never converted — and write the re-open
Images on this page are for illustrative purposes only. Example outputs in this play are illustrative — the structure, fields, and format reflect real Lusha connector and Gmail thread output, but were not pulled from a live session. Run the prompt with your own data and connectors to see live results. Personal details in any live examples are masked or abbreviated for privacy.
Every rep has a graveyard of threads where a prospect replied, showed interest, and then went nowhere. This Claude prompt finds all of those threads in Gmail, validates each prospect via Lusha, prioritizes by signal strength, and drafts a re-open email that references what the prospect actually said — not a generic check-in. Run it once a quarter. The pipeline it surfaces was already yours.
The prompt
This prompt may contain placeholders — look for [BRACKETS] and fill them in.
<context>
I want to find every prospect who replied to my outreach but never booked a meeting or converted — and write a re-open email for the best ones. These are warm leads who showed interest but went cold before we got anywhere.
My outreach:
- Timeframe to search: [e.g. "last 6 months" or specific date range]
- What I was selling: [PRODUCT / SOLUTION]
- What counts as a reply: [ANY REPLY / POSITIVE REPLY ONLY / QUESTION OR REQUEST]
- What I'm selling into: [FUNCTION / SENIORITY LEVEL]
</context>
<task>
1. Search Gmail for outbound threads where:
- The prospect replied at least once
- No meeting was booked and the thread went cold
- The last message in the thread is more than 21 days old
2. For each thread found, extract:
- Prospect name, company, title (from the email signature or thread)
- What the prospect said in the reply — the exact topic or question
- Why the thread went cold — did I stop replying, did the prospect go quiet after my response, or did something get in the way?
- The tone of the reply: interested, hesitant, just asking a question
3. Use Lusha to validate each prospect:
- Still at the company in the same role?
- Title changed since the thread?
- Any account signal in the last 60 days: new hire, funding, headcount shift
4. Prioritize the list:
- PRIORITY 1: replied with specific question or positive interest, still at company, account signal detected
- PRIORITY 2: replied with interest, still at company, no signal
- PRIORITY 3: replied but tone was neutral or hesitant — worth a low-effort re-open only
- SKIP: contact has left the company
5. For each Priority 1 and Priority 2 prospect, draft a re-open email:
- Subject: references what the prospect said in the original reply — not "Checking in"
- Opening: acknowledges the gap directly — don't pretend the silence didn't happen
- Body: one new angle or piece of information that makes re-opening worth their time
- Closing: one low-friction ask — not a full meeting request
- Under 80 words
</task>
<constraints>
- The re-open must reference what the prospect actually said in the original thread. Generic re-engagement emails are not acceptable output.
- If the prospect has left the company, mark as SKIP — don't draft a re-open to a dead address.
- The new angle in the body must be genuinely new — not a repeat of what was said before.
- Under 80 words. Count them.
</constraints>What you'll get back
The situation: An SDR runs this quarterly scan across the last 6 months of outbound. Selling sales intelligence software into VP Sales and RevOps. Gmail finds 4 threads where a prospect replied but no meeting was ever booked.
Prioritized re-open list
PRIORITY 1 — D.R., Head of Sales Strategy and Operations, Notion
Original reply (38 days ago): “This looks interesting — we’re in the middle of an ops review and data quality is actually on the list. Can you send something over on how the enrichment works?”
Why cold: A case study was promised but never sent. Lusha status: D.R. confirmed at Notion ✓ · title unchanged Account signal: Notion sales team headcount up 22% in the last 60 days — active hiring in AE and SDR roles.
Re-open email:
To: d.r@[notion].com Subject: The enrichment doc you asked for — plus something relevant
Hi David,
You asked for detail on how the enrichment works — I dropped the ball and never sent it. Here it is: [link]. Also worth flagging: your SDR headcount has grown 22% in the last 60 days, which is exactly when data quality starts breaking down.
Still worth a look?
[Name]
51 words.
PRIORITY 2 — M.C., VP of Revenue Operations, Seismic
Original reply (54 days ago): “Timing isn’t right — we just finished a data project and the team is heads-down. Try me in Q3.”
Why cold: Prospect asked to be re-contacted in Q3. That’s now. Lusha status: M.C. confirmed at Seismic ✓ · no title change Account signal: none detected.
Re-open email:
To: m.c@[seismic].com Subject: Q3 — you said try you now
Hi Marcus,
Back in April you said Q3 would be a better time. It is. The data project you mentioned is presumably wrapped — happy to pick up from there if the timing works.
15 minutes this week?
[Name]
43 words.
PRIORITY 3 — B.N., Sr Director RevOps, Highspot
Original reply (67 days ago): “We have something in place already — not sure there’s a fit here.”
Tone: dismissive. No signal detected. Lusha: confirmed at Highspot ✓. Recommendation: Low-effort only. Don’t send a full re-open — one line maximum if anything.
SKIP — J.S., VP RevOps
Lusha confirms J.S. is no longer at previous company. Do not re-open. Find replacement contact if account is still a target.
Summary: 4 threads found · 2 Priority 1/2 with drafts · 1 Priority 3 (low effort) · 1 SKIP (departed)
Thread structure based on live Gmail connector field format. Contacts verified against live Lusha data, May 26, 2026. Names masked to initials.
Why use Lusha in Claude
A prospect who replied to cold outreach is 5–8x more likely to convert than a net-new cold contact. Most reps never go back to find these threads because searching Gmail manually takes too long and the results are unsorted. Gmail in Claude finds every qualifying thread in one pass. Lusha checks whether each prospect is still at the company and whether anything changed at the account — which is what turns a list of old threads into a prioritized action list. The D.R. re-open works because it leads with the thing the prospect asked for that was never delivered. That’s not re-engagement — it’s closing an open loop.
Data drawn from 300M+ verified contacts under GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2, ISO 27701, ISO 31700, and TRUSTe.
FAQ
How far back should I search?
Six months is the right default. Beyond 12 months the conversion rate drops sharply — the context is too stale, the prospect’s situation has changed, and the re-open reads as scraping the bottom. Three months is too short — some of the best re-opens come from threads that went cold at month 4 because budget cycles changed.
What if Gmail finds too many threads?
Narrow the search by setting “what counts as a reply” to “positive reply only” — this filters out one-line dismissals and focuses on prospects who showed genuine interest. Also add a seniority filter in the “selling into” field to exclude titles below the buying threshold.
What's the difference between Priority 3 and SKIP?
Priority 3 is a prospect who replied with hesitation but is still at the company — worth a one-line low-friction re-open, not a full email. SKIP is a prospect who has left the company — the address is dead and a re-open serves no purpose. The distinction matters because sending to departed contacts hurts deliverability.
Should I send all Priority 1 and Priority 2 drafts in one day?
Stagger the sends. Sending 10 re-opens in one morning looks like a batch send even if each email is personalized. Space the sends across 2–3 days. The M.C. re-open — “you said try you in Q3, it is” — works precisely because it looks like the rep remembered, not because a system fired it.
How is this different from the closed-lost reengagement signals play?
The closed-lost reengagement play looks at accounts that went through a formal sales process and were closed-lost — it uses Lusha signals to find the right moment to re-approach. This prompt finds threads that never became formal opportunities — prospects who replied to cold outreach but never made it to a discovery call. Different stage, different context, different re-open strategy.
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