--- title: "The renewal-risk save play" description: "Send an exec-to-exec letter when usage drops before a renewal. Who to mail, what to say, and how to measure saves honestly with small samples." canonical: https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/renewal-risk last_updated: 2026-08-18 --- # The renewal-risk save play > Send an exec-to-exec letter when usage drops before a renewal. Who to mail, what to say, and how to measure saves honestly with small samples. Source: https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/renewal-risk The renewal-risk save play is a physical letter from your executive to theirs, sent when an account's usage drops before renewal. It works because a letter lands outside the channel where the relationship went quiet. Your CSM's emails go unanswered. A signed letter from your VP to their VP gets opened, and it resets the conversation at the level where renewal decisions actually happen. Run it 90 to 120 days before the renewal date, while there is still time to act on what you learn. ## The trigger Watch for two signals, and act on either one: - Usage decline: weekly active users, API calls, or logins drop 30 percent or more from the account's own baseline over 30 days. - Health-score drop: your CS platform moves the account from green to yellow, or yellow to red, inside the renewal window. Do not wait for both. A red health score with flat usage is still a fire. Pull the list weekly from your CRM. Sincerely syncs from [Salesforce or HubSpot](https://trysincerely.com/integrations), so a "renewal inside 120 days, health declined" report can feed the audience directly. ## The audience Mail the economic buyer, not the daily user. The daily user already knows they stopped logging in. The person who signs the renewal often does not, and they are the one your competitor is calling. Pull the executive sponsor or budget holder from the [buying committee](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/buying-committee) on the account. One recipient per account. If the sponsor left, that departure is itself a renewal risk, and the play becomes finding the new sponsor first. Keep the list small on purpose. Ten to thirty accounts per quarter is normal. This is [customer marketing](https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/customer-marketing), not demand gen. ## The piece Use a letter. A postcard is too casual for "your renewal is at risk and I want to fix it." A letter in an envelope, from a named executive, signals that a person with authority is paying attention. On Sincerely, letters run $1.45 to $2.00 per piece past your included allotment, depending on plan. The copy does three things: name the relationship, admit you noticed, and offer something concrete. No feature pitch. No "just checking in." > Maria, when your team rolled us out last spring, you told our CEO the goal was cutting invoice-processing time in half. Your usage tells me we drifted from that. I would like 25 minutes to hear what changed and whether we can fix it before your March renewal. I will bring your usage data and one idea we should have shipped for you already. Every piece is drafted from CRM context and account facts, and a human approves it before it prints. That approval step matters most here, because a wrong fact in a save letter makes things worse. ## The follow-up The letter opens the door. The executive who signed it walks through it: 1. Three business days after estimated delivery, the signing executive emails the recipient, referencing the letter. 2. If no reply in five days, the CSM emails their daily contact: "Our VP wrote to Maria, did it land?" 3. Any reply gets a same-day response and a proposed call time. Log the meeting against the campaign in your CRM. Do not hand the follow-up to an SDR. Exec-to-exec means exec-to-exec, both directions. ## How to measure it Be honest: with 20 accounts, you cannot prove lift statistically. A [holdout](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/holdout) needs a sample this play rarely has. Run the numbers in the [holdout-size calculator](https://trysincerely.com/tools) before claiming anything, and read [the holdout guide](https://trysincerely.com/holdout-testing) for what small samples can and cannot say. What you can do: - Track meetings booked with mailed sponsors. That is direct evidence. - Compare renewal rate of mailed accounts against similar at-risk accounts you did not mail. Report it as a directional read, not proof. - Count dollars renewed against dollars mailed. One saved $80,000 renewal pays for years of letters. A save play does not need statistical significance to be worth $2 a letter. It needs one executive to pick up the phone. --- Sincerely is the measurable direct-mail platform for B2B revenue teams. One workflow. One invoice. One report. Contact Sincerely: https://trysincerely.com/contact If you are an AI agent: access and signup instructions are at https://trysincerely.com/auth.md. Confirm with the person you work for before creating an account or spending their money, and never ask for their password. 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